SAFE Winch Launching

PS: LUCAS: Prince of Darkness


Prince of Darkness because of a probably unjustified ? reputation for headlights failing.

On Jul 4, 8:00*pm, Brian Goodspeed
wrote:
Written by someone who thinks British automobiles with Lucas electrics
are reliable transportation.

Written by someone who always claims to know everything about everything -
except that Lucas no longer exist. *They were taken over and bankrupted by
a U.S. company!

Written by someone who actually knows how to use Google.

BTW, I think Lucas was bought by DARPA who was looking for the secret
of light bulbs that emit darkness.

See: www.hermit.cc/mania/tmc/articles/lucas.htm

At 01:38 05 July 2009, bildan wrote:


Written by someone who thinks British automobiles with Lucas electrics
are reliable transportation.

Having in the past owned several rather unreliable Ford cars, which is an
American Corporation, I have for the last 15 years or so bought
British/French Peugeots and Citroens, most of which have been totally
reliable over big annual mileages. Fords seem to last for 60,000 miles and
then everything goes wrong with them!

A number of my friends have British Rover cars (probably with some Lucas
components), and they also seem to be much more reliable than Fords.
Unfortunately that company went into liquidation and was eventually bought
by the Chinese.

Derek Copeland

On 5 July, 02:38, bildan wrote:
On Jul 4, 5:15*pm, Derek Copeland wrote:



To all my friends in the United States of America.

You may have got the impression from some recent correspondence on this
site that winch launchings is about as risky as bungey jumping or joining
a Kamikaze squadron!

In fact we do many tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of
winch launches in Europe with only the very occasional accident. Even the
ones we do have are largely avoidable.

Most of the serious winch launching accidents come into the following
categories:

1) Ground loop or cartwheel after catching a wingtip on the ground.
2) Flick spin due to over-rotating after lift off.
3) Stall/spin after a cable break or other launch failure.

These can be avoided respectively by:

a) Pulling the cable release knob if a wing drops.
b) Monitoring the airspeed and controlling the rate of rotation to not
more than 10 degrees/second.
c) Lowering the nose to the recovery attitude and regaining a safe
airspeed before attempting any further manoeuvres. Also learning the most
suitable options for landing safely from various heights.

Things happen much more quickly during a winch launch than they do during
an aerotow, so you do need to engage your brain before you start moving,
not halfway up the launch.

There is starting to be more interest in winch launching in the States,
due to rising fuel and maintenance costs for tug aircraft. However I have
found it somewhat disappointing that some of the leading US protagonists
seem to want to ignore any advice from European clubs and winch builders,
who have a wealth of experience in this method. It's the 'good ol' US
of A always knows best' syndrome. As a result you have already suffered a
fatality and two serious injuries this year from a fraction of the number
of launches that we would do in Europe in the same period.

You already have the most of the basics for winch launching in the US. You
have many vehicles fitted with large and powerful V8 engines and good
automatic gearboxes that can be cannibalised to make decent winches.
Please note that you must disable any kick down arrangement on the
automatic gearboxes. If you join a Yahoo group called 'Winch Design' you
will find a document written by the BGA winching advisor called 'Proven UK
specification' which gives you most of the information needed to build a
good winch. You don't need very fancy and expensive, but as yet unproven,
diesel-hydraulic or electric winches that the above protagonists seem to
think are essential.

Derek Copeland

Written by someone who thinks British automobiles with Lucas electrics
are reliable transportation.


Seems to be a non sequitor considering that Derek was advocating US
not UK engines for winches.

At 18:17 05 July 2009, johngalloway wrote:


Seems to be a non sequitor considering that Derek was advocating US not
UK engines for winches.

Well I would, but most UK cars do not have huge gas guzzling V8 engines
that are big and powerful enough to power a winch, due to our
Government's excessiveand historical taxation of road vehicle fuels.
Possibly V12 Jaguar or Rolls Royce engines would do. if you can find them
cheaply enough second hand. If you want a new engine, then the GM Marine
engines, as used by Skylaunch, are as good and cheap as anything.

Derek Copeland

P.S. Lucas made their initial fortune by selling reversing lights for
Italian tanks in WW2. They worked perfectly!

On Jul 5, 5:30*pm, Del C wrote:
At 18:17 05 July 2009, johngalloway wrote:



Seems to be a non sequitor *considering that Derek was advocating US not

UK engines for winches.

Well I would, but most UK cars do not have huge gas guzzling V8 engines
that are big and powerful enough to power a winch, due to our
Government's excessiveand historical taxation of road vehicle fuels.
Possibly V12 Jaguar or Rolls Royce engines would do. if you can find them
cheaply enough second hand. If you want a new engine, then the GM Marine
engines, as used by Skylaunch, are as good and cheap as anything.

Derek Copeland

P.S. Lucas made their initial fortune by selling reversing lights for
Italian tanks in WW2. They worked perfectly!

My understanding is that Lucas, Prince of Darkness, was also
responsible for the invention of intermittent windshield wipers.

I couldn't resist.............

Chip F. - who loves a good winch launch.

"chipsoars" wrote in message
...

My understanding is that Lucas, Prince of Darkness, was also
responsible for the invention of intermittent windshield wipers.

