Paraglider winching aka kiteing

On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 15:17:11 +0000, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 12/01/14 14:21, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 10:11:36 +0000, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 11/01/14 23:38, son_of_flubber wrote:
Since I have no experience with winching, the concept of an errant
airplane running into a winch cable is new to me and therefore
interesting. It's not something that is often mentioned.

You have experience with winching and therefore see the event from a
completely different perspective. Your matter-of-fact comment that
errant airplanes commonly enter winch zones was also interesting to
me.

Have a look at "Airprox Report No 052/07" on p171 of
http://www.airproxboard.org.uk/docs/423/ukabbk18.pdf which includes
"Several times each year pilots of ac inbound to Kemble appear to
misidentify Aston Down for Kemble and enter a circuit or even line
up on one of the two RWs, ignoring the different RW direction; the
wind;
the winch; the gliders - both in circuit and on the airfields and
a double-deck control bus parked at the launch point on the
runway. It is often the case that these same pilots are in
communication with Kemble throughout and only realise they are
mistaken when Kemble reports no sight of them on approach."

We have had the same problem at GRL, but with GA traffic for Little
Gransden (3km, 1.6 nm away). Never mind that we have three runways that
form a large triangle while Little Gransden is a single 500m runway.
You really wonder what, if anything, goes on in these guy's heads,
especially the one who made three attempts to land at GRL while we were
launching the grid during a Regionals. And then he got abusive when
told he wouldn't be allowed to leave until we'd finished launching.

I've watched a light aircraft shimmy down the side of our main runway
(while we were winch launching) rocking his wings from side to side,
before disappearing off to one side. Clearly his thought processes were
"this doesn't look right, where the hell am I"

Less authoritatively...
neilmac 19th May 2007, 11:58 GA plane joining Kemble from the NW last
week,
A/C "Confirm by your threshold you have gliders"?
FISO "Last time I looked they were 747s"
A/C "Ahh Roger ..............I ll reposition for your overhead again"
Plane making approach to a nearby gliding site NM
from http://www.pprune.org/archive/index....59309-p-4.html

Or the pilot that doesn't believe we're not Kemble until he is led out
to look at the 6ft "AD" letters in the grass by the clubhouse.

Our 'Regionals visitor' went very quiet when our chairman, having found
out where the guy had come from, said that he would be down there on
business next week, that he knew their CFI very well and would be telling
him all about the incident.

That was in 2000. We've had fewer incursions recently except during the
Olympics when the airspace extension forced all the GA pilots who
normally follow the M25 round London to route further north. Most ended
up following the B428 past us, with some of the east-bound lot blasting
through our overhead rather lower than the 3K marked on the charts.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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