OT WWII Memoirs (was SAFE Winch Launching ...)

At 17:15 26 July 2009, brianDG303 wrote:
On Jul 26, 12:15=A0am, Derek Copeland wrote:
We Brits get tired of always being airbrushed out of history by
Hollywood=
..
For example there were more British and British Commonwealth (e.g.
Australians, Canadians) troops involved in the D Day landings than US
troops, but you might not have noticed this if you watch 'Saving
Private
Ryan' and many other similar movies.

Throughout WW2 we bombed Germany by night without fighter cover, using
bombers such as the Lancaster and the Mosquito, which where less
heavily
amoured than a B17, but could carry a much greater weight of bombs as
a
result. In fact even the little unarmed twin engined Mosquito bombers
mad=
e
out of plywood could carry more bombs than a B17. I believe that they
didn't show up very well on radar because of their construction, so
they
were probably the original 'stealth bomber' =A0

On entering the European war the USAAF was warned by the RAF that
dayligh=
t
bombing raids over Germany would be pretty suicidal, as they had
already
found out the hard way, but of course the Americans (as usual) thought
they knew best and had better technology. The rest, Schweinfurt etc,
is
history!

I have to say however that the US bomber crews who took part in such
raid=
s
must have been very brave men, knowing that their tight, straight and
lev=
el
formations where sitting ducks for German radar predictive flak guns
and
=
a
well organised fighter force. It was only towards the end of the war
when
the Mustangs shot down many German fighters that the odds became a
little
more favourable for them.

Derek Copeland =A0 =A0

Derek,
Taking a single statistic (the number of troops landing on the
Normandy beaches) may be a fact but obscures the truth. The ritish
consider the invasion of Normandy to have begun on June 6 and ended on
August 29 of 1944, and the casualties (Killed, missing, wounded) of
British, Canadian, and Polish troops (there were very few Australians,
with about a dozen casualties I think) totaled 83,045 as against the
US losses of 125,847. These are the British numbers from the War
Diary, 21st Army Group, but other estimates are similar.

Also:
Hollywood movies are intended to make money and not portray history.

Your comment about French gratitude, we Americans like to forget that
without the French we could never have won the war of 1776 and the
cost to them of that help. We never thanked them much for that either.

Your comment about fighting Germany to a draw is simply not
supportable. Hitler's direction was always east but he turned west
when England and France declared war on Germany following his invasion
of Poland. He defeated France and put England in a box, then turned
east again. Two fatal errors in judgment, of which he was in the habit
of making.


Come to mention it, we Brits have never received much in the way of
gratitude from the Yanks for supporting George W Bush's futile and
counter productive invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan! So much for the
'special relationship'....!

Hitler's Germany tried very hard to invade the UK as they had already
done to Poland, Belgium, Holland and France and were beaten off, losing a
fair proportion of the Luftwaffe in the process. As well as shooting down
many attacking aircraft, the RAF also bombed the invasion fleets in the
French ports pretty well non stop, making the invasion non-viable. These
are historical facts.

Derek Copeland

On Jul 26, 11:45*am, Del C wrote:
At 17:15 26 July 2009, brianDG303 wrote:

On Jul 26, 12:15=A0am, Derek Copeland *wrote:
We Brits get tired of always being airbrushed out of history by
Hollywood=
..
For example there were more British and British Commonwealth (e.g.
Australians, Canadians) troops involved in the D Day landings than US
troops, but you might not have noticed this if you watch 'Saving
Private
Ryan' and many other similar movies.

Throughout WW2 we bombed Germany by night without fighter cover, using
bombers such as the Lancaster and the Mosquito, which where less
heavily
amoured than a B17, but could carry a much greater weight of bombs as
a
result. In fact even the little unarmed twin engined Mosquito bombers
mad=
e
out of plywood could carry more bombs than a B17. I believe that they
didn't show up very well on radar because of their construction, so
they
were probably the original 'stealth bomber' =A0

On entering the European war the USAAF was warned by the RAF that
dayligh=
t
bombing raids over Germany would be pretty suicidal, as they had
already
found out the hard way, but of course the Americans (as usual) thought
they knew best and had better technology. The rest, Schweinfurt etc,
is
history!

