Bruce wrote:
John Galloway wrote:
The main thing is; on a wire launch - never ever,
under any circumstances, pull the stick back if your
airspeed is very low. The time taken increase the
angle of attack to the point of departure into a spin
is minimal compared with the time that would have been
taken to for the airspeed to rise no matter how powerful
the winch.
That is true, and the stall speed will be a little higher - check the
minimum winch speed for your glider - it should be in the handbook. Try
to avoid testing whether it REALLY is the stall speed on your glider on
winch.

The stall speed may not be a *little* higher, but substantially higher.
The BGA instructors book recommends a minimum safe winch launch speed of
stall + 50%.

Stalling on the wire often leads to an immediate spin entry with no time
to recover, so proper training is essential.

Training is also needed to embed appropriately safe actions if the cable
breaks at various heights, as (a) the pitch over to a proper recovery
angle is much higher than a pilot trained on aerotow only would expect,
(b) there is a further trap in these circumstances in that G is reduced
during the pitch over, so that any attempt to turn before full G returns
can lead to a stall and spin (stall speed reduces with lower G), and (c)
on many sites there is a critical height band where there may be only
one safe option for an abbreviated circuit, which needs to be practised
(as do all recoverise from winch launch failures).

From the perspective of several hundred winch launches via different
winches, I'd say there is no consistent answer to what to to with the
elevator to control speed. You need briefing on how that particular
winch works. There are however two clear rules:

1. If speed reduces below the safe minimum, lower the nose, and if the
speed does not pick up immediately, relase and recover.

2. If speed increases above the maximum in the latter half of the launch
(when loads are highest) and the briefed method does not immediately
reduce the speed, lower the nose slightly to reduce the load on the
glider, signal for less speed, and if you don't get is, release as before.

I'd emphasise most strongly that you can't learn safe winch launching
from reading alone - proper training is essential.