Ka8b winch launching

[Jimmie L. Coulthard]

I am new to using this site. Can anyone tell me about winch launching a
Ka8b and what one needs to expect. Thanks

[rlovinggood]

On Sep 7, 4:53*pm, Jimmie L. Coulthard >
wrote:
> I am new to using this site. Can anyone tell me about winch launching a
> Ka8b and what one needs to expect. Thanks

Jimmie,

I have a few (50 - 60?) winch launches in a Ka8. I think it was a "b"
model. Couldn't be easier! And I was a "low time" pilot with
probably less than 100 hours when I took my first winch launch. With
a competent winch operator, this wonderful glider gives a great winch
launch. Just listen to the instructors. What glider will you prepare
with for the winch launch? K7? K13? Other? I trained on a K7. The
K8 is a sweet handling glider, in my opinion. and gives a great
launch. Do what the instructors tell you to do and it should be fine.

What to expect? Big grins! Our winch could routinely get me to
around 600 meters above ground level and one memorable flight I got to
700 meters agl.

Ray Lovinggood

[Karl Striedieck]

Jimmie,

All the information needed to conduct a safe winch launch with a K-8, or any
glider, is beyond the scope of this forum. Perhaps another reader with winch
experience can direct you to reading material and a site that could give you
winch launch instruction and a checkout. For the latter it would be helpful
to know where you fly.

Karl Striedieck


"Jimmie L. Coulthard" > wrote in message
...
>I am new to using this site. Can anyone tell me about winch launching a
> Ka8b and what one needs to expect. Thanks
>

[rlovinggood]

Jimmie,

Forget what I said and listen to everything Mr. Striedieck says.

By the way, the Ka-8b I flew can be seen at:

http://www.djk-landau.de/flzpark/

It didn't have the spiffy paint job on it when I flew it, but it still
was one nice glider way back when....!

Ray Lovinggood

[GM]

On Sep 7, 4:53*pm, Jimmie L. Coulthard >
wrote:
> I am new to using this site. Can anyone tell me about winch launching a
> Ka8b and what one needs to expect. Thanks

Jimmie,

the Ka-8 is a very benign trainer and I have a lot of winch launches
in it.
The way we were taught was to keep the stick well forward and the left
rudder on.
Reason: the CG hook is very low compared to the wings so there is a
chance of the glider going into a too steep of a climb too early,
especially if you are a light weight person and just barly make the
minimum cockpit load (I had to fly with close to 20kg of lead-shot
filled seat cushions - wish that would be the case today...)
The winch operator should know to advance the throttle smoothly after
all the slack has been taken up. If the he does a lousy job and
snatches you up with a hard jerk, you are sure to bang the tail skid
into the ground, since the Ka-8 rests on it's skid with the tail up.
If the acceleration and the elevator action is correct, the tail skid
never touches the ground.
The rudder should be held to the left for as long as it takes to
become effective. The CG hook is mounted left of the center line, so
there is a slight tendendcy to turn to the right if not countered with
a bit of left rudder early in the ground roll. Once you notice the
rudder to become effective and you are going straight, you can
nutralize it and bring the stick back to lift off.
The first 50m should be climed at a moderate angle for safety reasons
after which the full climb angle can be assumed by bringing the stick
further aft.
The best climb speed to maintain during the climb is around 90km/h.
As some of the previous posters mentioned, the best prep for a winch
launch in a Ka-8 is training in a Ka-7 of Ka-13.

Have fun and safe winching!

Uli Neumann

[Tony Clark]

> On 7th Sept '08 Jimmie Coulthard wrote :-
>
> I am new to using this site. Can anyone tell me
> about winch launching a
> Ka8b and what one needs to expect.
>
> Thanks
>
>Jimmie,


Hi Jimmie,

Although advice on wire launching the Ka8 was covered very well by Uli
Neumann I would just like to emphasise a couple of points from personal
experience.

A couple of years ago, I had for some time been only flying the club SZD
'Juniors', which have to be 'encouraged' to climb well on the wire,
otherwise you can end up at 400' over the winch!

One day, seeing the Ka8 laying unused at the lauch point, I thought I
would have a quick flight in it. However, I approched the wire launch in a
rather 'laid back' manner (thinking 'it's only a Ka8') and forgot the
entirely different wire launching characteristics that require keeping the
stick well forward on the ground run! The reasult was that within a few
yards the Ka8 pointed skyward like it was taking off from Cape Canaveral,
but with the tail-skid still dragging along the grass. I got away with it
that time, but if the weak-link or wire had broken it would have been
impossible to have avoided a serious accident!

Thus, remember to initially keep the Ka8 stick well forward at the start
of the launch, but also remember that when you move on to 'glass ships'
they will almost certainly require a different technique!


Regards


Tony (London)

[play]

Its been a good few years now, but so long as you are prepared its a fine
machine to winch launch.

Bear in mind that it likely to be a lot lighter than two seater gliders or
even glass single seaters you have winched before, so it accelerates a lot
faster even on 'mild' winch machines, with powerful winches see if you can
hold off winching until you know you don't have a newbie winch driver on
the other end. old hands know to be a litte more gentle with the throttle.

The glider will feel like it has leapt skywards, , expect to hold close
to full, if not full, forward stick on the early rollout and climb and
carry out a transition into normal speed/attitude control once you have
sufficient flying speed and peg the launch like you have been taught
(check the manual for speeds etc).