I have to say however that the US bomber crews who took part in such
raid=
s
must have been very brave men, knowing that their tight, straight and
lev=
el
formations where sitting ducks for German radar predictive flak guns
and
=
a
well organised fighter force. It was only towards the end of the war
when
the Mustangs shot down many German fighters that the odds became a
little
more favourable for them.

Derek Copeland =A0 =A0

Derek,
Taking a single statistic (the number of troops landing on the
Normandy beaches) may be a fact but obscures the truth. The ritish
consider the invasion of Normandy to have begun on June 6 and ended on
August 29 of 1944, and the casualties (Killed, missing, wounded) of
British, Canadian, and Polish troops (there were very few Australians,
with about a dozen casualties I think) totaled 83,045 as against the
US losses of 125,847. These are the British numbers from the War
Diary, 21st Army Group, but other estimates are similar.

Also:
Hollywood movies are intended to make money and not portray history.

Your comment about French gratitude, we Americans like to forget that
without the French we could never have won the war of 1776 and the
cost to them of that help. We never thanked them much for that either.

Your comment about fighting Germany to a draw is simply not
supportable. Hitler's direction was always east but he turned west
when England and France declared war on Germany following his invasion
of Poland. He defeated France and put England in a box, then turned
east again. Two fatal errors in judgment, of which he was in the habit
of making.

Come to mention it, we Brits have never received much in the way of
gratitude from the Yanks for supporting George W Bush's futile and
counter productive invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan! So much for the
'special relationship'....!

Hitler's Germany tried very hard to invade the UK as they had already
done to Poland, Belgium, Holland and France and were beaten off, losing a
fair proportion of the Luftwaffe in the process. As well as shooting down
many attacking aircraft, the RAF also bombed the invasion fleets in the
French ports pretty well non stop, making the invasion non-viable. These
are historical facts.

Derek Copeland

Derek,
agree with the facts, just not the conclusions. The UK won the Battle
of Britain (good job that!) but if Hitler's #1 goal had been to defeat
Britain he probably could have done so, I'm not convinced GB 'fought
him to a draw'. Hitler was defeated in large part by the temperature
and terrain of Russia as was Napoleon before him, along with Russia's
ability to take almost unlimited casualties in the process, and Russia
was always the goal.

Perhaps we should leave the Iraq/Afghanistan theater for another day.
Do they winch-launch there?


I'll be over in six weeks walking the ground of the AFalaise if you
can come over we could get into it and enjoy

As interesting as it is the discussion about who did what in the last war
has about as much relevance to gliding and safe winching as a tesion
controlled winch.

The differences are too numerous to mention except that a Spitfire,
Hurricane and Mustang all worked and did a useful job, unlike the mythical
tension controlled winch.

The 'constant tension' theory of winch launching was dreamed up by
someone in the US who has no practical experience of winch launching
whatsoever!

So far nobody has managed to built a true tension winch (which would
measure actual cable tension), so we don't know if the theory would work
or not. The concept seems to have become a bit of a Holy Grail in the US,
which is probably inhibiting the design and building of more conventional
winches that would work just fine.

On the Yahoo Winch Design site I have suggested carrying out some
autotowing experiments, where it would fairly easy to mount an in-line
load cell to find out if CT would work, but this suggestion was rejected
by the above person and his followers as not being relevant due to the
mass and inertia of the towcar. Such an experiment would work in calm
conditions.

There are a number of constraints in real life winch launching.

1) The minimum airspeed has to be at least 1.3 x the normal stalling speed
(Vs), to avoid the risk of stalling or spinning at the increased wing
loading due to the cable pull. At the high levels of pull suggested this
might increase to 1.4 Vs.

2) The optimum climbing airspeed for best gain of height seems from
practical experience to be in the range 1.5-1.6Vs.

3) Most gliders have a fairly low maximum winch launching speed (Vw),
which is set for structural reasons. There should also be a weak link
(fuse) included in the cable line which will break before the glider does.


4) Many gliders, particularly older ones such as the K13, only have a very
limited speed range in which they will climb safely and well without
exceeding Vw. The stalling speed of a K13 can increase to over 50knots
near the top of the launch, its optimum climb speed is about 56knots and
its Vw is 58knots. Some more modern types such as the K21 are a bit more
speed tolerant.

