DIVING ON TOW?

We were ferrying a Schweizer hundreds of miles across rural New England. Lengthy tows are usually more tedious than interesting, but on this day strong thermals and stiff wind gave what would have been super soaring conditions only nuissance value. Increasing turbulence chased us higher until by mid-afternoon we were cruising above cloud level. Then the scattered cu began to coalesce, so we climbed even higher to search ahead for open areas and maintain ground reference. Digby the tow pilot, who would go on to become a career flight instructor, was at that time a fresh college dropout still totaling up his hours every evening. And me? Never been there before and didn't know within fifty-miles where we were. Besides, he had the chart. No radio of course.As the landscape morphed incrementally from forest and farm to suburb and city, clouds grew ever closer together. Ahead, jets descending into undercast at one place and rising from it at another bracketed Logan Airport, Boston. On our left the Atlantic coastline lay completely hidden. A few degrees to our right, one last large opening came into view. After we turned that way I looked back to see the one behind us receding out of range. Our options now totaled one.Gradually Digby nosed over, speed rising to 90. The gap lay over a large lake, shores concealed in deep shade beyond. By the time we dove in, the hole was less than a mile wide and visibly closing like time lapse of a healing wound. What more perfect setup for slack line than a steep diving spiral? If I overran it the Schweizer hook could release by itself and leave me on my own. In this landscape my best hope might be a ball field if I could find one – in late afternoon, the very time of day when kids would be out there playing. At ninety five knots I began creeping outside the turn. Like a water skier, I instantly gained even more speed. That increased aerodynamic lift and put me higher, pulling up and out on the tug's tail, pointing it down and in, aggravating the problem. Belatedly, I deployed spoilers, but was not fully braced for the impulse and they slammed open. That shocked the line so hard I thought it broke, until the big bow of slack appeared. I had never imagined such extreme slack. Above my own airport, I would have immediately released, but not here! The conventional solution is to cross controls and slow the bird by slipping. I gave that a try and learned a bit for use in the next yank, which came seconds later. Seems I slowed too much in the first recovery and stretched the line to its elastic limit. Recoiling, it pulled me faster again, generating more slack. Each of the next three recoveries was awkward in a different way, as the line tightened and BOINGed again into rebound. Now so high on the towplane I couldn't even see it, and completely out of ideas, I tried one more MONSTER slip expecting to either lose the line or snap it for sure – but that's atually what made the difference!  Slipping also improved downward visibility, which helped in relocating the tug and getting back behind it. Whattaya know. (If I'd been below the towplane it wouldn't have worked.)By then we were below cloudbase again, peering through murky shade at some alarmingly tall radio towers. Street grids tangled everywhere beneath the dark, busy little sky. Aircraft in all directions were too many to count, mostly lit up but some not, and I had to assume others unseen. Digby knew where we were going, fortunately, and also won our little bet about having enough fuel. So this flight too was anticlimactic in the end, as all should be, but holy smokes, how hard do a couple young fellows have to try to get into trouble? Harmless outcomes like ours that day send a false message to the foolish, encouraging eagerness next time, when wise reluctance should weigh the call. In that decade the only person with a mobile phone was a TV character named Maxwell Smart (no relation obviously). But even these days, cell service can hardly be counted on if you're treading water far from shore...