Ground launch and the incremental vanishing of soaring

Marc Ramsey wrote:
Mark James Boyd wrote:
Does anyone know of a US public airport that has allowed auto-tow
in the past five years? How about winch?

I'm sure there are still a few (mostly auto-tow, I bet). Frankly, as
much as I'd like to see a revival of ground launch in this country,
trying to push it on reluctant public airport managers is an incredibly
bad idea.

I'm guessing this could eventually evolve into the same statement about
aero-tow in 10-20 years.

Random power traffic and 3000 foot cables just don't mix very
well.

To some extent the same is true of 250 foot ropes. Again I'm sure this
could marginally reduce aero-tow availaility over 10-20 years,

Soaring departures from private and military/CAP airports only?
I guess that's pretty much it. And if most gliders sold are mostly
motorgliders, I'm guessing even tow will become more rare.

Without even trying hard, I can think of 10 California public use
airports with aero tows available most days. Yes, there are and will be
problems at some airports. Getting complacent about it is a mistake,
but I don't think there is an immediate danger of getting completely
shut out.

Ten out of about 300 public airports (of which I've landed at 250)?
This is about 4%. I think this sucks. I'm not gonna run the numbers
now, but I'd guess 12% of these 300 airports, 36 of them, are
5000 ft+, unattended, and with light enough traffic that some
coordination, NOTAMs, and support/qualification by SSA/FAA/DPEs
would result in no more than a few occasional runway lights
getting zinged, and a heck of a lot of FUN for a lot of folks.

For the price of a $220 towhook, some $10 rings, $100 worth of rope,
a door hinge, and some truck gas? This seems like a real winner.
A $1500 2-22, $320 for liability only, some elbow grease
(mostly to fix up the ol' beast), and we got a party.
Alternately, a nice shiny G-103's probably better

New Coalinga, Porterville, Delano, Visalia, Merced, Castle, Yuba,
Lincoln-Harder, McClellan, Oroville, etc...

The jump guys get permission to use Crow's Landing...how about
auto tow?


There are a few places I can easily see supporting ground launch
operations, like the still undeveloped Lagoon Valley site, that can no
longer be used for aero tow due to noise issues. For a decent ground
launch site, I would guess at 300 to 500 acres of empty land is
required. For a viable operation, it needs to be within an hour or two
of a major metropolitan area. For halfway decent soaring conditions, it
needs to be away from the coast. Given California geography and real
estate prices, it would be tough to make it work...

Oh, I don't believe it is tough. It would take one thing to make it work:
get the Calif. airport insurance pool to say yes. Then do it at all
of those airports listed. They all meet your criteria. One
airport saying yes and a coupla accident free trials and a nice
SOP, and I bet there'd be FUN and interest.

Did I mention it'd be cheap? Isn't this one of the real
big problems in this sport? Boy I'd love to see auto-tow be
"OK" at all these airfields. From what I've read historically,
this used to be standard "no problem" at a public airport.
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Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA