SAFE Winch Launching

On Jul 21, 9:26*pm, bildan wrote:
On Jul 21, 4:12*pm, tommytoyz wrote:

Perhaps the way to go is just buy a good used winch from a European
club. What was the offered price again for that old Tost winch at
Lasham?

Actually, if you look at the German web sitewww.segelflug.declick on
the English flag and then on "commercials" (and discover it's still in
German) but persist by scrolling down to "Biete Sonstiges", (other
gear) you find several used European winches for sale along with a lot
of other interesting glider stuff.

However, you're right. *Shipping costs are a deal killer. *Most likely
it's still better to build your own.

From what I hear, shipping costs are not high at the moment, even for
40ft containers. Ro-ro may be a cheaper option on some, especially if
self propelled. It will be a small percentage of the total cost.

Your bigger obstacle is finding the right site. It may not be your
current site. But if you use the modern synthetic ropes, it will open
up many more options than trying to use steel.

Frank Whiteley

Frank Whiteley

At 22:01 21 July 2009, tommytoyz wrote:
I see that their main business is making winches and that's why they
charge what they charge. But it doesn't make sense to spend $90,000 on
their cheaper system, not including transportation costs to the US,
when the engine/transmission costs less than $10,000. I mean, $5,000
for a GUILLOTINE ASSEMBLY for over $5,000 on a double drum - come on.

Perhaps the best way to go is buy the bare bones Kit for a "mere"
$44,000 not counting transportation. Any way you slice it, with
Skylaunch, it's not possible to be operational for less than $60,000,
which would include a lot of sweat equity. I think it's a bit much.
Tom

On the other hand you are paying for expertise, development costs and a
machine that is known to be safe, to work well and to be easy to drive.
There is a lot more to a decent winch than just the engine and gearbox.
How much would you expect to pay for a decent towplane?

There are many homebuilt winches lying around rusting because they didn't
work well or were just bloody dangerous. Any money spent on them was
wasted.

As Skylaunch import their engines from the US anyway, it would make sense
to buy them locally rather than shipping them twice across the Atlantic.

Derek Copeland

On Jul 22, 12:30*am, Derek Copeland wrote:
At 22:01 21 July 2009, tommytoyz wrote:I see that their main business is making winches and that's why they
charge what they charge. But it doesn't make sense to spend $90,000 on
their cheaper system, not including transportation costs to the US,
when the engine/transmission costs less than $10,000. I mean, $5,000
for a GUILLOTINE ASSEMBLY for over $5,000 on a double drum - come on.

Perhaps the best way to go is buy the bare bones Kit for a "mere"
$44,000 not counting transportation. Any way you slice it, with
Skylaunch, it's not possible to be operational for less than $60,000,
which would include a lot of sweat equity. I think it's a bit much.
Tom

On the other hand you are paying for expertise, development costs and a
machine that is known to be safe, to work well and to be easy to drive.
There is a lot more to a decent winch than just the engine and gearbox.
How much would you expect to pay for a decent towplane?

There are many homebuilt winches lying around rusting because they didn't
work well or were just bloody dangerous. Any money spent on them was
wasted.

As Skylaunch import their engines from the US anyway, it would make sense
to buy them locally rather than shipping them twice across the Atlantic.

Derek Copeland

It would make still more sense to just look at the "special parts" and
build equivalents in the US. There's no "magic" in the Skylaunch that
couldn't be replicated here at much lower cost - assuming you'd
acutally want to do that. "You can take the transmission out of the
road vehicle, but you can't take the road vehicle behavior out of the
transmission."

Actually, a different picture is emerging about these old US winches.
Most of them seem to have been taken out of service when they simply
wore out and because aero tow became universally available not because
they didn't work. Then there's the fact that they were built to
launch then current gliders which didn't require so much power.

A recent Gerhlein refurbishment project ended with the overhaul or
replacement of just about everything except the license plate.

So what are you saying Bill?

That old technology actually works and being brought up to date
does the job people want?

Dave

At 15:39 22 July 2009, bildan wrote:
On Jul 22, 12:30=A0am, Derek Copeland wrote:
At 22:01 21 July 2009, tommytoyz wrote:I see that their main business
is=
making winches and that's why they
charge what they charge. But it doesn't make sense to spend $90,000
on
their cheaper system, not including transportation costs to the US,
when the engine/transmission costs less than $10,000. I mean, $5,000
for a GUILLOTINE ASSEMBLY for over $5,000 on a double drum - come on.

