A more in depth look at using your Alpha. Moving your plane on less than ideal surfaces, how to back up with the pivoting base, and more tips and tricks.
I also painted my T- hanger floor and painted yellow lines for guidance so the airplane goes in precisely each time, yes it's now a slippery floor, so I put a 2 ft. long strip of 3-M wing walk material on the floor where the tires to the alpha tug roll. This helped a lot. As far as for backing up the airplane without the pin, lets just say that practice makes perfect! My wife bought it for me for my birthday less than a month ago. We have a 1979 Bellanca Super Viking a has a MTOW of 3325lbs. I'll take it for a walk! on occasions 1/2 mile round trip to the self service fuel pumps, (it will use a total of about 6% battery, to give you an idea). Almost like taking your dog for a walk. Other pilots just gaze at me and see how effortlessly it will pull the airplane. I just have to say, I LOVE MY ALPHA TUG ! N623AM
I learned how to tow airplanes when I was a 16 year old line boy using a 1940's Ford tractor and have since trained many others. Pushing is never as easy as someone thinks it is going to be. What is different from backing a trailer/boat is that with an airplane you have two pivot points vs one with a trailer. When you back a trailer, you are used to keeping track of just the vehicle and the trailer. With an airplane, this will work against you because the third component in the middle, the towbar, is the most important to track. Actually I found people who are good with a trailer often bring negative learning transfer to moving airplanes. Here's the secret - don't think about where the airplane/tug needs to go (at first) but where the TOWBAR needs to be to make it happen. If you focus on positioning the plane and lose track of the towbar, nine times out of ten a newbie ends up in a jackknife. It takes more practice than you think to get good at it but it's just like landings - all of a sudden it just clicks. Anyway, your Alpha tug loos like a great product and you did a wonderful job here describing pinned/unpinned operation.
I have many years of backing trailers. I agree it should be fairly easy, just remember when in pivot mode and backing to push the handle in the direction you want the tail to go!
Mine has been a great tug however occasionally I push the button and it doesn’t move haven’t been able to figure it out yet.I changed the directional control switch however it had no effect
