soaring into the future

This thread sent me searching for quotes and I found three I liked - two
attributed to Charles Darwin and one by John Maxwell.

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most
intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to
change."

And:

"To change is difficult. Not to change is fatal."

And from John maxwell:

"People underestimate their capacity for change. There is never a right time
to do a difficult thing. A leader's job is to help people have vision of
their potential."

Whether we like it or not, winch launch will be part of our future - we have
no real alternative. To paraphrase Darwin, the survivors will winch launch.

There may be improvements in aero tow and motorgliders will continue to be
popular but winch launch has by far the greatest potential to impact the
economics of gliding.

Adopting winch launch is NOT easy. Almost everything we know about aero tow
either doesn't apply or requires significant change. Even things we think
we know about winch launch is likely to be wrong or even dangerous. Winch
launch must be approached with knowledge and dicipline at both the
individual and organizational level.

Suggestions made here that US operations adopt the BGA winch launch manuals
is something I strongly support. I would suggest equal emphasis on the
German DAeC winch manuals which are available in English. The German
manuals tend to be more engineering orientated and less traditional than the
British. Keep in mind all these manuals assume the reader has a significant
knowledge of winch launch. Here usenet discussions can be very helpful.

Access to "winch friendly" airfields will be a problem for a long time.
Many have said this is the toughest nut to crack and they may be right. The
only "right time" to start solving this problem is now. I think every club
should have a standing committee tasked with "winch site search".

Bill Daniels