On Saturday, April 28, 2018 at 12:22:25 AM UTC-4, John Foster wrote:

It would be nice to be able to get as high as possible in order to get over to the mountains

You only need to get high enough to have a couple minutes to find and catch a thermal. Once you gain a bit of altitude in that first thermal, you can fly upwind to find better thermals (and get away from the pattern). Eventually you get high enough to fly downwind over to the mountains with enough reserve altitude to fly upwind back to the airport.


The good news is that pilots at winch and auto tow operations get a lot of launching and landing practice, and when you do finally catch a thermal, it is a hoot.

The other good thing about winching (and autotow?) is that launch and land practice/training is great fun even on days with no lift. Winching is much more fun than aerotow, and for the price of a single aerotow, you can do 5-6 winch launches.