Perhaps the best way to go is buy the bare bones Kit for a "mere"
$44,000 not counting transportation. Any way you slice it, with
Skylaunch, it's not possible to be operational for less than
$60,000,
which would include a lot of sweat equity. I think it's a bit much.
Tom

On the other hand you are paying for expertise, development costs and
a
machine that is known to be safe, to work well and to be easy to
drive.
There is a lot more to a decent winch than just the engine and
gearbox.
How much would you expect to pay for a decent towplane?

There are many homebuilt winches lying around rusting because they
didn't
work well or were just bloody dangerous. Any money spent on them was
wasted.

As Skylaunch import their engines from the US anyway, it would make
sense
to buy them locally rather than shipping them twice across the
Atlantic.

Derek Copeland

It would make still more sense to just look at the "special parts" and
build equivalents in the US. There's no "magic" in the Skylaunch
that
couldn't be replicated here at much lower cost - assuming you'd
acutally want to do that. "You can take the transmission out of the
road vehicle, but you can't take the road vehicle behavior out of the
transmission."

Actually, a different picture is emerging about these old US winches.
Most of them seem to have been taken out of service when they simply
wore out and because aero tow became universally available not because
they didn't work. Then there's the fact that they were built to
launch then current gliders which didn't require so much power.

A recent Gerhlein refurbishment project ended with the overhaul or
replacement of just about everything except the license plate.

Bill,
How much did the Gehrlein overhaul cost? Perhaps this could process
can be replicated several times over. My guess is that once small
scale winch launching grabs a foothold via Gehrlein winches and it
becomes more popular and more pilots get winch certified, that demand
will grow and we'll see the need for more productive multiple drum
winches. Perhaps we can then use the Gehrleins as retrieve winches at
that point.

Launch costs can be brought down so low, as to stimulate soaring in
this country. I myself am tired of paying $50 for one single aerotow -
it's nuts. Nothing will stimulate soaring more than to bring the costs
down and winch launching not only does that but makes soaring more
challenging and fun too!

I know, I'm preaching to the choir. So, choir, we need a cheap initial
solution to get things moving - to demonstrate and get people
certified - before we can realistically talk about expensive, albeit
more productive, winches.
Tom

On Jul 22, 12:48*pm, tommytoyz wrote:
Bill,
How much did the Gehrlein overhaul cost? Perhaps this could process
can be replicated several times over. My guess is that once small
scale winch launching grabs a foothold via Gehrlein winches and it
becomes more popular and more pilots get winch certified, that demand
will grow and we'll see the need for more productive multiple drum
winches. Perhaps we can then use the Gehrleins as retrieve winches at
that point.

Launch costs can be brought down so low, as to stimulate soaring in
this country. I myself am tired of paying $50 for one single aerotow -
it's nuts. Nothing will stimulate soaring more than to bring the costs
down and winch launching not only does that but makes soaring more
challenging and fun too!

I know, I'm preaching to the choir. So, choir, we need a cheap initial
solution to get things moving - to demonstrate and get people
certified - before we can realistically talk about expensive, albeit
more productive, winches.
Tom

Once you have the winch, budget $10,000-$20,000 for engine/
transmission, battery, wiring, new drum, feed assembly and guillotine
improvement, tires, UHMWPE rope, chute/disk, rings, weak links, strop,
paint, good communications devices and chocks.

Frank Whiteley

Has anybody in the good old US of A developed a printed, available,
specification for the pay-on gear for Dyneema etc. rope – like low
weight (aluminum? - note USA spelling!) rollers, low friction and low
inertia bearings, anything special needed for the drum , etc.?

I suspect that there is scope for saving inventing too many wheels
twice over.

(And for the avoidance of doubt, I am NOT going to get into the Bildan/
DC/DJ etc. spats – you are all welcome to keep those among
yourselves.)

Chris N.

On Jul 22, 4:50*pm, Chris Nicholas wrote:
Has anybody in the good old US of A developed a printed, available,
specification for the pay-on gear for Dyneema etc. rope – like low
weight (aluminum? - note USA spelling!) rollers, low friction and low
inertia bearings, anything special needed for the drum , etc.?

