Winch Signals

On Apr 9, 8:15*am, Nyal Williams wrote:
What have you heard? *Anyone have any comments to offer?

I was going to guess that it referred to the dampers on steam engine
boilers but this reference
http://www.answers.com/topic/all-out states the term has been in use
since 1300. That obviously predates the steam engine, but perhaps not
other flue dampers.

Dampers can be rotary valves or sliding plates. Pulling a sliding
plate flue damper "all out" gives maximum flue draw and the hottest
fire.


Andy

On Apr 9, 9:31*am, Andy wrote:
*Pulling a sliding
plate flue damper "all out" gives maximum flue draw and the hottest
fire.

On further reflection the term could have come from pipe organs where
"stops" are pulled out to control airflow and hence sound volume.
Pipe organs predate 1300. ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_organ

There must be a reference to the origin somewhere on the internet but
I didn't find it yet.

Andy

Andy,

Funny you should metion that; I used to work on pipe organs, but this
never occurred to me. I'm really interested to know the history of the
phrase.

At 16:54 09 April 2009, Andy wrote:
On Apr 9, 9:31=A0am, Andy wrote:
=A0Pulling a sliding
plate flue damper "all out" gives maximum flue draw and the hottest
fire.

On further reflection the term could have come from pipe organs where
"stops" are pulled out to control airflow and hence sound volume.
Pipe organs predate 1300. ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_organ

There must be a reference to the origin somewhere on the internet but
I didn't find it yet.

Andy

At 17:45 09 April 2009, Nyal Williams wrote:
Andy,

Funny you should metion that; I used to work on pipe organs, but this
never occurred to me. I'm really interested to know the history of the
phrase.

At 16:54 09 April 2009, Andy wrote:
On Apr 9, 9:31=A0am, Andy wrote:
=A0Pulling a sliding
plate flue damper "all out" gives maximum flue draw and the hottest
fire.

On further reflection the term could have come from pipe organs where
"stops" are pulled out to control airflow and hence sound volume.
Pipe organs predate 1300. ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_organ

There must be a reference to the origin somewhere on the internet but
I didn't find it yet.

Andy



I learnt to winch at Dartmoor Gliding Society. We winched using an ex RAF
winch with a 7 Litre Diesel engine. They had previously experimented with
land lines (run around the perimeter fence and then later burying them) but
sheep and other rodents got to eat/chew them. Now there is a dedicated
ground frequency for the club. The launch point, winch and retrieve
vehicle can all communicate with each other. Its more flexible than a
land line because if the launch point is short handed one person can wing
run and talk to the winch using a hand held transceiver. The retrieve
vehicle can communicate which is useful if mending a cable break etc. In
addition the launch point and winch are out of sight of each other due to
the slope on the runway in either direction. No one has transmitted on
our private frequency when we are launching.

The radio calls a

'Take up slack (type of glider) (solo if a two seater and only one pilot)
North/South cable'.

The winch driver then takes the cable in slowly until all slack is taken
up.

When all slack has been taken up:

'All out, All out'

The winch driver give appropriate initial throttle according to
weight/type of glider and wind. When it comes over the crest the winch
diver controls the winch by eyeballing the catenary of the cable. If too
fast the pilot wags the rudder - yaws. If too slow the pilot puts the
nose down to regain speed.

Any problems the launch point calls ' STOP, STOP, STOP' and the winch
driver immediate cuts the power.

Note take up slack is said once,
'all out' is said twice
and
'STOP' three times.
Even if the engine is noisy or the radio distorted then the difference is
always clear.

In Belgium I winch in Flemish and German. Tost V8 auto winch atop a ex
German army truck. We use land lines and field telephones. The routine
is basically the same but a bit more wordy. The differences are that the
cables are colour coded - important because we use a 2 winch set up,
Flemish and German winches side by side and whoever is next in the queue
takes the next cable irrespective of the club membership of the pilot or
whose winch it is.

