Banner towing is not your average flying, the majority of the time you are flying around at very low speeds, and at very low altitudes, I keep the little 172 down to 60 to 65 mph at 1000ft agl or less, and lots of the time I see cars on the ground going faster than me. I’ve seen ground speeds as low as 20 mph, so you gotta really keep track of your fuel burn if your towing from a distant airport into town. You get really good at finding thermals, I'm always looking for lift and keeping these spots in the back of my mind, but whenever you find the elevator up, your probably going to find the elevator down somewhere down the line. I’ve been in a sinking body of air up in Reno had full power in and still going down 400fpm, but you gotta just relax and you’ll find your way out, atleast I always have. I Guess you could get that with any type of flying, its just a little different when you have a huge 1600sq. ft banner attached to the tail of the airplane, it just doesn’t climb the same. I’ve never towed at sea level so I am just giving you my expierences in high mountainous areas with high density alititudes.

   As far as equipment goes, the only aircraft I've towed with is an older 172D model, it has a bigger 180hp engine in it, it runs fairly well, but has some minor things that I believe could be better, such as radios and some other little minor things. Its nothing fancy, just your basic day VFR airplane. Its very important to know who and how often maintenance is done on tow planes, well any plane for that matter, but towing for hours and hours on end I really pay attention to engine instruments and keep close eyes on oil temp and pressure especially in high temperatures such as the vegas area. Operating at high angles of attack all the time will obviously decrease air entering the cowling, so I always keep one eye on my cylinder head temp and others. Other than that its just basically flying as usual.

   Ground handling of the banners can be difficult at times especially on windy days, as you can imagine a 20x80ft banner doesn’t just lay down on the ground, it acts more like a sail on a sailboat. It really takes 2 people to setup and get everything in order before and after flight. Yeah it can be done with one person, but it just takes a whole lot longer to get In the air. People are pretty cool in the traffic pattern when your trying to pick up and drop, I've never had a problem with setting up along side the runway or taxiway. Other pilots are always interested, and some even stop and watch. One aspect of the job I don’t care for is some customers just don’t understand how our airspace system works. They want you to fly into areas we just aren’t always aloud to fly into, such as bravo airspace or off the ends of arrival and departure corridors, you try and explain why we can’t fly into these desired areas they want to advertise, sometimes it feels like your talking to a wall, but like any job you have to just deal with it.

   So an overall opinion of the job is, its not a bad gig to log some hours and get paid to do it, but you will not get any IFR time, or multi-engine time, which depending on if you’re trying to goto the airlines or something bigger, may not appeal to you. It does get a little boring burning holes in the sky flying day VFR over and over on the same routes, but it will make you a very good stick and rudder pilot, I’ve relearned how to fly a 172 all over again, and It has made me a much better pilot already. I know everyone says the CFI is the best way to build hours, but this is a viable option as well, not everyone is made out to be a teacher.