"Chris Reed" wrote in message ...
"Andreas Maurer" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 7 Aug 2003 07:52:53 -0600, "Bill Daniels"
wrote:



The boundary on the high side of acceleration is the tendency of some
gliders with high CG's, low hooks and limited down elevator authority to
pitch-up uncontrollably when a threshold acceleration is exceeded.

Please tell me the names of these gliders. I have NOT heard of a
single one yet that showed this behaviour. Not one.

In my experience the K8 pitch-up was near uncontrollable when winching. If
you had winched it previously you learnt the theoretically correct
procedure, which was:

a. Stick back to get the nose skid up.

b. Stick central to run on the main wheel; and then

c. (*Immediately the main wheel left the ground) Knuckles hard into the
instrument panel and wait for the pitch to become controllable.

On anything but the softest of take-ups (a) and (b) disappeared, as the
glider was flying before you could react, so the *real* procedure was stick
full forwards as soon as the glider moved.

Once full pitch control was re-established the rest of the launch was fine,
but the first two seconds were only semi-controlled, and that only if you
knew what to expect. I never saw a first flight in the K8 where the pilot
reacted in time to prevent an uncontrolled pitch-up as soon as the main
wheel left the ground. And our winch was not any kind of high-powered
monster.

All the glass gliders I've seen winching behaved well, but the K8 was ...
interesting.

Chris,

there had to be something wrong with this Ka-8. I soloed on the winch
in a Ka-13 and transitioned to the Ka-8 long before taking up
aero-towing. Unless your winch operator was a graduate of the Naval
Cat-shot school, the launches were very controllable. Our procedure
had us lift off with the stick somewhat forward depending on your
weight and the rudder full left to compensate for the off-center tow
hook. As soon as you lifted off, the rudder went back to neutral (or
wherever it had to go to compensate for cross-wind) and you would
continue in a shallow climb to about 150' before easing the stick back
slightly aft of neutral to assume the steep climb attitude. We would
typically achieve 12-1500' on an average windy day.
Too bad that not more clubs operate winches in the US. Would someone
be able to offer an explanation for this?

Ulrich Neumann
Libelle 'GM'