By John Switala

We have had at the club over many years a retrieval/towing system for the IS28s based on a yellow wheeled trolley. The device was good but required about three people to be on hand. One to manoeuvre the trolley, one sitting on the nose to provide a counterweight for the last poor bastard who had to lift the tail of the metal glider in the air so the trolley could be positioned underneath.

The trolley ‘attendant’ would place a long phallic looking shaft into its appropriate hole and then the towing could commence. As fortune or nature would have it, some trolley ‘attendants’ were good at finding the hole quickly, while others ‘mucked about’ a bit. It didn’t really matter because eventually the hole was found. It didn’t really matter except to the aforesaid mentioned ‘poor bastard’ who was lifting and holding the tail of the glider. Much potential for generating a dodgy back in the arrangement.

Rob Brown thought it wasn’t good enough and went about designing and building a revised trolley. Rob’s thoughts were to make it easier for the ‘poor bastards’ of the club and reduce the number of people required to do the job.

The existing arrangement of the phallic spear on the trolley required that some lifting was required. In order to reduce or remove the lifting component of the operation the shaft had to go (ouch). In its place we have a ball (we haven’t progressed much have we!) and a ‘cup’ for the ball to sit in. The IS28s have been modified now so instead of a hole in the tail for the trolley shaft they have a ball – yes, a sex change!

With the new arrangement it is a matter of manoeuvring the trolley, with a ‘cup’ on it, until the cup is under the ball in the tail of the glider. No one is lifting the glider; it is resting on its tail wheel during this part of the operation. Then, and here’s the other smart part about this design from Rob, the ‘tail attendant’ utilises the leverage capacity of the trolley length and a hinge point on the trolley and the glider is lifted to towing height. But the ‘tail attendant’ doesn’t lift, they push – much easier on the back. And, with the leverage, there’s a mechanical advantage so the effort required is much, much less.

The new design was introduced before Christmas for a test run for a few months to work out any ‘bugs’ in the system. Some minor improvements were discovered, but the principles were sound.

So when retrieving an IS28 only one person is required to get the glider on its trolley and for that one person a lot less effort is required and the risk of a back injury is significantly reduced.

All GCV members should thank Rob Brown for his innovative thinking and determination to find a solution that reduces our risk of injury and makes the process easier.

All our IS28s now have balls.