What a sorry bunch.

Our winch drivers are rewarded with a number of things no amount of money can buy.

1] the gratitude of their peers
2] camaraderie
3] an inexhaustible store of tall tales to tell - legendary cable breaks
4] personal growth, and the pleasure of doing a simple job so well nobody
notices (funny how everyone notices a less than perfect one)
5] the knowledge that, having contributed fairly, the rest of the club will do
the same so that your flying remains affordable and fun
6] time for introspection away from the crowd the other end
7] Last but not least a lot of fun

On the subject of money - I just can't think how you could successfully pay the
two (financial) extremes at our club. The artisan who drives the winch for the
sheer fun of the V8s roar, or the big company CEO who does it because he is an
instructor and it is part of the club scene. I suspect both would be insulted if
you offered them money...



M B wrote:
Is it my understanding that the winch drivers
at these operations make NOTHING? No money at all?

Hmmm...in the USA, even the clubs where the
aerotow pilots do it for free, there is still SOME
benefit. Either they are building time, or they get
to
rent the towplane for cheap on non-soaring days,
or they get free training to be towpilots (which they
can then use to prove experience at a for-profit operation).

I would think that at least SOME of the winch operations
pay SOMETHING. Even $1 or $2 a launch...

If not, I'm not surprised it is unpopular duty. Do
they
get a free BBQ dinner or something at least?

At 19:00 03 July 2005, Malcolm Austin wrote:

Your comments fit in my own experience at a fairly
small club I've spent
most of my time at.

With around 60 members there are only about 8 to 10
who are 'cleared' for
the winch.
Instructors do not winch unless it's a special occasion
or a really quiet
day. There really
isn't enough of them to waste on the winch anyway!

Putting someone on the winch for a full day has/is
resulting in loosing
these people to
other activities (i.e. not gliding). The other problem
with such a low
number of trained
people is that the winch duty comes around every 4
weeks. And also what
happens is
that if you turn up to fly and the duty man isn't there,
you end up on the
winch all day
again. If you've gone to fly and end up working, it's
extremely
demotivating.

I agree with your thoughts that a winch man is intimately
involved in every
launch, its a very
responsible job and takes quite a bit of skill to complete
correctly. As to
the point that
some individuals don't make good winchmen, absolutely
right every time!
These
people seem uncordinated and unaware of what's happening
around them, and
they seem
to fly that way. Almost an accident waiting to happen
I guess.

Cheers, Malcolm..

'Bruce' wrote in message
...

Ian Johnston wrote:

On Sat, 2 Jul 2005 10:39:35 UTC, Bruce wrote:

: We have a better rule - no solo in glider before
solo on winch...

It's not a bad idea, but it can and does (in my experience)
lead to clubs
with large numbers of not-very-good winch drivers.
I'd much rather be
launched by someone who has done dozens or hundreds
of launches than
someone who does a few every few weeks to satisfy
club rules.

Ian, winch-but-not-any-other-sort-of-instructor

Ian

We average around 26-35 launches a day. With a small
club and the
instructors doing less winching (although everyone
including the CFI
drives winch) this means that our students, and solo
pilots get to do
plenty of winch driving.

Instructors can expect to spend some time on the winch
- maybe 5 or 10
launches, once every quarter. Although we have one
who volunteers just
about ever time he is there - he just loves playing
tunes with that V8...
The others will share the launching, on average doing
around 8 launches on
any given day. It is not onerous, everyone shares
the work and pitches in,
and the experience on the winch means the low time
pilots have a better
understanding of what is going on. There are days
when one of the more
experienced types installs him/herself in the winch
and makes the day go
smoothly, and the inexperienced types get a benchmark
to aim for. But if
we did that every week we would soon lose the 'really
good' winch drivers.
Spending a few hours seeing how well you can get the
winch to perform,
every now and then is one thing,(and can be very rewarding)
but we all go
to the airfield to fly...

Our experience is that there are a few individuals
who never make
satisfactory winch drivers. With few exceptions they
also struggle with
the flying part. You learn a lot observing someone
on the winch. And
driving the winch in all the different conditions
accelerates learning, he
may not be flying, but the winch driver is intimately
involved in every
launch.

--
Bruce Greeff
Std Cirrus #57
I'm no-T at the address above.



Mark J. Boyd




--
Bruce Greeff
Std Cirrus #57
I'm no-T at the address above.