soaring into the future

We also do both at our airport here in the US. We also
have a winch captain or you might know them as GOD
(Glider Operations Director). It's the same as Del
writes below.
Sam

At 05:42 29 December 2007, Del C wrote:
Why not? Many European clubs offer both winch and aerotow
launches, including my own. Some members only ever
aerotow and some (usually the less well off) only winch
launch. Most members do both, depending on the conditions,
what they can afford, and what they want to do. A winch
launch costs less than a third of the cost of an aerotow,
so it is a cheap way of staying current during the
winter when it is rarely thermic in the UK. About
two-thirds of our launches are on the winch, so we
can make do with fewer tug aircraft than would be the
case if we were an all aerotow operation.

The only safety issue is to make sure that aerotows
and winch launches don't happen at the same time, to
eliminate the risk of the tug flying into the winch
cable. We have a 'launch point controller' to make
sure that this is the case.

Del Copeland

At 03:42 29 December 2007, Mike Schumann wrote:

snip
In order to be a safe and successful with winch launching,
you need to make
a 100% commitment. You can't run winches and tows
in parallel, if people
are going to get and stay proficient in winch launching.
In addition, the
only way winches are economically justifiable is if
you totally eliminate
the overhead, operating, and maintenance costs associated
with a tow plane.

On Dec 28, 11:23 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
toad wrote:
One big problem with winch launching in the US is finding somewhere to
get trained. I have been looking for a place to get the training and
have found no place close enough to get the training and 2 locations
which I could travel to and get a concentrated training. Anybody
want to add any operations to that list ?

Where are you located?

Connecticut

Todd Smith
3S

Hmmm! I don't think that we want to call our launch
point controllers GODs. Some of them are power mad
as it is!

Only kidding folks! Many of the weekend and evening
ones at our club are volunteers. They just need to
be responsible members who have undergone a short course
in the safety aspects of the job. It also helps if
they can develop eyes in the backs of their heads,
voices like foghorns to shout at people who are just
about to walk in front of a landing glider or a tug
taking off, and a steely manner to deal with members
who do stupid things on the ground or in the air.

Happy New Year
Del C

P.S. This is another posting that disappeared into
the gp.net black hole at the first attempt!


At 14:48 29 December 2007, Sam Discusflyer wrote:
We also do both at our airport here in the US. We also
have a winch captain or you might know them as GOD
(Glider Operations Director). It's the same as Del
writes below.
Sam

At 05:42 29 December 2007, Del C wrote:
Why not? Many European clubs offer both winch and aerotow
launches, including my own. Some members only ever
aerotow and some (usually the less well off) only winch
launch. Most members do both, depending on the conditions,
what they can afford, and what they want to do. A winch
launch costs less than a third of the cost of an aerotow,
so it is a cheap way of staying current during the
winter when it is rarely thermic in the UK. About
two-thirds of our launches are on the winch, so we
can make do with fewer tug aircraft than would be the
case if we were an all aerotow operation.

The only safety issue is to make sure that aerotows
and winch launches don't happen at the same time, to
eliminate the risk of the tug flying into the winch
cable. We have a 'launch point controller' to make
sure that this is the case.

Del Copeland

At 03:42 29 December 2007, Mike Schumann wrote:

snip
In order to be a safe and successful with winch launching,
you need to make
a 100% commitment. You can't run winches and tows
in parallel, if people
are going to get and stay proficient in winch launching.
In addition, the
only way winches are economically justifiable is if
you totally eliminate
the overhead, operating, and maintenance costs associated
with a tow plane.

toad wrote:
On Dec 28, 11:23 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
toad wrote:
One big problem with winch launching in the US is finding somewhere to
get trained. I have been looking for a place to get the training and
have found no place close enough to get the training and 2 locations
which I could travel to and get a concentrated training. Anybody
want to add any operations to that list ?
Where are you located?

Connecticut

Have you tried Mohawk Soaring?

http://mohawksoaring.org/

I'm not sure if they still have one, but they did fairly recently...

Marc

On Dec 29, 8:42 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
toad wrote:
On Dec 28, 11:23 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
toad wrote:
One big problem with winch launching in the US is finding somewhere to
get trained. I have been looking for a place to get the training and
have found no place close enough to get the training and 2 locations
which I could travel to and get a concentrated training. Anybody
want to add any operations to that list ?
Where are you located?

