On Jan 18, 5:04*pm, Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:16:22 GMT, "Malcolm Austin"

wrote:
At our club (Denbigh GC, UK) *we changed the steel wire for a type of
polypropylene
rope. *The shock absorbing properties of this have reduced the incidence of
weak link
breaks to almost zero.

I know of a club that also used a polypropylene rope between aircraft
and weak link.
They stopped using that after this rope got entangled within the gear
of an ASK-21, leading to a severe ground loop immediately prior to
lift-off.

The stiffness of the steel wire prevents such an event.

That's partly why the strops our weak links are attached are inside
some kind of plastic tube. I have a feeling the BGA recommends this
but I can never find stuff on their website, so don't know if I'm
imagining that.