The rope is polyproplene, we have been using it on our Skylaunch at
Camphill for over 12/15 months. Drum capacity is a problem at over 1000
yds, and it cannot be used on the smaller capacity Tost winch drums. It
seems to wear as well as steel on grass, and is cheaper.
BTW, Camphill too still bungee launches, but usually only at Vintage
glider meetings.
Dave


At 16:45 04 August 2009, Del C wrote:
We had that Denbigh winch at Lasham for a trial period, before we
invested
in two new Skylaunch winches. It was a very nice winch and gave really
smooth launches. On arrival it was fitted with 9.5 mm Skyrope cables,
which I think is polypropylene, but due to our longer runs this was
replaced with 4.5mm stranded steel cable. You can't get enough poly
rope
on the drum for much more than about a 1000 metre run. Is was fitted
with
an 8.2 litre 'Hi Torque' engine of about 350hp, but due to the power
required to launch our DG1000Ts on still days, our new ones have the
'Hi
Power' engines of 450hp. They are also fitted with pulley heads rather
than rollers.

The Mynd retrieve winch is fitted with 2.5mm stranded steel cable.

The other 6 drum winch sounds like a MEL Van Gelder.

Derek Copeland

At 16:00 04 August 2009, Peter Higgs wrote:
At 20:00 03 August 2009, Derek Copeland wrote:
Hi Pete,

What club do you normally fly at, because the Mynd doesn't have an
abrasive tarmac runway, or for that matter much mud except in the
Winter;
just nice smooth short grass well lubricated with sheep dropping. Also
to
the best of my knowledge they have always used steel cable, rather
than
Dyneema.


Hi, the club with the tarmac and Skylaunch was the now defunct Denbigh
club. I am not too sure what the replacement plastic rope was, only
that it was a turquoise green colour, and I could very easily splice it
using about 6 'interlocking twists'.
I only ever had one accidental cable break, and that was at 850ft when
a
severe attack of turbulent air was encountered, which bust the weak
link.

You are quite right about Long Myndd, they use the 4.5mm steel cable,
with
a lighter (~ 3mm) retrieve cable to the retrieve winch at the launch
end.


If they have gliders lined up, it's about one every two minutes, on
their
one and only cable.
The old Sealand club used to have a very large 6 cable winch, which
could
launch 6 sequentially, before the land-rover had to bring all the
cables
back. I don't know what that winch was, but it may have been the
sort
used at other RAF gliding sites.

Pete