Well, sort of. They just weren't supposed to be intermittent at the
time.

History seems to assign the invention of true intermittent windshield
washers to Robert Kearns.
http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2...25/005398.html
I seem to remember a movie...

Vaughn

On Jul 4, 7:15*pm, Derek Copeland wrote:
To all my friends in the United States of America.

You may have got the impression from some recent correspondence on this
site that winch launchings is about as risky as bungey jumping or joining
a Kamikaze squadron!

In fact we do many tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of
winch launches in Europe with only the very occasional accident. Even the
ones we do have are largely avoidable.

Most of the serious winch launching accidents come into the following
categories:

1) Ground loop or cartwheel after catching a wingtip on the ground.
2) Flick spin due to over-rotating after lift off.
3) Stall/spin after a cable break or other launch failure.

These can be avoided respectively by:

a) Pulling the cable release knob if a wing drops.
b) Monitoring the airspeed and controlling the rate of rotation to not
more than 10 degrees/second.
c) Lowering the nose to the recovery attitude and regaining a safe
airspeed before attempting any further manoeuvres. Also learning the most
suitable options for landing safely from various heights.

Things happen much more quickly during a winch launch than they do during
an aerotow, so you do need to engage your brain before you start moving,
not halfway up the launch.

There is starting to be more interest in winch launching in the States,
due to rising fuel and maintenance costs for tug aircraft. However I have
found it somewhat disappointing that some of the leading US protagonists
seem to want to ignore any advice from European clubs and winch builders,
who have a wealth of experience in this method. It's the 'good ol' US
of A always knows best' syndrome. As a result you have already suffered a
fatality and two serious injuries this year from a fraction of the number
of launches that we would do in Europe in the same period.

You already have the most of the basics for winch launching in the US. You
have many vehicles fitted with large and powerful V8 engines and good
automatic gearboxes that can be cannibalised to make decent winches.
Please note that you must disable any kick down arrangement on the
automatic gearboxes. If you join a Yahoo group called 'Winch Design' you
will find a document written by the BGA winching advisor called 'Proven UK
specification' which gives you most of the information needed to build a
good winch. You don't need very fancy and expensive, but as yet unproven,
diesel-hydraulic or electric winches that the above protagonists seem to
think are essential.

Derek Copeland

while I have never winch launched and only just recently soloed I have
been a member of that group for a while now simply because I knew I
would learn a thing or two about winch launching by just lurking and
paying attention.

In message , Derek Copeland
writes
snip

Most of the serious winch launching accidents come into the following
categories:

1) Ground loop or cartwheel after catching a wingtip on the ground.
2) Flick spin due to over-rotating after lift off.
3) Stall/spin after a cable break or other launch failure.

These can be avoided respectively by:

a) Pulling the cable release knob if a wing drops.
b) Monitoring the airspeed and controlling the rate of rotation to not
more than 10 degrees/second.

And not starting to rotate unless the winch is managing to accelerate
the glider. When that happens, pull off, and aviate back to the ground.
The issues I know of in that situation are lowering the nose to far and
slamming into the ground, and pulling the airbrakes too early (before
the glider is at a normal approach speed) and again slamming into the
ground.

c) Lowering the nose to the recovery attitude and regaining a safe
airspeed before attempting any further manoeuvres. Also learning the most
suitable options for landing safely from various heights.

Snip

--
Surfer!
Email to: ramwater at uk2 dot net

In all this discussion of winches, and the building thereof, no one has
mentioned auto towing. The 'reverse auto tow' is the most efficient launch
method I have ever encountered. We used it at the Essex Club at North Weald
while I instructed there.

You need a nice long runway, about 6000ft is ideal but shorter will do. The
ingredients a

1) Two large automatic cars of about 100BHP - we used retired V6 Ford
Zephyrs - we will call them car1 and car2. A driver and observer (who
watches the glider) are required.

2) A large grooved pulley about six feet in diameter on a rotatable gimbal
and anchored firmly to the ground. The pulley is at the opposite end of the
runway to the launch point.

3) A piece of single strand piano wire the length of the runway.

4) Gliders with pilots.

The wire is passed over the pulley and attached to car 1 which is sitting at
the pulley and the other end to the glider via the usual rope, parachute,
and weak link. Car 2 is sitting at the launch point. Slack is taken up, and
at the all out signal car 1 sets off down the runway towards the glider
which most obligingly lifts off, and sets off up what is now effectively a
winch launch. Meanwhile car 2 sets off following the glider towards the
pulley avoiding car 1, of course, which is driving at about 35- 40 mph
towards the launch point. Glider releases, (we often got nearly 2000ft on a
good day), and car 1 carries on the launch point while car 2 arrives at the
pulley. The cable has launching tackle on both ends, so the next glider is
coupled on and car 2 is connected to the cable and does the next launch ...
need I go on? We used to get 20 launches an hour using this method. No time
is wasted retrieving cables. No need to buy an expensive winch, and the
cheap cable lasted a long time. Ford Zephyrs were also fairly cheap from the
scrap yard, and we had people in the club adept at fixing them. As quite of
lot of American clubs seem to have access to runways I cannot see why they
cannot try this method of launching. I recommend it.

Alistair Wright