Connecticut

Have you tried Mohawk Soaring?

http://mohawksoaring.org/

I'm not sure if they still have one, but they did fairly recently...

Marc

Mohawk's website mentions it, but I think it's seasonal rather than a
regular activity.

I've just added Finger Lakes SC. I believe they are using dacron, or
were. Need to check with them on the details. There's a picture of
their winch (former PGC winch) in the March 2007 newsletter but
nothing else I could find.

Frank

Soaring in the Future???...........Was the topic! Hard to predict.
Much of the world still calls the sport "Gliding" Also, what future?
5 years 20 or 40 years?
Launch methods may have something to do with it. In Germany now, some
clubs are practicing bungee launches again, mostly to show the kids
some fun? On the other hand, the fathers and Grandfathers (Geezers)
not only try to fly 1000 km Distances during the summer but also
during their Winter in the southern hemisphere. There are several
soaring sites in Namibia alone, that you can check up on at the Online
Contest site (OLC).....what they are flying, and the hours and
Distances they are loging. Those 1000 km hunters are almost
exclusively flying selflaunchers, but have started soaring on winches
a long time ago, with very few exeptions. IMHO, selflaunching is the
future, but it may take some time, since there are so many pure
sailplanes still around, that need towing. Also, those self launch
glas slippers that BTW travel each fall and spring between Europe and
S-Afrika (Containers) are at the top end of performance, they will be
around for a while.

I am all for Winch Launching, I started that way too. I could see some
large commercially operated training sites, winch operated, offering
reasonable training,.sprinkled across the country, but soaring made
easy, would be a self launcher at your closest GA -airport, that you
can reach on that bicycle!... Remeber, all the other launch methods
need additional man power, which really is a $ (money) item. The tow
pilot, the wing runner, winch operator.

I think in the distant future the the self launch will have to change
in the way that they can easily taxi, move on the ground unassisted.
The expensive ones will most likely do that first and out of that
insight there might be evolving a self launch V-Sailplane, that almost
anybody can play with? In the not so distant future not much change,
unless some people make some huge efforts.

Soarski
Gliders Of Aspen (geezer)
..

In the States it seems that you pay everyone from the
instructors and tow pilots down to the guy who runs
with your wingtip. This makes gliding there rather
expensive.

Have you considered the 'mutual self help' system we
have in the UK, where the vast majority of these tasks
are carried out by suitably qualified club members
who don't get paid? Professional instructors, tug pilots
and winch drivers are very much in the minority, except
at the biggest clubs who run a seven-day-a-week operation.


A self launching capacity seems to add about £20k to
the cost of a new glider, and also makes it more expensive
to insure and maintain. You will also need to qualify
for an additional licence. It's also not quite the
same thing as a pure glider. Having said that, if I
won the National Lottery I would probably buy a self
launcher.

Del Copeland


At 04:12 31 December 2007, wrote:


I am all for Winch Launching, I started that way too.
I could see some
large commercially operated training sites, winch operated,
offering
reasonable training,.sprinkled across the country,
but soaring made
easy, would be a self launcher at your closest GA -airport,
that you
can reach on that bicycle!... Remeber, all the other
launch methods
need additional man power, which really is a $ (money)
item. The tow
pilot, the wing runner, winch operator.

I think in the distant future the the self launch will
have to change
in the way that they can easily taxi, move on the ground
unassisted.
The expensive ones will most likely do that first and
out of that
insight there might be evolving a self launch V-Sailplane,
that almost
anybody can play with? In the not so distant future
not much change,
unless some people make some huge efforts.

Soarski
Gliders Of Aspen (geezer)
..

Many of the clubs in the US are mutual self help. One of the attractions
for motor-gliders is not just the fact that you don't need help, but more
importantly that you can fly from your local metro airport, instead of
having to drive an hour or two to a rural location that has a glider
operation. Then add the ability to do downwind cross country dashes, and be
able to fly home when you are done, and you start getting peoples attention,
particularly those who have more money than time.

Mike Schumann

"Del C" wrote in message
...
In the States it seems that you pay everyone from the
instructors and tow pilots down to the guy who runs
with your wingtip. This makes gliding there rather
expensive.

