| About Us |
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Welcome to the web site of the Central Carolina Tow To Soar Club (CCTTSC). What a mouthful! Our members reside in the Raleigh / Durham / Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. Our club's mission is to offer members a safe, inexpensive way to fly as often as possible. The club has been active since 1992 and mainly flies at small county or municipal airports.
If you're really new to hang gliding, you might want to check out the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association and How Hang Gliding Works before reading further. |
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| Our Towing Operation |
| As you can tell by the descriptive club name, the club uses platform towing and aerotowing as our launch methods. We tow, primarily because we do not live close to many mountain sites. Towing also offers more consistent flying. It's not always better, but it is most always at least flyable when we make the drive to the sites! Many times, after making the 3 hour trip to the closest mountain site you find the local winds inappropriate for soaring (and sometimes, even too bad to launch!). With towing, you are guaranteed at least a bunch of sled rides on a bad day, and almost unlimited cross-country thermal potential on a good day. |
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| How does it work? |
| For Platform Towing we use a payout winch mounted on a trailer which can be towed behind a car or truck. For Aerotowing an ultralight airplane is utilized to pull the glider into the sky much like waterskiing. Fortunately, there are a number of small county airports and airstrips who welcome us on weekends. The three airports we use most often are about 1 to 2.5 hours away from the RTP area. The club members generally check in with one another before every weekend to see if anyone wants to fly - e-mail works wonders for arranging the weekends! For the past year, the club has been flying about two weekends each month. As more new members are coming up to speed and increasing their skill level, this rate is expected to increase <grin>. |
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| What do I need to fly? |
| Club requirements to fly are a USHPA rating, the PL or AT tow signoff, and a check-out question & answer session with the experienced club members (since we do much of our towing at airports there are some special rules we follow regarding landing patterns and behavior). Radio communication at the airports is essential, thus a ham license is highly recommended. |
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| Where can I get instruction & tow ratings? |
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The local instructor, Dallas Willis, can grant most ratings needed to fly with the club, and he is also available for tandem discovery rides.
Currently, the best place to get a platform tow rating is in Manquin, Va at: Blue Sky - Virginia's Hang Gliding School For a definitive listing of hang gliding schools in the area, check out the USHPA School Directory |
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| How much are club dues and tow fees? |
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The CCTTSC is a club, not a business; therefore, we try not to take in more money than we need to maintain the club equipment and sites. However, the last few years have given the club some monetary challenges and thus we've been forced to significantly increase our dues. The yearly dues currently are $300 per year. Tow fees for platform tows are $3 per tow for members, and $5 per tow for visitors, while aerotow fees are $20 per tow to 2,500' and $10 for every 1,000' after that.
Some other advantages full members also enjoy are: voting rights, the option to run for an office, input on deciding where to fly, etc. An annual platform tow pass is available for $200, and then you never need to worry about paying each weekend. |
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| Waiver |
| Click here to dowload a copy of our waiver. |