SAFE Winch Launching

Hi Wayne,

It seems to me that you need to build up a critical mass of expertise, and
clubs with winch launching facilities in the US. In the UK I can visit 4
other clubs within a 50 mile radius of my home club who also winch launch,
so we can share experience and learn from each other. Germany is very
similar.

As I and others have pointed out before, you already have most of the
necessary ingredients to build good quality winches in the States,
particularly lots of vehicles with big powerful V8 engines and good
automatic gearboxes that can be transplanted into winches. We in Europe
actually import such things from you. Most of our winches use big block
Chevys or big secondhand diesel engines from trucks or earth movers.

Even with an almost technically perfect winch (nothing is ever totally
perfect), you will still have the occasional cable break, weak link break,
technical failure, or driver error, not to mention wing drops due to gusts.
Safe winch launching is basically about being mentally prepared to deal
with such problems as they arise. In the UK our pre-flight check list
includes an E for Eventualities, where you pre-brief yourself as to how to
deal with all the likely failures and problems that might occur during any
sort of launch, including aerotows.

Suggest that you have a read of:

http://www.gliding.co.uk/bgainfo/saf...hlaunching.htm

By the way, I learnt wire launching by autowing, where about every fifth
launch was a cable break, especially as the cables became worn from
dragging them along an asphalt runway. This was far from a technically
perfect solution, but I got very good at dealing with launch failures and
never came close to killing myself. I actually had a launch failure on my
first and third solos on the same day, with only the second one going full
term to a vaguely respectable height of about 1000 feet. If anyone tells
you that autotowing is a great way of launching gliders, they are lying!
We get at least 1600 feet from our winch launches off a much shorter run.
It was still good fun though. Once we had gone solo we were also expected
to drive the towcars, after a little bit of training.

Cheers,
Derek Copeland


At 16:42 13 July 2009, Wayne Paul wrote:


I concur that the US needs an economical way to launch sailplanes. As =
elsewhere in the world, a good winch seems to be the answer. =20

I don't have a ground-launch endorsement in my log book; however, I hope
=
to get the training in the near future. =20

In order for the endorsement to have any value, I will need to install a
=
CG hook on my HP-14 and travel to a facility with a winch. There are a
=
couple of auto/truck ground launching operation less then 300 mile; =
however, I will have the travel about 700 mile to use a winch. This =
should give you some sense of the US lack of winch launch accessibility.

I can remember asking a simple naive question on the WinchDesign group =
and being attacted by two Europeans who thought I was taking sides in a
=
long standing argument. I was new to the group and didn't realize I was
=
expected to read every posting on the News Group so as to be enlightened
=
both technically and politically before being allowed to speak. As I =
watched I realized that emotion was driving the threads and engineering
=
had almost vanished in the background. So... I left.

With sadness, I see the same thing happening here. I do not have the =
background to take sides; however, I see that the same emotionally =
charged cast of characters have simply moved their fight from the Yahoo
=
News Group to here. It is sad, because in the name of enlightening the
=
US soaring community to the value of using a good winch system, they are
=
planting seed of doubt as to whether any winch can really be considered
=
safe.

I just wish for all concerned that this thread would die.