Have you considered the 'mutual self help' system we
have in the UK, where the vast majority of these tasks
are carried out by suitably qualified club members
who don't get paid? Professional instructors, tug pilots
and winch drivers are very much in the minority, except
at the biggest clubs who run a seven-day-a-week operation.


A self launching capacity seems to add about £20k to
the cost of a new glider, and also makes it more expensive
to insure and maintain. You will also need to qualify
for an additional licence. It's also not quite the
same thing as a pure glider. Having said that, if I
won the National Lottery I would probably buy a self
launcher.

Del Copeland


At 04:12 31 December 2007, wrote:


I am all for Winch Launching, I started that way too.
I could see some
large commercially operated training sites, winch operated,
offering
reasonable training,.sprinkled across the country,
but soaring made
easy, would be a self launcher at your closest GA -airport,
that you
can reach on that bicycle!... Remeber, all the other
launch methods
need additional man power, which really is a $ (money)
item. The tow
pilot, the wing runner, winch operator.

I think in the distant future the the self launch will
have to change
in the way that they can easily taxi, move on the ground
unassisted.
The expensive ones will most likely do that first and
out of that
insight there might be evolving a self launch V-Sailplane,
that almost
anybody can play with? In the not so distant future
not much change,
unless some people make some huge efforts.

Soarski
Gliders Of Aspen (geezer)
..








--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On 29 Dec 2007, 04:02, Marc Ramsey wrote:
Ian wrote:

Over 2,500 Blaniks, 1,400 Ka-6's (all variants) and 1,100 Ka-8's were
built. I can't offhand think of (or find) any other 1,000+ runs, but
there have been some pretty big productions.

Given the current worldwide
soaring market, however, I can't see how anyone could count on producing
1000+ units of any design, unless it offers wicked high performance for
a ridiculously low price.

Agreed. I wonder how many gliders there are in service around the
world? I understand there are about 3,500 on the BGA register, but I
doubt if more than half of these will make it to EASA. There are lots
of older gliders lying around unused or semi-used, and I can't see
many owners bothering to jump through costly hoops with them.

But I digress. I'll guess (finger in the air) 2,000 gliders in the UK,
5,000 in Germany, 5,000 for the rest of Europe, 2,000 for the US,
5,000 for everywhere else. With a bit of bad addition, that's 20,000
worldwide. So a mass-produced run of 1,000 would be a 5% replacement/
augmentation of the worldwide fleet. That's a lot.

And just to make matters worse, the long lifespans of plastic gliders
mean that second-hand performance is comparatively cheap.

You need a fairly robust market (lots of people moving up to the latest
and greatest) for these hordes to materialize. When people buy fewer
new gliders (as seems to be the case in the US now), they keep their
older ones...

There are also price-performance issues. I happily fly 34:1 wood. To
move up to 40:1 glass would cost me a few (five?) thousand. For 45:1,
double it. For 50:1, double it again. For 55:1, double it again. For
60:1, double it again (GPB 80,000 for a second hand ASH-25). So to
clear room for a cheap 40:1 mass-produced glider, lots of pilots have
to make the jump up to 45+:1 ... which is expensive.

Ian

There are also price-performance issues. I happily fly 34:1 wood. To
move up to 40:1 glass would cost me a few (five?) thousand. For 45:1,
double it. For 50:1, double it again. For 55:1, double it again. For
60:1, double it again (GPB 80,000 for a second hand ASH-25). So to
clear room for a cheap 40:1 mass-produced glider, lots of pilots have
to make the jump up to 45+:1 ... which is expensive.

Bob K is on the road to getting that done. The HP-24 was designed from
the start to make use of production tooling and jigging for a serial
run of airframes.

I have not asked him what he has in to it so far, but my guess is he
could be flying around in one of those expensive 45:1 or 50:1 ships.
But instead he see's a makrket niche and at the same time is
satisfying a dream to design and build his own sailplane.

I am helping as much as I can, since I also have the dream of making
my own ship from the ground up............when we are done, we will
have some nice ships and the molds will be ready to fill for the next
pioneer to step up to the plate.

Brad
HP-24 S/N 2