At this time of year, those who fly in northern climes yearn for help in moving their airplanes so it's timely to reprise this video shot at AirVenture 2024. AirVenture is a great place to shop for hangar tugs because you can usually get a good hands-on demo. That's important because not all electric tugs have the same feature set, but you really don't know how the tug will perform until you try it on your airplane in its intended environment. In the electric tug market scan in Aviation Consumer magazine, the Best Tugs Alpha series was a standout and in this video, Aviation Consumer editor Larry Anglisano and contributor Manu Ramesh put the model A2 to the test to see how it works on a couple of Cessnas.
I’ve owned a Best Tugs A3 for about 5 years for my Maule MX-7-180 tail dragger. It works great! I have the knobby tires and LED headlight options. Before that I had a gas powered Taildragger Dragger. The A3 is much easier to use, lighter, quieter and lower-maintenance. It’s not inexpensive but the quality is there. The only criticism that I have is that the batteries were hard to change after 4 years since there are several large Velcro strips on their bottoms that make them hard to remove. I think they could do a better job with the charging cable that hangs down below the handle. Other than that, it’s perfect for my airplane. You do have to pick it up and move it when turning sharply but that’s not hard.
The fact that the attach arms popped off is problem for me. I had same problem with my EZ-Power Tow tug. I switched to Redline Sidewinder for my Bonanza and could not be happier. I have not used the Sidewinder on an icy ramp, but no issues with wet ramp. I think an icy ramp is problematic for any tug or even manual aircraft movement.
I’ve only used the A3 once when there was snow on the ramp in front of my hangar. The snow was about 2" deep but frozen and crusty in spots. I had to press down on the handle to give it more traction but it worked well. I’m 190 lbs so I could add a lot of weight on the handle. A light person might not be able to add enough weight in icy conditions but I don’t know for sure. I think it depends on how heavy the airplane is, tire pressure and how easily it rolls. The A3 certainly has enough power to pull even a heavy airplane but the issue is how much weight it takes to get enough traction for the tug’s tires. If you’re in a snowy climate, the knobby tires are a necessity. I haven’t had any trouble with the clamps coming off the axle on my Alaskan Bushwheels 3224A tail wheel. Sometimes I have to maneuver the tug to get it to align with the axle enough for the left clamp to go over the axle nut. It’s better to shut off the tug’s power switch when doing this since the motor controller resists movement otherwise. I’ve found that switching the retaining pin to allow the arms to move works best when towing the airplane backward. Then switching the pin to lock the arms works best when pushing the airplane forward. The two motorcycle type batteries work very well but have less capacity in very cold weather. I haven’t ever exhausted them but the display screen showed them going down to 29% while pushing the airplane when it was 14F. Once the load was reduced the capacity went up to 90%.