With all the talk about Spectra for winch wire replacement, one thing comes to mind. COST! I just replaced our armored cable with 7X19 3/16 inch stranded steel cable. The cost for a five thousand foot spool was $500. If the Spectra costs 40 cents per foot that equals $2000. I recently heard of...

We recently re-commissioned a winch that had been operated successfully for years using armored tow-target cable. That being difficult to find these days, we are using regular stranded cable and are having trouble with the cable piling up at the center (width-wise)of the drum, then slipping off to...

Bill has many good points concerning winch launching. Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/2bcL5Zr7k3L37rjCEPjWD8?si=f6QOrMoyQyahCHF7CdA5Kg

Bill has many good points on winch launching. Give it a listen. https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-z5pha-dd8d1e

and anyone else that has not grown weary of this Winter subject-- Every site from to FAG Aachen to AC Zwickau is represented. Mostly German but I notice Prescott, AZ is in there with some mighty good looking equipment! Enjoy-- BJ

This has been covered in these pages before, but it may be timely to post it again in view of the coming fuel price squeeze and the increased interest in winching. This Excel spreadsheet explains mathematically why a winch system comprised of lighter linear (rope) and rotational elements...

Parts for an experimental roadable winch for sale. Assembled winch has been shown capable of smoothly launching a Grob 103 Twin II to upwards of 250 feet before Ford ECU related issues caused engine shutdown. Subsequent changes to control system are believed to have solved problem, but logistical...

My understanding is that Frank Whiteley and Bill Daniels qualified a commercial operator and several local pilots/CFIs on winch operations somewhere in Minnesota. Please tell me which airport and operator contact info? Were any of you there? Have you heard about this?

Fellow glider pilots, First, I apologize for the length of this post. Our club has acquired a new powerful 2-drum winch, and I've been wondering about how to best operate it. We have operated an older single drum winch successfully, which works but is apparently a bit weak. We have about 3800...

We are getting close to getting our first winch operation going and need to develop some Ops and Procedures. I hate starting with a "blank page" Anybody have some Ops and Procedures to send my way to get started? Regards, Frank My return address is slightly modified to reduce SPAM.

Does anyone have any data on what the wire loads and wire speeds are in a typical winch launch. Thanks, Gary

Does any aerodynamisist (!) out there have an opinion concerning how much higher than unity the drag coefficient of a rope or wire cable is likely to go? TIA, BJ

I have recently started gliding again after a long absense. I no longer have funds to support my power plane habit and am soaring as less expensive means of getting airborne. I am surprised to see that winch tows in the USA are still almost non existant. Why not. Surely a winch is much cheaper...

Anyone have any experience/thoughts to share about winch launching a shempp-hirth SHK? My example has CG tost hook on gear leg. Thanks, Scott W.

Caesar Creek Soaring Club is investigating the possibility of winch launching on our field. As expected there are very polarized opinions on the merits, value, and safety of winch launching. I would appreciate any rational inputs on the merits of winching or reference data from other sites on...

Does anyone have any links to any soaring videos showing winch launch operations? -- Mike Schumann

Our club is exploring switching from aero tow to winch launching. Some of our members own older wooden gliders and have expressed concerns about the increased stress on the glider's structure resulting from winch launching vs. aero tow. Is this a valid concern? -- Mike Schumann

Ok, I could probably arrange with the winch driver to experiment, but is there any definitive guidance on getting the greatest height off a winch launch? (eg. Skylaunch). i.e. if I'm "driven" at the higher end of the speed range acceptable to my gliders placarding, will I get higher or lower...

I ran across this fascinating thesis on winch launching from Germany by Christoph Santel (2008). It uses Matlab+Simulink for the modelling platform. He deals with a variety of issues such as steel vs synthetic cable....

The Eagle Field winch launch team will be conducting training and ground launch sign off classes this coming summer. Slots are available for the June 4-5 class and other dates will be announced. Although a ground launch endorsement may be useful someday for pilots with the air tow only...