We don't wag the tail as a signal for too fast but the pilot calls the
speed in kph and the launch point relays the radio call via the land line
(which is permanently open during the winch launch) to the winch driver
who corrects the speed appropriately. The airfield is dead flat so the
winch driver can see everything.

Its horses for courses. After having over 3 years of doing it the British
way and over 3 years of doing it the Belgian/German way there isn't much
in it and I wouldn't be so bold to say that one way is better than the
other.

Whatever calls/routine you do adopt stick to it and make sure everybody
uses the same terminology and calls each and every time. Non-standard
calls causes confusion and accidents.




Gavin
Std Cirrus, CNN now G-SCNN, #173
LSV Viersen, Keiheuvel, Belgium

At 19:00 09 April 2009, Gavin Short wrote:


The radio calls a

'Take up slack (type of glider) (solo if a two seater and only one
pilot)
North/South cable'.

The winch driver then takes the cable in slowly until all slack is taken
up.

When all slack has been taken up:

'All out, All out'

The winch driver give appropriate initial throttle according to
weight/type of glider and wind. When it comes over the crest the winch
diver controls the winch by eyeballing the catenary of the cable. If
too
fast the pilot wags the rudder - yaws. If too slow the pilot puts the
nose down to regain speed.

Any problems the launch point calls ' STOP, STOP, STOP' and the winch
driver immediate cuts the power.

Note take up slack is said once,
'all out' is said twice
and
'STOP' three times.
Even if the engine is noisy or the radio distorted then the difference
is
always clear.


The UK verbal launch signals are said once in my experience but on a
similar vein -it had never occurred to me before but only a couple of
weeks ago it was pointed out to me by Don Irving (Chairman of the BGA
Instructors committee) that the best reason for sticking to them is
similar to Gavin's point:

Take up slack = 3 words
All Out = 2 words
Stop = 1 word

The verbal signals are called by the wing runner to the light signaller.
The winch receives the equivalent light signals (long slow flashes, faster
flashes, constant light)

Nowadays the pilot does not call launch commands. When he has accepted a
cable attachment he is deemed to be ready to launch and the the wing
runner (or a designated other) is responsible for making the calls
properly.

John Galloway

On Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:00:08 +0000, John Galloway wrote:

The UK verbal launch signals are said once in my experience

Only in some clubs. Mine repeats the phrase continuously during that
phase of the launch but with a pause at the end of each repetition. This
makes them unambiguous despite background and/or wind noise. The back
channel is the light on the winch, which has three states:

- off: winch is stopped or out of gear. Cable is safe to handle.
- flashing: winch is in gear, cable is live and must not be touched
or approached
- continuously on: the winch driver has stopped or is holding the launch.
The launch marshal will use the radio to find out why the stop light
is on.

similar vein -it had never occurred to me before but only a couple of
weeks ago it was pointed out to me by Don Irving (Chairman of the BGA
Instructors committee) that the best reason for sticking to them is
similar to Gavin's point:

Take up slack = 3 words
All Out = 2 words
Stop = 1 word

Agreed. I think the exact phrase is important vecause all three are quite
distinctive.

We have a hump in the middle of our field and so we use radio on a
dedicated channel to control winch launches.

Before the launch starts the winch driver is told who the pilot is, the
glider registration and type and which cable is to be used. This is
repeated back to the launch marshal for confirmation.

The pilot accepts the cable when he is ready to be launched and control
passes to the launch marshal for the rest of the launch unless the pilot
releases the cable. If there's an external hold the cable is also
released, this time under the launch marshal's direction.

When the launch marshal has checked and announced all is clear above and
behind he radios:

"winch, for the [TYPE] glider on your [left/right] cable, take up
slack ... take up slack ...", repeating the last phrase until the cable
is tight. Then he changes to:

"all out ... all out ... all out ... " until the glider is high enough to
be clearly visible to the winch driver, at which point transmission
ceases.

