Winch Launching

Caesar Creek Soaring Club is investigating the possibility of winch
launching on our field. As expected there are very polarized opinions
on the merits, value, and safety of winch launching. I would
appreciate any rational inputs on the merits of winching or reference
data from other sites on training merits and safety. Actual experience
data would also be appreciated.
Thanks

Rolf Hegele
President, CCSC

This has been discussed here many times, and if you search the archieves
you'll find plenty of material. Anyway, a short summary:

Pro:
- it is safe *if* done properly. Be sure to get thorough instruction by
experienced people.
- cheaper than aerotow
- "greener" than aerotow
- it is fun!

Con:
- it mixes poorly with power traffic (but it is doable if you have a
plan and everybody cooperates)
- boring for the winch driver
- needs more ground staff
- limited in height and distance, i.e. you can't tow to that thermal 10
miles away if there's none nearby

On Jan 4, 3:59 pm, John Smith wrote:
This has been discussed here many times, and if you search the archieves
you'll find plenty of material. Anyway, a short summary:

Pro:
- it is safe *if* done properly. Be sure to get thorough instruction by
experienced people.
- cheaper than aerotow
- "greener" than aerotow
- it is fun!

Con:
- it mixes poorly with power traffic (but it is doable if you have a
plan and everybody cooperates)
You only need the airspace over the airfield for less then a minute so
if you keep everybody advised on CTAF, there's no real problem. Pull
the rope out on the grass between the asphalt and the runway edge
lights where it's out of everyone's way. Many winch groups operate
from fairly busy single runway public airports.

- boring for the winch driver
Well, it's fun for me.

- needs more ground staff
You do need a wing runner with a CG hook, but otherwise, it's the same
number of people as aero tow (either the wing runner or winch driver
can pull out the rope) - of course, you can use more people with a
winch
..
- limited in height and distance, i.e. you can't tow to that thermal 10 miles away if there's none nearby
The practical reality is that you rarely actually know there is a
thermal 10 miles away. If there's lift around, you can find it with a
2000'AGL winch launch - if there's no lift around, why consider an
aero tow?

Bill Daniels

After ~250 aerotows, I recently got my winch endorsement. It was much
easier than I expected and I hope to do a lot more of them this summer
(should it ever arrive).

With the encroachment of urban development on many of our glider
operations and the price of gas (it *will* spike again), I believe
that winch launching is the future of our sport, whether we like it or
not. So, let's embrace the future.

Rolf if you get a winch I hope you'll share your club's experience
here.

..02NO

Finding a long enough strip is exceedingly difficult in some parts of the
country.

At 23:59 04 January 2009, John Smith wrote:
This has been discussed here many times, and if you search the archieves

you'll find plenty of material. Anyway, a short summary:

Pro:
- it is safe *if* done properly. Be sure to get thorough instruction by
experienced people.
- cheaper than aerotow
- "greener" than aerotow
- it is fun!

Con:
- it mixes poorly with power traffic (but it is doable if you have a
plan and everybody cooperates)
- boring for the winch driver
- needs more ground staff
- limited in height and distance, i.e. you can't tow to that thermal 10

miles away if there's none nearby

On Jan 4, 9:00*pm, Nyal Williams wrote:
Finding a long enough strip is exceedingly difficult in some parts of the
country.

Spoken by one in a club that recently moved and purchased an airport.
But as I understand it your club apparently does have an option to
extend your length enough to adopt winching with some bartering.

A winch can be parked some distance from the end of the runway.
Overruns at municipal airports are usually at least 500ft. Runway
light of concern are usually easily removed for the day. Granted,
CCSC is rather short for 'performance' winching, and Red Stewart
airport (1.5miles distant), where the winch proponents did a
significant number of launches this past year is a bit longer, however
at that airfield there may be an opportunity to park the winch well
past the airfield boundary, an option that doesn't exist at the CCSC
site. Mixed operations are quite manageable, mostly it's
communications, communications, communications.

Thinking 'way outside the box', 16.1 miles distant is Wilmington Air
Park, owned by DHL, who is pulling out of the US market. Two runways,
(4250' separation), of 9000' and greater length but 150' wide. Opt
for the shorter one and share the airport with UPS or FEDEX or whoever
may want to serve Cincinnati from there. This may be a golden
opportunity, but it would take 5-day operations most of the season to
make it happen. Of course, Wilmington Air Park doesn't have the park-
like ambiance of CCSC's present site. To gain 1200 more feet at the
present site, CCSC would have to acquire land and close a road; two
big and expensive challenges. There appears to be some type of
easement or right of way to the south that might become a new road and
high tension lines to the far east beyond the houses that could
parallel new private lanes.

