Our strip is 3000ft and most of the single seaters get between 1400-1700 ft
with using polyprop rope instead of wire on the winch ,do a search in the
newsgroup archives and you will get a lot of info.
All boiled down it comes to ,its cheap ,available everywhere,lighter so the
glider carries less weight, stores energy by stretching slightly so initial
acceleration is
very rapid , initial climb turns to full climb very quickly = more height at
launch end.
gary


"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...
About 3000 feet.


"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
news:KTC2d.316855$8_6.86703@attbi_s04...

"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...
It's too bad our ridge is 3 miles away. It's just a little too far to
get
to from a winch launch. I did catch the wave from a winch launch right
over
the airport, climbed to 9K, and then flew to our main wave behind
11,240
foot Mt. Hood. Normally it's hard to get away from our airport from a
winch
launch though.


What if you could increase the winch release height to more than 2000
feet?
Three miles at 35:1 in a modern trainer would lose maybe 300 feet and you
could still get back if the ridge isn't working.

Modern high performance winches will deliver more than 2000' pretty
consistently. How much room do you have for a winch operation?

Bill Daniels