If you can persuade someone to (carefully) hold the tail skid of the
glider down on the ground for the initial movement of the launch thats a
bonus, I used to find that the glider sits on its nose skid with its
tail in the air (I'm not light) and if the winch driver is anything other
than incredibly gentle, as soon as the glider moves, its jerked, and the
tail whacks the ground and that can accentuate the leaping skyward feel of
the initial launch, I've not heard of damage being done to the tail but I
wouldn't be surprised if its happened in the past if a real hamfisted
driver handles the throttle.

I used to find that at the top of the launch, the K8 would often back
release just as I was thinking of pulling the release knob...

Its a pleasure to fly, never did cross country in it, but it was a
hoot on a non-soarable day to take a launch and chuck the old thing
aroud the sky a little, very benign haldling, its also adequate for local
soaring on a good day when nothing else was available..

Have fun with it, get a good briefing with a local instructor and a few
other pilots that are a little more current than me and fly away.

Peter

On Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:53:38 +0000, Jimmie L. Coulthard wrote:

> I am new to using this site. Can anyone tell me about winch launching a
> Ka8b and what one needs to expect. Thanks

[Ian]

On 7 Sep, 21:53, Jimmie L. Coulthard > wrote:
> I am new to using this site. Can anyone tell me about winch launching a
> Ka8b and what one needs to expect. Thanks

Amongst the many other points, it's worth noting whether yours has a
spring trimmer or a proper aerodynamic one. The spring one takes ages
to adjust, and even then doesn't work very well.

Ian

[flying_monkey]

On Sep 7, 6:18*pm, "Karl Striedieck" > wrote:
I hesitate to disagree with such an august personage as Karl, but I
would have
thought that this is as germane to the group as any other soaring
subject. I doubt
anyone would object if we talked about aero-tow or thermalling
techniques.

Ed

> Jimmie,
>
> All the information needed to conduct a safe winch launch with a K-8, or any
> glider, is beyond the scope of this forum. Perhaps another reader with winch
> experience can direct you to reading material and a site that could give you
> winch launch instruction and a checkout. For the latter it would be helpful
> to know where you fly.
>
> Karl Striedieck
>
> "Jimmie L. Coulthard" > wrote in ...
>
> >I am new to using this site. Can anyone tell me about winch launching a
> > Ka8b and what one needs to expect. Thanks

[Werner Schmidt]

Hello Tony Clark, you wrote at 09.08.2008 06:23

> Thus, remember to initially keep the Ka8 stick well forward at the start
> of the launch

this hint may help another something: push trimmer straight nose down
before launching does make this more easy. Again, at a safe altitude of
about 50-70 m (150-200 ft) you may take it back to indifferent or
sligtly nose up to make the climbing phase of the winch launch a bit
more easy.

Ka8 is fun in weak thermals; you'll stay airborne when all the glass
ships "fall" back to the ground. But, if trying to speed forward to the
next thermal, it will loose altitude very quickly. Until now, I've flown
(in this order) K13 (our double seater trainer for the beginners), Ka8
(our first single seater trainer), Ka6 and Astir in my Club - and still
mostly love the Ka8.

Regards
Werner

[Andy[_1_]]

On Sep 7, 1:53*pm, Jimmie L. Coulthard >
wrote:
> I am new to using this site. Can anyone tell me about winch launching a
> Ka8b and what one needs to expect. Thanks

Several people have offered advice but no one seems to have asked what
your experience is.

If you have never done a winch launch before I'd say Karl's advice is
very valid. If, on the other hand, you have several hundred winch
launches in many different glider types, and are winch launch current,
then a 5 minute briefing should be sufficient. I see no reason why
that 5 minute briefing could not be provided electronically by someone
familiar both with the Ka8b and also with the types you have winch
launched recently.

Perhaps it's your Ka8b and you have hundreds of aerotow launches in it
and would like to try winching. That would require a different
emphasis in the briefing.

So, how about telling the group what your experience is.


Andy

[Tony Clark]

On 7th Sept '08, Jimmie Coulthard wrote :-

>> I am new to using this site. Can anyone tell me about winch launching
a
>> Ka8b and what one needs to expect. Thanks

> On 8th Sept '08, Andy wrote :-
>
>Several people have offered advice but no one seems to have asked what
>your experience is.
>
>If you have never done a winch launch before I'd say Karl's advice is
>very valid. If, on the other hand, you have several hundred winch
>launches in many different glider types, and are winch launch current,
>then a 5 minute briefing should be sufficient.


Yes Andy! Why did not one of us think of asking Jimmie this simple
question a lot earlier, as we should have! - A quick reply from him would
have saved all the "guesswork" and got straight to the "appropriate"
level of advice! As you observe, dependant upon Jimmie's experience,
this would vary greatly.

During the 10 posts replying to Jimmie I have found myself thinking :-
"Why has Jimmie not brought this up face to face with an instructor at
his club, and either received a 'full blown' explanation, or if
appropriate to his experiance, a five minute briefing"?

We would be very interested to hear the reasons that you sent in your
original post Jimmie? Meanwhile, it appers that we are all pretty well
agreed on the problems and advantages of flying and wire launching the
Ka8! That's always good regarding any topic!


Tony Clark


PS. Don't forget to check the canopy is locked! A friend of mine once had
his Ka8 canopy detach itself halfway up a wire launch!