Winching.

1. You may be able to secure a long term lease for land much cheaper than
buying it. If use is weekends only, the land may be used for grazing or
some other activity in the interim. In the case of my club, we could
conceivably lease enough dry land a few miles east for what we pay in
property taxes annually. Site selection is important. Multiple sites may
be needed to cover then changing seasons.

2. At Avenal, are there roads at either end of the runway? If not, perhaps
the neighboring property owners could be convinced to allow the winch to be
put 2000-2500 off the end of the airport a couple of days a week. This
should give you a land back area and provide for great launches. We have
days when pilots tow 20 miles away to 11,500ft and still land back. Wait
for the convergence to come to you.

3. Launch rate is important. With our single drum winch, I can drive a
launch, drag the wire, return to the winch, and launch again with an 8
minute cycle time on a 5000ft run. If the headwind is good, I can have both
CG equipped two-seaters in the air at the same time. When there's lift, we
launch about every 15 minutes, giving each training sorty about 20-25
minutes. I will chastise anyone who is not ready to launch when the wire
arrives. Do your ground school after hours or week nights, not at the
launch point.

4. When there's lift, at least 75 percent of the launches commit soaring.
My average aero tow release height is less than I normally get from a winch
launch. Sometimes you just need to be patient and work it for a while. If
you get impatient, you'll land back more often. However, the price of a
re-light is okay too! When I did primarily winch launching in the UK, I
could count on one hand the number of re-lights I took in an entire season.
Depending on the year, I averaged more than 3 or 4 hours per flight (with
long wings admittedly).

5. My club has actually done a retrieve with a winch. It's on a licensed
trailer chassis and portable. Our tow plane is not covered for off airport
tows.

6. If you get a ground launch endorsement in six launches, you've been
cheated. Don't expect to exercise your privileges at my club. There are
some insidious things about ground launching that could bite you, and you
will practice and understand avoiding them. They can't be exercised in six
launches. No matter how many winch launches we've flown or driven, we're
still learning. I, for one, haven't seen it all, nor do I care to.

Frank Whiteley