On Wed, 21 Dec 2016 13:19:17 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 6:01:50 AM UTC-7, Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2016 16:59:34 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

The winch does not and, in fact, cannot control glider airspeed. The pilot is the only one who can do that.

It does. Reduce power, and the glider pilot will need some quick
reaction to lower the nose and keep up airspeed.



Reduce winch power and the rate of climb (angle) decreases but the
airspeed is unchanged. Reduce it all the way to zero and the glider
is left in a glide at the desired airspeed.

Nope. Reduce winch power to zero and the pilot needs a very quick
reaction to lower the nose and keep airspeed up. Without reaction the
glider pilot is very, verfy close to stall and crash.
Seen a couple of bad crashes due to winch failure.




Increase power and the rate of climb (angle) increases but the airspeed stays the same.

Never experienced that ever. Not in a light Ka-8, not in a a really
heavy open class double seater.

Increase it too much and the weak link breaks - at exactly the desired airspeed - or the glider runs out of up elevator and the pilot must then ask for less power.

From all 60+ gliders I've flown in a winch launch only one prototype
ever ran out of elevator authority.

Maybe us Europeans are doing something fundamentally different.