soaring into the future

This thread sent me searching for quotes and I found three I liked - two
attributed to Charles Darwin and one by John Maxwell.

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most
intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to
change."

And:

"To change is difficult. Not to change is fatal."

And from John maxwell:

"People underestimate their capacity for change. There is never a right time
to do a difficult thing. A leader's job is to help people have vision of
their potential."

Whether we like it or not, winch launch will be part of our future - we have
no real alternative. To paraphrase Darwin, the survivors will winch launch.

There may be improvements in aero tow and motorgliders will continue to be
popular but winch launch has by far the greatest potential to impact the
economics of gliding.

Adopting winch launch is NOT easy. Almost everything we know about aero tow
either doesn't apply or requires significant change. Even things we think
we know about winch launch is likely to be wrong or even dangerous. Winch
launch must be approached with knowledge and dicipline at both the
individual and organizational level.

Suggestions made here that US operations adopt the BGA winch launch manuals
is something I strongly support. I would suggest equal emphasis on the
German DAeC winch manuals which are available in English. The German
manuals tend to be more engineering orientated and less traditional than the
British. Keep in mind all these manuals assume the reader has a significant
knowledge of winch launch. Here usenet discussions can be very helpful.

Access to "winch friendly" airfields will be a problem for a long time.
Many have said this is the toughest nut to crack and they may be right. The
only "right time" to start solving this problem is now. I think every club
should have a standing committee tasked with "winch site search".

Bill Daniels

Frank Whiteley wrote:

You will get much less objection to establishing a new gliderport with
a winch than a tow plane. Land can also be mixed use, and leased,
rather than purchased. Local regulations can be problematic or not.
If you are in a club, you will likely get more objection from your
geezer members to setting up a winch only club than you will from
neighbors.

I'd like to ask a favor of everyone: let's find a more accurate and less
prejudicial term than "geezer" for people that don't want change or
reflexively favor aerotow. It's gratuitous, and disparagement apparently
based on age isn't going to win any of the friends we'll need to improve
soaring. It may also blind people to the fact that a lot of us "geezers"
support smaller, simpler, lighter, and cheaper soaring.

Maybe "reflexive aerotow promoters", "anti-change group", or
"short-sighted club officers"?

Or even skip the label entirely. The above statement could have used
"some members" just as effectively as "geezer", especially since the
poster was just speculating.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

On Dec 28, 2:45 pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Frank Whiteley wrote:
You will get much less objection to establishing a new gliderport with
a winch than a tow plane. Land can also be mixed use, and leased,
rather than purchased. Local regulations can be problematic or not.
If you are in a club, you will likely get more objection from your
geezer members to setting up a winch only club than you will from
neighbors.

I'd like to ask a favor of everyone: let's find a more accurate and less
prejudicial term than "geezer" for people that don't want change or
reflexively favor aerotow. It's gratuitous, and disparagement apparently
based on age isn't going to win any of the friends we'll need to improve
soaring. It may also blind people to the fact that a lot of us "geezers"
support smaller, simpler, lighter, and cheaper soaring.

Maybe "reflexive aerotow promoters", "anti-change group", or
"short-sighted club officers"?

Or even skip the label entirely. The above statement could have used
"some members" just as effectively as "geezer", especially since the
poster was just speculating.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes"http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" atwww.motorglider.org

Even though I am one, I apologize. Resistence to change comes at any
age when someone's comfort level is challenged.

Frank

On Fri, 28 Dec 2007 20:45:32 GMT, Eric Greenwell
wrote:

Frank Whiteley wrote:

You will get much less objection to establishing a new gliderport with
a winch than a tow plane. Land can also be mixed use, and leased,
rather than purchased. Local regulations can be problematic or not.
If you are in a club, you will likely get more objection from your
geezer members to setting up a winch only club than you will from
neighbors.

I'd like to ask a favor of everyone: let's find a more accurate and less
prejudicial term than "geezer" for people that don't want change or
reflexively favor aerotow. It's gratuitous, and disparagement apparently
based on age isn't going to win any of the friends we'll need to improve
soaring. It may also blind people to the fact that a lot of us "geezers"
support smaller, simpler, lighter, and cheaper soaring.

Maybe "reflexive aerotow promoters", "anti-change group", or
"short-sighted club officers"?

Or even skip the label entirely. The above statement could have used
"some members" just as effectively as "geezer", especially since the
poster was just speculating.

My definition of "geezer" is "pilot who has more hours on fire than I
have on actual instruments." An honorable title.

rj

My definition of "geezer" is "pilot who has more hours on fire than I
have on *actual instruments." An honorable title.

YEAH BABY!

I love it. We have a few "geezer" pilots at our club who have been
there - done that - and are my role models.

This is all about having fun, after all..

Kirk
66

kirk.stant wrote:
My definition of "geezer" is "pilot who has more hours on fire than I
have on actual instruments." An honorable title.

YEAH BABY!

I love it. We have a few "geezer" pilots at our club who have been
there - done that - and are my role models.

Exactly! That's why I objected to the disparaging use of "geezer" in
this thread as a substitute for "old guy that doesn't get it".

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

On Dec 28, 3:37*pm, toad wrote:
Sorry that I'm late to the discussion, but I think the issue about
winches in the US is primarily about land. *I doubt that there are
very few public use airports in the US that would allow winch
operations. There are only a few that put up with aero tow glider
operations. * So to start a winch operation in the US you would have
to own enough land and be able to get it designated an airport (hard
to do politically) to allow winch operation.

Has anyone in the states considered using Rotax-powered aircraft for
towing? The Rotax Falke has a tow limit of 650 kg (around 1,400 lbs I
think) and a surprisingly good climb rate with just 100 hp - though it
is a motor glider afterall (and you can use it for land out training
too, amortizing the costs). The beauty of Rotax-powered aircraft is
their running costs - around 1/4 of those of a Pawnee. That's a
seriously big increase in your profit margin per tow.

If you're at a hot n high airport there is a turbo variant of the
Rotax, but I don't think it's been fitted to the Falke. There is the
G109 which is a GRP motor glider with the turbo engine, but when the
high-boost period (five minutes) is used up the climb rate drops
dramatically.

Though by the sounds of later replies, beginning winch launching
sounds a lot more realistic in the US than some might think.


Dan