On Jul 13, 10:07*pm, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Jul 14, 2:52*pm, Kevin Christner wrote:

Can anyone tell me if they've had an actual rope break below ~200 or
even ~400ft. *I have never, ever heard of one.

I had a rope break 12 days ago. The glider moved about 50 ft before
coming to rest.

I've seen several similar breaks over the years.

As far as I know, our club has had precisely one rope break in the air
in the 25 years I've been a member. It happened at around 1500 or 2000
ft and the glider end or the rope and the rings dropped into an
electrical substation, which caused them to become a little unhappy.

I don't know why people are talking about landing downwind from 200ft.
When I've done practice rope breaks it's been about a 90 degree turn
onto a short downwind for the crosswind runway, but almost invariably
when you get onto base for that you figure you've got plenty of height
to turn that into a close in downwind for the active runway.
Certainly, if there's a reasonable wind (20 - 25 knots, say) then it's
easy (and better) to go right around and land upwind even if you land
a fair way up the active runway and/or still at a 20 or 30 degree
angle to it.

Bruce, because many gliderports have shorter single runways. You may
be thinking of operating off long runways at larger airports with
cross runways.

Darryl