In article .com,
Frank Whiteley writes
Single drum turn around time is similar to autotow. If you retrieve
your rope at 15mph, it will take 5+minutes to get the rope back to the
launch point on a 6000ft run and another minute to get the tow car back
to the other end. Then the launch take up and launch you are talking
10 minute cycles or 6 launches per hour. If you're flying one Blanik,
or 5-6 gliders in a small club, this is fine. With parafil, we ran 4-6
minute cycle times.

Frank, have you ever been to the Midland GC site at the Long Mynd?

The scheme they use is to have a single drum winch, which launches the
glider and a much smaller one which retrieve the cable.

The two cables attach to 2 corners of a triangular piece of iron,
another cable with the launching rings and parachute goes to the
remaining corner. This system has been in use for at least 45 years, and
is the most efficient way I've seen of getting launched. But it wouldn't
work too well on an aerodrome site.




I've not timed it, but it was VERY quick, much quicker than


--
Mike Lindsay