Winching is quite safe unless you simply must get everyone involved in
driving the winch. CCSC already has a team concept at work and
extending this to winching would seem trivial. The boring bit about
winch driving is waiting while some instructors and students are doing
ground school at the launch point. If the glider is ready when the
rope arrives, a single drum winch can keep up with a tow plane. A two-
drum winch will outrun any tow plane in terms of vertical feet per
day. Few, if any, tow ten miles to lift. Most club boards would put
high fees on twenty minute turn arounds in flat country. I think
that's more common in the mountain west where the tach hour charges
apply for long, high tows. Not clear from the web site about the
actual fees. There seems to be some discrepancies between the rate/
100ft on the web and the schedule and the hook up charge. This would
seem to need re-thinking for winching, that is, the ratio of hook-up
charge to launch charge.

Frank Whiteley

On Jan 4, 5:42*pm, Rolf wrote:
Caesar Creek Soaring Club is investigating the possibility of winch
launching on our field. As expected there are very polarized opinions
on the merits, value, and safety of winch launching. I would
appreciate any rational inputs on the merits of winching or reference
data from other sites on training merits and safety. Actual experience
data would also be appreciated.
Thanks

Rolf Hegele
President, CCSC


Well, I can see you are taking a more measured and scientific approach
than I did in acquiring a winch! I have discovered in my half century
(plus) of life that if I try to answer all the questions before a
substantial act of initiative, then A) I never get to the end of the
questions, and B) my subliminal goal is to scuttle the project and
relax again. Ha! Certainly I am not accusing you of this, because what
you are doing is also rightly called due-diligence - a rational and
prudent first step. So I would ask, before we emerse ourselves in
radio calls and line captains and frequencies, is staging and winching
gliders something you can visualize at your field? Can you picture it
in operation? Where do the gliders wait before being staged for
launch? Where do they land? How much line can you handle? Is it
enough? Where does the retrieve vehicle drive? If the answers are
positive, then do it! (my humble recommendation)

It is SO much fun and SO beneficial to students who need to learn to
land consistently.

I acquired a winch almost a year ago and have used it to launch a pair
of Grob 103s and an ASK21 several hundred times over the course of the
2008 season here in Faribault, Minnesota (http://
www.crosscountrysoaring.com). There are photos/video on the web site.
We do an average of 1000 launches (aero+winch) each seven-month
season...probably 70% instruction, 30% rides (sold at mall kiosks over
Xmas).

My very first step after buying the winch was to seek expertise.

Bill Daniels and Frank Whiteley spent several days with us teaching us
how a winch operation should work. They delivered this expert
instruction/experience for travel/hotel/food expenses. You can't beat
that. And in hindsight, this step was absolutely mandatory. Having
said that, and bowing to any additions/corrections these two might
make to what I am about to write, here are a some randomly occurring
thoughts:

1. It will be more fun than you thought (my decision to buy was purely
pragmatic, but it's an absolute blast)
2. 4-6 launches per hour is great for students - both for their
training and their wallets
3. Be overly cautious/respectful about announcing and clearing the
runway. You want power pilots on your side. They will love watching
the launch. Give the local power guys a free ride. Always call them
first on the radio if they are running up or entering the pattern and
let them know you can accomodate them (or if you can't, why).
4. Yes, the winch and a quart of gas launches a glider to 2000FT, does
not require expensive insurance, is not threatened by A/Ds, does not
require expensive hangar space, does not have to be operated by a
commercially rated pilot and can be worked on by anyone (no A/P or IA
necessary). So you got all that going for you. Which is nice.
5. All emergency rope breaks are handled "nose-down and straight
ahead" unless you are so high that you decide on an abbreviated
pattern. Very nice to have down-wind landings and dog-legs into
adjacent fields a thing of the past.
6. On the negative side - visualize a power failure at 2000FT and
where the cable/rope will go given the wind direction and strength.
7. On the negative side - you have to be "switched on". The first ten
seconds of the launch requires complete focus. If something goes wrong
and you expect to sort it out in real time, you're asking for it. You
should have a plan of action and execute on cue.
8. We have the option of giving up a few hundred feet of rope and
launching from the hard runway. When we don't have a wing runner, we
do this. We have added a winch call - "go easy" - in between the "up
slack" and "go" calls. The "go easy" call instructs the winch driver
to give us enough speed to level the wings. Once leveled, we call in
the "go go go" signal. This is our own creation and seems to work
really well. In fact, it's a bit easier on the tail of the Grob as it
doesn't tend to bang down from a rolling start. This allows us to
operate with one pilot and one winch driver (who also drives
retrieve). This probably wouldn't work on grass.
9. Driving the winch does get boring. Having the winch driver also
driving retrieve seems to lessen the boredom (win-win)
10. Use Spectra/Dyneema, not steel cable (safetly, performance,
handling - all better).
11. The winch has breathed excitement back into the operation.
Students love it and request it for training.
12. The winch is drawing publicity. We have made the local papers
twice.
13. We get to 2000 feet with two people in a Grob 103 Twin II in a 10
MPH headwind with 5000FT of Dyneema.
14, We operate from a Municipal Airport. We pull the runway lights at
either end before commencing operations (Google Earth is a great tool
for assessing winch potential. If you look at FBL, we stage the winch
and glider about 300-400 feet off the ends of 30/12).


