Ray,

Mine was the Belgian Air Force club in Cologne. They did it in Flemish or
French and that was in 1954; I don't remember the commands. (Pulling
strings got me, an American GI attached to the Belgian Army I Corps, into
the club.

At 16:16 09 April 2009, rlovinggood wrote:
Nyal,

In our club in Germany, if I can remember, there were three commands.

1. Fertig (Ready, the pilot is ready to be launched.)
2. Seil straff (All of the slack is out of the cable)
3. Frei (The glider has cleared the ground)

These commands were relayed to the winch operator via a "field
telephone", the kind where you would turn the little crank to ring the
bell on the other end of the line.

In this club, winch launching was, and probably still is, the primary
way of launching. They do A LOT of winching. I wonder if they have
changed their ways and have different commands now.

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA
PS: Happy Winching!