Matt

Yes, dragging a rope will wear it out. The car doing the dragging will also
wear out fairly quickly. Auto tow is like drag racing - it puts a lot of
strain on a car.

Of course, start-up costs for auto tow are lower than a winch which makes it
attractive but in the medium term (Say two years) a winch is much cheaper to
operate. There are about 1500 clubs worldwide which use ground launch but
only a handful use auto tow. They've found a winch is quicker, cheaper,
safer and gets the glider higher using less space.

By the time you've replaced a few ropes and tow cars, a winch starts looking
pretty cheap.


We shortened the life of a Nissan Pathfinder transmission autolaunching
at remote locations. Our primary launch car at home was straight out of
a scrap yard. It was an old LTD with a big motor, maybe a 460. I think
it actually only ran on 5 cylinders though. The transmission was crap
but it worked in low gear and reverse. That was all we needed. Oh, and
the 500 lbs of salvaged brick wall that we put into the trunk to hold
the back end down when the glider was at the top of the climb.