Safety of winch launch vrs. aero tow?

Those interested in wire launch safety may like to read an article by
John Hoskins, BGA Accident Investigator, which has just been published.

See http://www.gliding.co.uk/bgainfo/saf...s/winching.pdf
or http://www.glidingmagazine.com/ListF...Dtl.asp?id=370 .

There have been many accidents of the types described,
insufficient energy to avoid a heavy landing after a launch failure,
and a spin entry after stalling during the first part of the launch.

W.J. (Bill) Dean (U.K.).
Remove "ic" to reply.


"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...

Someone must have already compared the safety of these tow launch methods.
What do the statistics show is the safer method of launch? Aero tow
seems to involve more inherent dangers to me. For one thing, there is
just more time for things to go wrong. What could be more dangerous than
to tie two airplanes together and try to fly?

Gary Boggs

On Sun, 2 Nov 2003 00:05:21 -0000, "W.J. \(Bill\) Dean \(U.K.\)."
wrote:

There have been many accidents of the types described,
insufficient energy to avoid a heavy landing after a launch failure,
and a spin entry after stalling during the first part of the launch.

See this example:
http://www.alexburger.de/sf/seilriss.avi

Pilot suffered only minor injury.

Bye
Andreas