On Friday, May 10, 2013 9:36:02 AM UTC-6, Don Johnstone wrote:
At 14:55 10 May 2013, Bill D wrote:

On Friday, May 10, 2013 8:42:39 AM UTC-6, Peter F wrote:

Don is right in thinking that there should be one person in charge of

the=

launch.



Unfortunately the person he thinks should be in charge is at the wrong

en=

d of the cable.



You are correct, it's much better to have the pilot control airspeed with

p=

itch. However, for this to happen, the winch has to control rope tension

a=

ccurately as a percentage of glider weight. Control is divided where

pilot=

controls airspeed and winch controls tension. This means Gary is right

to=

control rope tension with his payout winch.



No, I said there should be one person with total control of the winch, just

the same as the number of people in command of a glider. Would you fly an

airplane where one pilot had control of the stick pulling back and another

pilot was in control of pushing it forwards? The person in charge of the

launch is always the pilot of the glider who has absolute control of the

airspeed at all times via the stick and yellow knob.



From a 2500' run we get 1000 ft winch launches in still air. We are cleared

and capable of winching to 3000ft but seldom do, using a standard Skylaunch

winch.

Average winch launch at our site using the standard runs is 1500ft.


That's a fuzzy analogy. A better analogy is an airplane with a flight engineer controlling the power of the engines. The engineer (think winch operator) applies whatever power the pilot asks for. The pilot then takes that power and controls airspeed with pitch attitude.