5) You have to fly the glider in such a manner that you can always
recover from a cable break or winch power failure, and not risk a stall or
flick spin. This entails a fairly shallow initial climb followed by a
controlled rotation rate of not more than 10 degrees per second. I believe
the Germans once managed to kill 12 pilots in one year (1995) by carrying
out what are known as 'kavalier starts' where the glider climbs very
steeply straight off the ground to maximise height. We have also had a few
such accidents in the UK, always on very powerful winches so rapid
acceleration doesn't make them safe.

The theory behind constant tension is you provide a pull or tension that
is close to the breaking strain of the weak link. Thus you maximise the
pull and the height gain in accordance with the Goulthorpe formula:
h = P/W/(1+P/W) x l
where h = height, P= Pull, W = glider weight and l = notional cable run
from the point of rotation.
Thus for a Pull equal to the weight of the glider you would expect to get
a height of 50% of the effective cable length.

However, the above equation is idealised and assumes zero cable weight and
zero drag, and is based on 100% transfer of energy.

For many years I launched on very powerful manually driven Tost winches.
Many of the launches were way over Vw until you signalled too fast, but it
was quite rare to break a weak link in the early part of the climb. I
therefore suspect that the constant tension as a large fraction of the
weak link strength idea would just vastly overspeed the launches. In order
to contain the speed according to the theory, you would have to climb at an
achieved climb angle of about 60 degrees. Most gliders run out of up
elevator well below this angle. Such an angle would also represent more
than a 'kavalier start' as described above!

The other idea in the 'constant tension' theory is that the glider pilot
would control the speed by pulling back harder to slow the launch down and
easing forward to speed up. However I worry that a pilot trying to control
the speed at the same time as the winch is trying to sense and control the
tension would just lead to an oscillating or hunting situation. As a winch
driver myself, I always try to avoid 'chasing the glider pilot' as this
generally makes things worse. If I have to make a speed adjustment I just
move the throttle to a slightly different setting and then hold it still
again. The technique for controlling the airspeed from the glider end does
work on a Skylaunch winch where you are giving a constant power setting and
also works on constant torque Supacat (diesel + fluid flywheel)) winches.
With either type of winch you have to start backing off the throttle
setting near the top of the launch to avoid overspeeding the glider.

We don't know if constant tension would give a constant and appropriate
airspeed, or whether it would need to be varied for different stages of
the launch to achieve this.

Derek Copeland



At 19:45 26 July 2009, Don Johnstone wrote:
As interesting as it is the discussion about who did what in the last
war
has about as much relevance to gliding and safe winching as a tesion
controlled winch.

The differences are too numerous to mention except that a Spitfire,
Hurricane and Mustang all worked and did a useful job, unlike the
mythical
tension controlled winch.

As I see it the "constant tension" theory relies on being able to measure
the tension being exerted on the glider release at the winch drum. Quite
how this might be achieved is very puzzling and has no relevance to the
information required to give a safe and effective launch.
If you were to say that measuring the tension at the glider release and
using telemetry to pass this information to the winch then that might
indeed work, however if you were going to the trouble of doing that you
might as well send useful information, like the airspeed of the glider, so
the winch driver could maintain a constant speed.
Cable tension during a winch launch has sod all to do with anything except
as an indicator to the winch driver of possible over or underspeed. It is
the speed which is of relevance and importance.

At 13:15 27 July 2009, Del C wrote:
The 'constant tension' theory of winch launching was dreamed up by
someone in the US who has no practical experience of winch launching
whatsoever!

So far nobody has managed to built a true tension winch (which would
measure actual cable tension), so we don't know if the theory would
work
or not. The concept seems to have become a bit of a Holy Grail in the
US,
which is probably inhibiting the design and building of more
conventional
winches that would work just fine.

On the Yahoo Winch Design site I have suggested carrying out some
autotowing experiments, where it would fairly easy to mount an in-line
load cell to find out if CT would work, but this suggestion was rejected
by the above person and his followers as not being relevant due to the
mass and inertia of the towcar. Such an experiment would work in calm
conditions.

There are a number of constraints in real life winch launching.

1) The minimum airspeed has to be at least 1.3 x the normal stalling
speed
(Vs), to avoid the risk of stalling or spinning at the increased wing
loading due to the cable pull. At the high levels of pull suggested this
might increase to 1.4 Vs.

2) The optimum climbing airspeed for best gain of height seems from
practical experience to be in the range 1.5-1.6Vs.

3) Most gliders have a fairly low maximum winch launching speed (Vw),
which is set for structural reasons. There should also be a weak link
(fuse) included in the cable line which will break before the glider
does.


