Bill Daniels wrote:

Straw man argument.

Of course you train for premature launch failures - just like you do for
airtow. The original drift of this thread seemed to suggest that launch
failures were epidemic with winch launch.
With a well run winch operation the launch failures won't be any more common
than with air tow ...

I disagree. I've never seen any winch operation with a failure rate as
low as most aerotow. I share your enthusiasm for winches but don't
oversell them.

....snip
My remark about no launch failures was based on the German Dyneema test
group's reply to a question about how they dealt with breaks. Their reply
was, "we haven't had any."

Exactly. You equated no cable breaks to no launch failures.

The discussion was about a field where cable breaks couldn't be
practiced. Simulated cable break is how winch operations train their
pilots to handle ALL premature terminations of the launch - weak link
failure, engine failure, failure of the laying gear, jams in the feed
rollers, even the drum falling off because of fatigue cracking of the
hub, even sometimes, the Dyneema failing.

The reliability of the cable is the straw man in this argument. I don't
care if the Dyneema never breaks, if there's no way of practising
premature termination of the launch skills and procedures, the field is
unsuitable as a base for winching.

There was some scepticism expressed that it would be suitable for
aerotow if it wasn't suitable for a winch. I think that's a good
question but neither of us have seen the field so there's nothing useful
we can say on that.

Graeme Cant

Bill Daniels