If anybody at the launch point sees an emergency developing he can stop
the launch by alerting the launch marshal, who changes his call to

"stop ... stop ... stop".

As you can see, the sound of the three calls is quite distinct, even over
wind noise on the mic and the sound of the winch. Most launch marshals
also emphasize the spoken rhythms to make the phrases as different as
possible.

That's for the winch. We use the same calls for an aero tow, prefixed
with the tug's call sign since this is a shared frequency but without any
repetition except that the stop call would still probably be "stop stop
stop".


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

At 21:00 09 April 2009, John Galloway wrote:


Nowadays the pilot does not call launch commands. When he has accepted a
cable attachment he is deemed to be ready to launch and the the wing
runner (or a designated other) is responsible for making the calls
properly.

When I first started gliding in the UK, the pilot used to control the
launch by holding up one finger, stationary, for 'up slack' and then two
fingers, waved in a sort of Churchillian Victory salute, for all out. The
problem was that student pilots often went on signalling all the way up
the launch and would then make a grab for the wrong knob when they got to
the top. I had students who tried to open the canopy, or pull the flap or
airbrake levers, when trying to release the cable!

When the arrangement outlined by John above came into force, there was
quite a lot of British resistance to it, as it was felt to be too
'French'. The French have a system where levelling the wings means 'all
out'. I always used to get shouted at in France for absent-mindedly
picking up wings before the glider was ready to launch, so you can see the
disadvantages of that system; at least when the 'Stupid Roast Beef
English' are around! They now normally back the signal up with a radio
call.

The current UK system also says that one person hooks the cable on and
then walks to the wingtip and picks it up, so less chance of launching
with somebody in front of the glider. The pilot should be holding the
release knob so that he/she can pull off immediately, if a problem such as
a wing drop occurs.

Derek Copeland

On 10 Apr, 09:15, Derek Copeland wrote:
At 21:00 09 April 2009, John Galloway wrote:

Nowadays the pilot does not call launch commands. When he has accepted a
cable attachment he is deemed to be ready to launch and the the wing
runner (or a designated other) is responsible for making the calls
properly.

When I first started gliding in the UK, the pilot used to control the
launch by holding up one finger, stationary, for 'up slack' and then two
fingers, waved in a sort of Churchillian Victory salute, for all out. The
problem was that student pilots often went on signalling all the way up
the launch and would then make a grab for the wrong knob when they got to
the top. I had students who tried to open the canopy, or pull the flap or
airbrake levers, when trying to release the cable!

When the arrangement outlined by John above came into force, there was
quite a lot of British resistance to it, as it was felt to be too
'French'.

Not just for that reason. The ostensible reason for the change was to
make sure that pilots had a hand free for the release in an emergency.
One might well point out that there ain't a much better guarantee that
a hand is free (and not fiddling with the electronics) than seeing it
waving around but no, that didn't do. And so now we are all free to
have our hands on the release know when the launch starts, thereby
greatly increasing the change of an unintentional release. Which
someone will in due course notice, and change it all again.

The problem with the new system is that the ground launch controllers
have to be good (which is not always the case) and carefully briefed
if there is anything odd about the type. The worst problems I have had
are when the glider starts moving with a bit of a jerk and slackens
the cable a bit. In the old days one just continued with the "take up
slack" until things were all lined up again - now the prodent pilot
pulls the bung and shouts "stop" in case one has one of the idiot
signallers who thinks any movement of the glider is the cue for "all
out".

Ian

On 9 Apr, 22:00, John Galloway wrote:

Take up slack = 3 words
All Out = 2 words
Stop = 1 word

The point of the different number of words is rather lost at clubs
which use "take up slack take up slack take take up slack all out all
out all out all out all out"

Nowadays the pilot does not call launch commands. When he has accepted a
cable attachment he is deemed to be ready to launch and the the wing
runner (or a designated other) is responsible for making the calls
properly.

Yeah, but that'll be changed again next time someone wants to make a
name for themselves in the BGA.

Ian