4) Many gliders, particularly older ones such as the K13, only have a
very
limited speed range in which they will climb safely and well without
exceeding Vw. The stalling speed of a K13 can increase to over 50knots
near the top of the launch, its optimum climb speed is about 56knots and
its Vw is 58knots. Some more modern types such as the K21 are a bit more
speed tolerant.

5) You have to fly the glider in such a manner that you can always
recover from a cable break or winch power failure, and not risk a stall
or
flick spin. This entails a fairly shallow initial climb followed by a
controlled rotation rate of not more than 10 degrees per second. I
believe
the Germans once managed to kill 12 pilots in one year (1995) by
carrying
out what are known as 'kavalier starts' where the glider climbs very
steeply straight off the ground to maximise height. We have also had a
few
such accidents in the UK, always on very powerful winches so rapid
acceleration doesn't make them safe.

The theory behind constant tension is you provide a pull or tension that
is close to the breaking strain of the weak link. Thus you maximise the
pull and the height gain in accordance with the Goulthorpe formula:
h = P/W/(1+P/W) x l
where h = height, P= Pull, W = glider weight and l = notional cable run
from the point of rotation.
Thus for a Pull equal to the weight of the glider you would expect to
get
a height of 50% of the effective cable length.

However, the above equation is idealised and assumes zero cable weight
and
zero drag, and is based on 100% transfer of energy.

For many years I launched on very powerful manually driven Tost winches.
Many of the launches were way over Vw until you signalled too fast, but
it
was quite rare to break a weak link in the early part of the climb. I
therefore suspect that the constant tension as a large fraction of the
weak link strength idea would just vastly overspeed the launches. In
order
to contain the speed according to the theory, you would have to climb at
an
achieved climb angle of about 60 degrees. Most gliders run out of up
elevator well below this angle. Such an angle would also represent more
than a 'kavalier start' as described above!

The other idea in the 'constant tension' theory is that the glider
pilot
would control the speed by pulling back harder to slow the launch down
and
easing forward to speed up. However I worry that a pilot trying to
control
the speed at the same time as the winch is trying to sense and control
the
tension would just lead to an oscillating or hunting situation. As a
winch
driver myself, I always try to avoid 'chasing the glider pilot' as
this
generally makes things worse. If I have to make a speed adjustment I
just
move the throttle to a slightly different setting and then hold it still
again. The technique for controlling the airspeed from the glider end
does
work on a Skylaunch winch where you are giving a constant power setting
and
also works on constant torque Supacat (diesel + fluid flywheel))
winches.
With either type of winch you have to start backing off the throttle
setting near the top of the launch to avoid overspeeding the glider.

We don't know if constant tension would give a constant and appropriate
airspeed, or whether it would need to be varied for different stages of
the launch to achieve this.

Derek Copeland



At 19:45 26 July 2009, Don Johnstone wrote:
As interesting as it is the discussion about who did what in the last
war
has about as much relevance to gliding and safe winching as a tesion
controlled winch.

The differences are too numerous to mention except that a Spitfire,
Hurricane and Mustang all worked and did a useful job, unlike the
mythical
tension controlled winch.

At Feshiebridge, Scotland, AIUI they developed telemetry for
indicating glider airspeed to the winch driver, and it was said to
work very well. IIRC, it did not send an airspeed number in knots, but
rather an indication of too slow, a bit slow, OK, a bit fast, or too
fast (or something like that) which is what the winch driver really
needs to know, they believed. The unit in the glider was calibrated
for the glider type.

It needs somebody with first hand experience of it to tell more, and I
don’t know if it has been kept going.

Chris N.

I suspect fitting each and every glider with a telemetry transmitter
would be prohibitively expensive and resisted by most. A member of my
club did this as an experimental demonstration and I was able to drive
the winch to the appropriate airspeed. Getting accurate airspeed from
a rope mounted device for the whole fleet could be problematic.
Tension telemetry would be much easier to construct and ruggedize and
limiting tension by glider type (and loading) is doable, probably more
easily with hydraulically or electrically driven drums than with the
reciprocating and rotating weight of IC engines in a direct drive
(including automatic transmissions and drive trains) where airspeed
output would be more easily used. Tension control should allow for
wind gradients and shears but the control algorithms need to smooth
the changes to avoid surges and hunting. Manually driven winches
should not be discounted, but I have some ideas about standardization
of controls and operating methods.

