On Friday, June 21, 2013 9:49:00 AM UTC-6, Dan Marotta wrote:
I just started reviewing your training guide, Bill, and I must say,

"Excellent!"

Thanks for the kind word. My only objective is to promote safe winch launch.

I'm positive that if it's done right, winch launch is far safer than aero tow. Germans suffer one accident on average every 180,000 winch launches while we suffer one every 24,000 aero tows. I know there are cultural differences but, presumably, we're pretty good at aero tow and they're at least as good at winch launch so the comparison is probably valid.

It's natural for familiar things like aero tow to seem safe and unfamiliar things like winch launch to look unsafe but the numbers tell a different story.