Wing Launch - Can it pull your wings off?

On Aug 17, 6:16*pm, bildan wrote:
On Aug 17, 4:50*am, Derek C wrote:





On Aug 15, 7:51*pm, Andreas Maurer wrote:

On Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:12:03 +0200, John Smith

wrote:
Derek C wrote:
The site in question is a narrow strip 800 metres long, sloping
downhill at about 1 in 10, on top of a hill and totally surrounded by
small unlandable vineyards. They always launched downhill,
irrespective of wind direction. Once above about 200ft, but below
circuit height, the only cable break option to get back onto site was
a 180 degree turn (teardrop circuit) to land back uphill.

And where's the problem?

The timing.

With such a short field it might be necessary to execute this teardrop
circuit at very low altitude because it's not possible anymore to land
straight-on.

Little error margin for finding the right compromise between executing
the turn ionto final at a healthy altitude and not too close to the
airfield.

It's definitely more relaxed to execute this teardrop circuit at
300ft+.

Cheers
Andreas

Here is a video of a German pilot getting a teardrop circuit wrong
after an 80 metre (about 250ft) cable break:

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xCct...os=zqLm5HhNvPc

Derek C

Andreas, Derek, your posts reveal, in great detail and in ways you
obviously don't realize, just how screwed up many UK winch operations
are. *The real danger for US operations is if they take your posts as
"normal" operations - they aren't. *I hope they will ignore the UK and
study Continental, *specifically German operations instead.

Dyneema doesn't just "break", clumsy, incompetent operations break
it. *Clearly your Dyneema is being damaged by poor winch design and
rough handling. *You don't let Dyneema "fall", you pull it to the
winch.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I note from his profile that Andreas has a German email address, so I
guess that he lives and flies in Germany!

In fact German and UK practices are pretty similar, apart from the
German land line telephone requirement for communication between the
launch point and the winch. The standard European winch used to be the
German Tost, but it is now becoming the British Skylaunch. The French
National Gliding Centre have recently ordered two turbo-diesel engined
Skylaunch 2 winches, with one already delivered and in service.

Derek C