Frank Whiteley


On Jul 27, 9:30*am, Don Johnstone wrote:
As I see it the "constant tension" theory relies on being able to measure
the tension being exerted on the glider release at the winch drum. Quite
how this might be achieved is very puzzling and has no relevance to the
information required to give a safe and effective launch.
If you were to say that measuring the tension at the glider release and
using telemetry to pass this information to the winch then that might
indeed work, however if you were going to the trouble of doing that you
might as well send useful information, like the airspeed of the glider, so
the winch driver could maintain a constant speed.
Cable tension during a winch launch has sod all to do with anything except
as an indicator to the winch driver of possible over or underspeed. It is
the speed which is of relevance and importance.

At 13:15 27 July 2009, Del C wrote:

The 'constant tension' theory of winch launching was dreamed up by
someone in the US who has no practical experience of winch launching
whatsoever!

So far nobody has managed to built a true tension winch (which would
measure actual cable tension), so we don't know if the theory would
work
or not. The concept seems to have become a bit of a Holy Grail in the
US,
which is probably inhibiting the design and building of more
conventional
winches that would work just fine.

On the Yahoo Winch Design site I have suggested carrying out some
autotowing experiments, where it would fairly easy to mount an in-line
load cell to find out if CT would work, but this suggestion was rejected
by the above person and his followers as not being relevant due to the
mass and inertia of the towcar. Such an experiment would work in calm
conditions.

There are a number of constraints in real life winch launching.

1) The minimum airspeed has to be at least 1.3 x the normal stalling
speed
(Vs), to avoid the risk of stalling or spinning at the increased wing
loading due to the cable pull. At the high levels of pull suggested this
might increase to 1.4 Vs.

2) The optimum climbing airspeed for best gain of height seems from
practical experience to be in the range 1.5-1.6Vs.

3) Most gliders have a fairly low maximum winch launching speed (Vw),
which is set for structural reasons. There should also be a weak link
(fuse) included in the cable line which will break before the glider
does.

4) Many gliders, particularly older ones such as the K13, only have a
very
limited speed range in which they will climb safely and well without
exceeding Vw. The stalling speed of a K13 can increase to over 50knots
near the top of the launch, its optimum climb speed is about 56knots and
its Vw is 58knots. Some more modern types such as the K21 are a bit more
speed tolerant.

5) You have to fly the glider in such a manner *that you can always
recover from a cable break or winch power failure, and not risk a stall
or
flick spin. This entails a fairly shallow initial climb followed by a
controlled rotation rate of not more than 10 degrees per second. I
believe
the Germans once managed to kill 12 pilots in one year (1995) by
carrying
out what are known as 'kavalier starts' where the glider climbs very
steeply straight off the ground to maximise height. We have also had a
few
such accidents in the UK, always on very powerful winches so rapid
acceleration doesn't make them safe.

The theory behind constant tension is you provide a pull or tension that
is close to the breaking strain of the weak link. Thus you maximise the
pull and the height gain in accordance with the Goulthorpe formula:
h = P/W/(1+P/W) x l
where h = height, P= Pull, W = glider weight and l = notional cable run
from the point of rotation.
Thus for a Pull equal to the weight of the glider you would expect to
get
a height of 50% of the effective cable length.

However, the above equation is idealised and assumes zero cable weight
and
zero drag, and is based on 100% transfer of energy.

For many years I launched on very powerful manually driven Tost winches.
Many of the launches were way over Vw until you signalled too fast, but
it
was quite rare to break a weak link in the early part of the climb. I
therefore suspect that the constant tension as a large fraction of the
weak link strength idea would just vastly overspeed the launches. In
order
to contain the speed according to the theory, you would have to climb at
an
achieved climb angle of about 60 degrees. Most gliders run out of up
elevator well below this angle. Such an angle would also represent more
than a 'kavalier start' as described above!