We have had no accidents or incidents to date. Where aerotow is a more
"focus here and then there and then the airport is quiet again" type
launch operation, a winch operation requires constant attention, from
launch to chute drop to retrieve to restaging, back to launch again.
As soon as you get lax, a Piper will show up on short final with the
retrieve car coming head-on the other way...and words will be
spoken. :-)
Contact me privately (use the Contact Us page of the web site) if
you'd like more of my first year's experiences.
Time to sleep!
Good luck. (do it)

-Don Ingraham

bildan wrote:

- limited in height and distance, i.e. you can't tow to that thermal 10 miles away if there's none nearby

The practical reality is that you rarely actually know there is a
thermal 10 miles away. If there's lift around, you can find it with a
2000'AGL winch launch - if there's no lift around, why consider an
aero tow?

This depends on the location. At our site, we seldom can reach a thermal
from the winch, and even on those rare days not reliably. So as much as
we'd like to use it for cross country launches (heck, it *is* cheaper
and more fun!), winch launches are pretty much limited to student
instruction.

On the other hand, we often *do* know that there's that thermal 10 miles
away. First, because it is always there, and second, because of the
forming cumulus. But between our site and that thermal, there are 10
miles of sink. Agreed, on most days there eventually will grow thermals
near the airfield, but only at noon, when those pilots who did a aerotow
have already 2 hours under their belt and are 100 miles away. Agreed,
you can fill that gap with a sustainer, but then, you can as well
aerotow. Most airports weren't planned by glider pilots!

Rolfe:

Moved to England from North Carolina before last season. Three
thoughts on my experience changing over from aerotow to winch. First,
where I've flown (Long Mynd) the winch was only good for 1100 feet in
a two-seater (ASK21) flown by a winch novice like me. The old hands
didn't get more than a couple hundred feet above that. It was very
hard climbing out with so little time/altitude. I was spoiled by
2,000 ft plus aerotows. It was discouraging. Second, I almost got
myself into a real fix by not thinking of the airspace above and
around the winch run as different from the airspace around and above
an aerotow setup. Rules about the pattern--where and how it can be
joined need to be developed and reinforced to reflect the difference
of a cable sweeping through the airspace above the runway in a matter
of seconds with little or no warning to those flying in the vicinity.
Third, I used to see a wing drop every other day at the beginning of
launches at aerotow operations with no ill effects. As I understand
it, dropping a wing at the beginning of a winch launch can be very
dangerous, so I was told to stay vigilant and keep a hand on the cable
release should a wing drop.

Kevin



On 4 Jan, 23:42, Rolf wrote:
Caesar Creek Soaring Club is investigating the possibility of winch
launching on our field. As expected there are very polarized opinions
on the merits, value, and safety of winch launching. I would
appreciate any rational inputs on the merits of winching or reference
data from other sites on training merits and safety. Actual experience
data would also be appreciated.
Thanks

Rolf Hegele
President, CCSC

I wonder if one of the new generation winches like the Hydrowinch with
a 4000ft launch would make a difference. Most winch operations I have
read about all end with a 2K+ launch which does not give you a lot of
time before starting a landing pattern. Just imagine a 4K launch
without any lift, it still ends up being a perfect training flight of
15-25 minutes. I really want to go out to Colorado and test out the
new prototype and see if it is for real. Too bad they cost so much $$$
$$.