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#21
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There are other risks than the glider hook hanging up. At North Weald,
we broke a child's leg when the drogue dropped into a group of young football players and dragged one of them along the ground - the chopper man decided not to pull the release but should have done. (Agreed there were others things that should have avoided such accidents, but Sod's law says that if something can go wrong it will if you keep trying long enough.) The requirement for a guillotine should not be dismissed lightly. We also had a fatal accident on the ground - one end of the cable snagged during retrieve, got very tight, and snapped back when a man at the launch point went to release it, pulling him over, resulting in a fractured skull. Tow truck driver didn't know there was a problem. The victim forgot his training, to ensure the cable was slack before releasing it from the truck. (If the chopper man had cut it when it snagged, it would not have hurt anyone.) Launch systems can bite, and will, if safety is not taken very seriously. Chris N. __________________________________________________ _________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com |
#22
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In message , Chris Nicholas
writes Martin Gregorie wrote [snip] " . . .I think items 7 and 10 should be swapped so the weak link is part of the wire strop assembly and item 4 should be selected so its colour matches the colour of the weak link." Some clubs, including mine, do that - change the strop with weak link attached, to suit the glider. Some have several weak links on the cable and just switch the same strop from one to another. Some may just change the weak link, with quick releases either side, so only one strop is needed. Fairly common practice that I have seen at all of the clubs I regularly fly from (Cotswold, Mynd, Port Moak) go Tost Rings - shock rope - weak link - quick change link. The logic for this is that if you do break the weak link then you stand a chance of finding the tost rings as they will have the shock rope that is usually covered by a brightly coloured plastic pipe. The shock rope length is about 6 to 10 feet long, port moak's is shorter. Some clubs also choose coloured pipe to match the weak link colour. For What It's Worth. I fly from Cotswold and witnessed the last couple of years of the reverse pulley system. It was simple to use but - It was extremely tough on the vehicles with high maintenance costs and effort; The single strand wire broke very readily; It was hard to get a good launch for heavier gliders; The knots had to be cut out and re-made every morning before flying; There was a significant dip in the launch just after rotation as the truck gearbox changed gear. We averaged 1,000 to 1,500 ft launches but did get to much higher on occasion. (1 Mile Runway). We replaced the system with a Skylaunch winch using stranded steel wire. This is much more repeatable and gets launches between 1,400 and 1,800 feet with a much greater availability. We fly gliders ranging from K8s to Duo Discus's and get good launches with lots of good cross countries. We do have a tug on site which gets used a fair amount but most people winch. One of our full cats managed to get 30 mins with a T31 on Friday so it can't be that bad and he only came down thinking that the owner (me) wanted it back. Seriously, winching works well if you have a ridge within a straight glide and if you have reasonable thermal sources around the airfield but do get good instruction on it as it is easy to get into very bad habits masked by the power of modern winches which will then bite you. Hope this helps Robin Chris N. _________________________________________________ __________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com -- Robin Birch |
#23
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On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 23:40:08 +0100, Robin Birch wrote:
We averaged 1,000 to 1,500 ft launches but did get to much higher on occasion. (1 Mile Runway). We replaced the system with a Skylaunch winch using stranded steel wire. This is much more repeatable and gets launches between 1,400 and 1,800 feet with a much greater availability. I was once winched in an SF-25 there. It was pretty calm but we still made 1300 ft. The ride up was quite odd: climbing out steeply with a stationary three-blader in front. We glided around for 400 feet before hitting the starter and flying back to Nympsfield. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org | |
#24
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At 09:36 03 September 2005, Ian Johnston wrote: (snip)
Personally, I think it's time we stopped messing about with spring loaded cutters and went to explosive ones, but that's incidental here! Ian Er.......you are kidding, right? |
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