The other idea in the 'constant tension' theory is that the glider
pilot
would control the speed by pulling back harder to slow the launch down
and
easing forward to speed up. However I worry that a pilot trying to
control
the speed at the same time as the winch is trying to sense and control
the
tension would just lead to an oscillating or hunting situation. As a
winch
driver myself, I always try to avoid 'chasing the glider pilot' as
this
generally makes things worse. If I have to make a speed adjustment I
just
move the throttle to a slightly different setting and then hold it still
again. The technique for controlling the airspeed from the glider end
does
work on a Skylaunch winch where you are giving a constant power setting
and
also works on constant torque Supacat (diesel + fluid flywheel))
winches.
With either type of winch you have to start backing off the throttle
setting near the top of the launch to avoid overspeeding the glider. *

We don't know if constant tension would give a constant and appropriate
airspeed, or whether it would need to be varied for different stages of
the launch to achieve this.

Derek Copeland

At 19:45 26 July 2009, Don Johnstone wrote:
As interesting as it is the discussion about who did what in the last
war
has about as much relevance to gliding and safe winching as a tesion
controlled winch.

The differences are too numerous to mention except that a Spitfire,
Hurricane and Mustang all worked and did a useful job, unlike the
mythical
tension controlled winch.

Don Johnstone wrote:
...
If you were to say that measuring the tension at the glider release and
using telemetry to pass this information to the winch then that might
indeed work, however if you were going to the trouble of doing that you
might as well send useful information, like the airspeed of the glider, so
the winch driver could maintain a constant speed.
Cable tension during a winch launch has sod all to do with anything except
as an indicator to the winch driver of possible over or underspeed. It is
the speed which is of relevance and importance.


We have recently tested the Launch Assistent that is sold by Skylaunch,
http://www.skylaunchuk.com/index.htm
and have found that is can be (as the name indicates) an *assistant* to
the winch driver to help him/her judge the speed of the plane. It helps
escpecially unexperienced winch drivers, or in adverse conditions like
shearing winds within the launch.

After 20 years of experience as a winch driver and winch instructor
(Tost winch) I still believe a well instructed and experienced winch
driver (and all winch drivers should have a certain minimum of launches
per year) is able to judge and control the launch as good (or even
better) than any automated (tension-controlled) system, that in the end
also relies on the correct behavior of the pilot instead of the winch
driver.

--
Peter Scholz
ASW 24 JEB

Back to metrics - if you are measuring the wrong thing, the best you can
hope for is that it is irrelevant...

So - for a "good" winch, there are a couple of things you may want to
measure.

How much does it cost?
- Capital to purchase (and how long it lasts)
- Operating cost to service and run
- Repair cost when something breaks (including damage to the gliding fleet)
- How fast can it launch relative to requirement

Is it safe?
- How easy is it to control the acceleration?
- How easy is it to achieve the correct speed in all phases of the launch?
- How well does the set up accommodate for unexpected events (big
thermal, windshear, pilot error)

So far my experience and inclination tend to support the theory that the
key requirements to satisfy the above favour simplicity and human
control. I am a computer / automation professional, but there are some
things I would prefer a human doing. Driving and controlling the winch
is one of those. There are too many variables to concern yourself with.

As an exercise - Let's test a theory. (in the empirical sciences the
difference between a theory and an idea being that a theory can be
disproved by observation and deduction).

Lets say that my theory is that relying on a single metric for control
of a winch - specifically cable tension as measured anywhere on the
cable or drum is safe.


OK - can we disprove that? -

Let's say for argument that the pilot fails to rotate appropriately. For
any number of reasons. Constant tension must be applied in this model,
so energy transfer continues to be done and the glider speed increases
as there is no increase in potential energy.
After a very short period the glider is past Vw and the pilot dare not
rotate. If the pilot is incapable of, or is slow at releasing (for
whatever reason) the speed will continue to increase, as the available
landing area is consumed at an ever increasing rate. Clearly this is
not a safe situation.

Let's argue a different approach - Now let's say for argument that the
belief that the control over tension in the cable is so good that we
have disregarded the weak link specification and are relying on the
ability of the system to regulate tension. Now we follow a launch where
the cable predictably hooks on some grass causing a bow in the run. At
the all out the grass resists the considerable lateral pressure
momentarily, the winch achieves designed tension. Then the rope/wire
breaks free of the grass and the bow becomes slack cable. In attempting
to maintain tension the winch accelerates, removing the slack. At some
point in time the cable becomes straight, all slack has been absorbed
and the cable tension rapidly increases past the design tension.
Consider the reaction time of the system, given the rotational inertia
of the drum and transmission, to say nothing of the whip action on the
cable as the wave travels toward the aircraft. Once again I fail to see
how this is going to be safe.