I suspect that there is scope for saving inventing too many wheels
twice over.

(And for the avoidance of doubt, I am NOT going to get into the Bildan/
DC/DJ etc. spats – you are all welcome to keep those among
yourselves.)

Chris N.

While I'm sure there *are such documents handy, if your goal is
'saving wheels' one can (and is better off...) doing away with the
level wind mechanism altogether, which is itself a source of
additional hassle in most operations. The trick is to use a high
enough aspect drum and have a long enough run between the fairlead
assy and the drum, somewhere around 1:18 I believe, comparing drum
width to run length between the two mechanisms according to German
DAeC.

Assuming a bigblock/TH400/truck rearend setup is what you're leaning
towards, final drive gearing needs to be selected based on drum
diameter, since larger diameter drums call for higher gear ratios in
the rearends... a small price to pay considering. There are
spreadsheets and other files covering all this on winchdesign BTW

-Paul

PS. join the winchdesign group and comb the postings and files there
as well as keeping up on new ones...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/winchdesign/ -that is if you can
handle more episodes of the Derek/Bill show

On Jul 22, 5:50*pm, Chris Nicholas wrote:
Has anybody in the good old US of A developed a printed, available,
specification for the pay-on gear for Dyneema etc. rope – like low
weight (aluminum? - note USA spelling!) rollers, low friction and low
inertia bearings, anything special needed for the drum , etc.?

I suspect that there is scope for saving inventing too many wheels
twice over.

(And for the avoidance of doubt, I am NOT going to get into the Bildan/
DC/DJ etc. spats – you are all welcome to keep those among
yourselves.)

Chris N.

The hydrowinch feed is a single sheave approximately 8inches in
diameter, perhaps an 1.25" wide with a tapering v-notch. Aluminum and
powder coated. I suspect a common bearing type. Close enough
tolerance in the fairlead to avoid problems.

The original drum has been reinforced at the center, but has a u-
shaped cross section. About 36" at inner core.

See my other post about the drum I recently had built. Worked fine
though the axle shaft align is slightly off leading to a slight
tendancy to load the rope to one side. A bit of cutting and welding
needed to correct this. Images in winchdesign Yahoo group.

Frank Whiteley

On Jul 22, 6:38*pm, sisu1a wrote:
On Jul 22, 4:50*pm, Chris Nicholas wrote:

Has anybody in the good old US of A developed a printed, available,
specification for the pay-on gear for Dyneema etc. rope – like low
weight (aluminum? - note USA spelling!) rollers, low friction and low
inertia bearings, anything special needed for the drum , etc.?

I suspect that there is scope for saving inventing too many wheels
twice over.

(And for the avoidance of doubt, I am NOT going to get into the Bildan/
DC/DJ etc. spats – you are all welcome to keep those among
yourselves.)

Chris N.

While I'm sure there *are such documents handy, if your goal is
'saving wheels' one can (and is better off...) doing away with the
level wind mechanism altogether, which is itself a source of
additional hassle in most operations. The trick is to use a high
enough aspect drum and have a long enough run between the fairlead
assy and the drum, somewhere around 1:18 I believe, comparing drum
width to run length between the two mechanisms according to German
DAeC.

Assuming a bigblock/TH400/truck rearend setup is what you're leaning
towards, final drive gearing needs to be selected based on drum
diameter, since larger diameter drums call for higher gear ratios in
the rearends... a small price to pay considering. There are
spreadsheets and other files covering all this on winchdesign BTW

-Paul

PS. join the winchdesign group and comb the postings and files there
as well as keeping up on new ones...http://groups.yahoo.com/group/winchdesign/* -that is if you can
handle more episodes of the Derek/Bill show *

The ratio of drum width to feed is 10:1 for unassisted level winding.
So an 8-inch wide drum needs 80 inches. The Gehrlein Model 62
distance is about 88 inches from axle to rollers. The drum I had
built is 8.5 inches wide. A high ratio can only make it more
effective.

That said, the winch at Littlefield, TX, uses a simple level wind that
is easy to maintain and works very well on their wide drum. The wide
drum advantage is the there is a small shift in the torque arm as the
drum loads.

Frank Whiteley