On Wednesday, June 6, 2012 6:38:19 AM UTC-5, Walt Connelly wrote:
Where in the South East US of A might one go to get a winch launch
endorsement? ALSO, in general how much runway is needed for an adequate
winch launch? What might the minimum runway length be?

Walt




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Walt Connelly

I think the Aussies set the minimum at 1200 meters available for a winch operation, otherwise you need a special permit since safety becomes much more critical in case of a launch failure. I learned in Germany on an 800 m strip but we had fields available to the side past the end of the grass runway for straight ahead emergency landings past the winch. With the steel cable we used you more or less had one quick try at a thermal otherwise you were back down, we also entered a close traffic at something like 600 - 700 ft to buy us some time, normally you'd enter at 800 or 1000 ft...

Here in Colombia I do not bother about locations with less than 1200 m, just too much trouble and very short flights (likely less than 8 min depending on alt, wind etc.)

Markus