In this case the judgement available in a manual control system
increases safety - you can't rely on automation to magically create
safety.

So what can we deduce?

Basically you are trying to measure how well a complex and potentially
dangerous operation is progressing. In a constantly changing medium,
with multiple sources of error and variance (not least caused by the
multiple human inputs) I know it is very tempting to believe that there
is one thing you have to worry about and it will all work out perfectly.
Regrettably this is a little like perfect landings. Rumour has it there
are only three things you have to get right. Problem is no-one can agree
on which three things...

In a winch launch one needs to decide on what to do based on aircraft
speed, height, position relative to the available runways, terrain and
traffic. Always considering the capabilities of the aircraft, pilot,
winch driver and not least the prevailing weather.

Clearly - Relying on one metric is dangerous oversimplification.
Now a tension limited winch may be a good thing, and a winch that can
smooth the tension in the cable to avoid spikes would be desirable.
And certainly I have seen some scary old manual winches. Funny thing is
- as long as you have people who communicate about what the performance
and experience is, and who learn and adapt to the vagaries of whatever
winch they are using. It tends to work. Usually surprisingly well.

So - in reality the technically complex winches use a lot of technology,
and then rely on the same judgement that a lot simpler and cheaper winch
uses.

To quote Hydrowinch
"The Hydrostart winch still runs on the original automatic force and
speed control software. A manual override is just one of the regulatory
safety features that have been there since the winch is in operation.
Because when it comes to safety, we can only rely on the winch driver's
judgement. The automatic control system is not running the winch. It's
there to assist the winch driver maintaining a constant quality and
launch performance."

Is this system better and safer - From an engineering perspective ,
definitely. Is is better value for money and safer than the person using
it? Unfortunately not.

Now - if people put as much effort into building and using the things as
is getting put into this debate - we would be doing well.

So far - lots of attempts to substitute technology have been
unsuccessful at displacing simple , robust semi manual systems with
proven reliability and controlability. There may be a prefect winch
design out there, and so far the evidence indicates that this is
something less than over engineered.

Again I submit - the metrics that matter are safety and economy.
For safety you need reliability, and controlability.

For economy you need simplicity, robustness and maximum use of "off the
shelf" components.

The only place I could possibly see justifying a technological super
winch, would be in a very high launch intensity 7 days a week operation.

If anyone can, and desires to make a better winch than any of the
commercial alternatives out there, profitably. Please do so - there are
customers who would love to make you commercially successful.

If you want to , and can afford to use/build something as far into the
overkill region as a Hydrostart, be grateful and enjoy the toys. Just
don't expect great economy/commercial success. As a technocrat - I would
love one. As a club member it would be a financial, maintenance and
operational disaster. Our best winch driver loves spending hours a day
getting the best out of our ancient single drum - but he can't use a
computer... Personally, I would love to be able to put a new "Skylaunch"
style winch at his disposal. It's the same reason the much maligned
Windows OS dominates desktops. It is not the "best" but it works for
most...

Bruce

Damn - I'm feeding trolls....

Don Johnstone wrote:
As I see it the "constant tension" theory relies on being able to measure
the tension being exerted on the glider release at the winch drum. Quite
how this might be achieved is very puzzling and has no relevance to the
information required to give a safe and effective launch.
If you were to say that measuring the tension at the glider release and
using telemetry to pass this information to the winch then that might
indeed work, however if you were going to the trouble of doing that you
might as well send useful information, like the airspeed of the glider, so
the winch driver could maintain a constant speed.
Cable tension during a winch launch has sod all to do with anything except
as an indicator to the winch driver of possible over or underspeed. It is
the speed which is of relevance and importance.

At 13:15 27 July 2009, Del C wrote:
The 'constant tension' theory of winch launching was dreamed up by
someone in the US who has no practical experience of winch launching
whatsoever!

So far nobody has managed to built a true tension winch (which would
measure actual cable tension), so we don't know if the theory would
work
or not. The concept seems to have become a bit of a Holy Grail in the
US,
which is probably inhibiting the design and building of more
conventional
winches that would work just fine.

On the Yahoo Winch Design site I have suggested carrying out some
autotowing experiments, where it would fairly easy to mount an in-line
load cell to find out if CT would work, but this suggestion was rejected
by the above person and his followers as not being relevant due to the
mass and inertia of the towcar. Such an experiment would work in calm
conditions.

There are a number of constraints in real life winch launching.

