Winch launch clinic at Faribault, Minnesota

Frank Whiteley and I spent the first three days of this week training the
folks at Cross Country Soaring (
http://www.crosscountrysoaring.com/index.html ) to use their new winch.
Frank trained the winch drivers and I trained pilots.

I lost track of the number of launches but it was probably over 80.
Faribault is a fairly busy GA airport but we were able to use their main
runway without causing any problems for the 'power' traffic by making radio
calls on the CTAF frequency like, "Faribault traffic, Glider 37M position
and hold runway 30 at taxiway Bravo, winch launch to 1500 AGL in one minute.
Arriving traffic please advise"

Every day offered thermic conditions allowing for sustained flight whenever
needed to accomodate arriving or departing 'power traffic'. "Glider 37M
holding 2 miles NW Faribault for arriving Cessna."

We pulled out the rope on the ten foot wide strip of grass between the edge
of the asphalt and the edge lights on the side opposite the taxiways. This
kept the rope off the runway surface until needed. No aircraft could taxi
over the rope.

Simultaineously training winch drivers and pilots can lead to chaotic
results but occasional glitches by newbie drivers gave just the right level
of emergiency training to the pilots. In addition to driver glitches, we
suffered a few rope breaks, mostly knots made by the previous owner giving
way, but since we were using Spectra rope, these led to minimum delay.
There were no tangles. Spectra allows convincing simulations of rope breaks
since pulling the release under high tension causes no tangles.

We gave one of the local mechanics a ride. Afterwards I asked him how he
liked it. "Kinda nice", he said but he was having trouble enunciating the
words through an enormous ear to ear grin. To allow Don to stay at the
winch for more training, I took one of his scheduled students who told me he
was having trouble with landings. Four quick winch launches for landing
practice had him much improved. Three or four more would have him ready for
solo.

At the end, no one questioned whether winch launch can co-exist with GA
traffic. I chatted with some of the airplane owners at the fuel pump.
Their main question was, "How much gas does that thing use?" My answer was,
"About a quart of Unleaded per launch". That made them look wistfully at
the $200 figure on the pump.