On Aug 15, 1:21*pm, Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:29:49 -0700 (PDT), sisu1a

wrote:
Modern winching is pretty much a science and has come a long way since
the 60s so it does not do the soaring community (US at least...) a
favor to combine it all into single raw statistics cause it paints a
negative biased picture based on irrelevant data. *

Hmmm... I beg to differ.
Modern winching has very much in common with winching in the 60s.
The only difference is that the winches grew stronger in accordance to
the rising weight and speed of the gliders, but otherwise -at least in
Germany- very little has changed. Apart from the stronger engines the
rest of the equipment as well as the procedures are still the same as
fifty years ago.

It is not necessary (Bill - I know you are going to cry out now *to
have the latest state-of-the-art gizmos (telemetry, plastic cables,
advanced speed control) to perform a perfectly safe and satisfactory
winch launch.

Cheers
Andreas

Actually, I don't disagree. You don't need all new stuff to be safe
but then you can drive a 1960's car and be safe too - as long as
you're careful not to hit anything or get hit. It's a fact that
people driving new cars with air bags and crush zones drive a lot more
aggressively. That's basically what you get from the new winch
designs. Easier, safer launches with greater performance.

Dyneema is an exception. It has been proven safer than steel cable by
every industry that has adopted it - there's lots of industrial safety
data on that. Besides being safer, it's just way nicer to work with.