1) The minimum airspeed has to be at least 1.3 x the normal stalling
speed
(Vs), to avoid the risk of stalling or spinning at the increased wing
loading due to the cable pull. At the high levels of pull suggested this
might increase to 1.4 Vs.

2) The optimum climbing airspeed for best gain of height seems from
practical experience to be in the range 1.5-1.6Vs.

3) Most gliders have a fairly low maximum winch launching speed (Vw),
which is set for structural reasons. There should also be a weak link
(fuse) included in the cable line which will break before the glider
does.

4) Many gliders, particularly older ones such as the K13, only have a
very
limited speed range in which they will climb safely and well without
exceeding Vw. The stalling speed of a K13 can increase to over 50knots
near the top of the launch, its optimum climb speed is about 56knots and
its Vw is 58knots. Some more modern types such as the K21 are a bit more
speed tolerant.

5) You have to fly the glider in such a manner that you can always
recover from a cable break or winch power failure, and not risk a stall
or
flick spin. This entails a fairly shallow initial climb followed by a
controlled rotation rate of not more than 10 degrees per second. I
believe
the Germans once managed to kill 12 pilots in one year (1995) by
carrying
out what are known as 'kavalier starts' where the glider climbs very
steeply straight off the ground to maximise height. We have also had a
few
such accidents in the UK, always on very powerful winches so rapid
acceleration doesn't make them safe.

The theory behind constant tension is you provide a pull or tension that
is close to the breaking strain of the weak link. Thus you maximise the
pull and the height gain in accordance with the Goulthorpe formula:
h = P/W/(1+P/W) x l
where h = height, P= Pull, W = glider weight and l = notional cable run
from the point of rotation.
Thus for a Pull equal to the weight of the glider you would expect to
get
a height of 50% of the effective cable length.

However, the above equation is idealised and assumes zero cable weight
and
zero drag, and is based on 100% transfer of energy.

For many years I launched on very powerful manually driven Tost winches.
Many of the launches were way over Vw until you signalled too fast, but
it
was quite rare to break a weak link in the early part of the climb. I
therefore suspect that the constant tension as a large fraction of the
weak link strength idea would just vastly overspeed the launches. In
order
to contain the speed according to the theory, you would have to climb at
an
achieved climb angle of about 60 degrees. Most gliders run out of up
elevator well below this angle. Such an angle would also represent more
than a 'kavalier start' as described above!

The other idea in the 'constant tension' theory is that the glider
pilot
would control the speed by pulling back harder to slow the launch down
and
easing forward to speed up. However I worry that a pilot trying to
control
the speed at the same time as the winch is trying to sense and control
the
tension would just lead to an oscillating or hunting situation. As a
winch
driver myself, I always try to avoid 'chasing the glider pilot' as
this
generally makes things worse. If I have to make a speed adjustment I
just
move the throttle to a slightly different setting and then hold it still
again. The technique for controlling the airspeed from the glider end
does
work on a Skylaunch winch where you are giving a constant power setting
and
also works on constant torque Supacat (diesel + fluid flywheel))
winches.
With either type of winch you have to start backing off the throttle
setting near the top of the launch to avoid overspeeding the glider.

We don't know if constant tension would give a constant and appropriate
airspeed, or whether it would need to be varied for different stages of
the launch to achieve this.

Derek Copeland



At 19:45 26 July 2009, Don Johnstone wrote:
As interesting as it is the discussion about who did what in the last
war
has about as much relevance to gliding and safe winching as a tesion
controlled winch.

The differences are too numerous to mention except that a Spitfire,
Hurricane and Mustang all worked and did a useful job, unlike the
mythical
tension controlled winch.

At 18:45 26 July 2009, Del C wrote:

Hitler's Germany tried very hard to invade the UK as they had already
done to Poland, Belgium, Holland and France and were beaten off, losing
a
fair proportion of the Luftwaffe in the process. As well as shooting
down
many attacking aircraft, the RAF also bombed the invasion fleets in the
French ports pretty well non stop, making the invasion non-viable. These
are historical facts.

Germany could have swept up the British troops at Dunkirk,
and then immediately invaded with a pretty good chance of
success. But Hitler dithered, and listened to Goering, and
blew his chance. He really did make quite a few decisions
that, in hindsight at least, were disastrous. We should,
I suppose, be grateful for that.

Jim Beckman