"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...
I really appreciate all this good input, thank you all for responding.
Now
for a new twist, one of our members has built a "pay out winch". A pay
out
winch is a drum with a break on it. The glider hooks up about 200' behind
the tow vehicle, and as the glider climbs, the line spools out. Does
anybody have any experience with this type of launch? How much runway do
you need for this type of launch, how high can you get, ect?

Boggs

I have quite a bit -- in hang gliders. It works best with lots of road,
runway, or dry lake.
We typically got about 2/3 of the paid-out line in altitude. With 6000 feet
of 3/16 inch polyprop, we could get 4000 feet.
More typically, we'd tow until we hit a thermal somewhere above 500 feet.

If you don't have a dry lake handy, you can "step tow". The tow car stops
at the end of the road, and turns around (either a U turn or a "Y" turn), as
the glider also turns around, being careful not to wrap the rope around the
wing.
When the glider is more-or-less turned around, the tow car starts again.
Rinse, lather, repeat. The downwind run takes much less time.
This might not work in sailplanes. In hang gliders, we were using a
three-ring release, which doesn't back-release.

Tim Ward