Seminole Lake Glider Port.

I wonder if someone made a low ball offer for SLGP right now how quickly Mihai would grab it? This could go on for some time to come, no one really knows. I assume that he was "not on the property" during the Seniors as advertised. I guess the excuse will be that the flight restrictions implemented by DONALD interfered with his movement. Or maybe not?

Walt Connelly
Happy Helicopter Pilot

Hi Walt, I gotta tell ya, at this point, I really don’t care if that guy still owns seminole or sells it, just as long as we have some places to get a tow lol. Right now with this lockdown I wonder if some of the last remaining commercial glider ops are going to end up closing their doors permanently. Its kind of a scary scene.

The rich guys will tell us to just get a aux powered glider, but some of us are just not into that option either due to finances or due to a love for simple classic machines. I guess I may need to get my auto tow rig put back together.
Dan

Dan,

What's your auto tow rig like?Â* I've done it with a straight 1,000 foot
rope with a long runway, and with a pulley on a shorter runway.Â* I seem
to recall they use a straight 1,800' rope on the dry lake bed south of
Las Vegas.Â* Made 3 trips out there, great times!

Dan

On 4/2/2020 10:31 AM, wrote:
Hi Walt, I gotta tell ya, at this point, I really don’t care if that guy still owns seminole or sells it, just as long as we have some places to get a tow lol. Right now with this lockdown I wonder if some of the last remaining commercial glider ops are going to end up closing their doors permanently. Its kind of a scary scene.

The rich guys will tell us to just get a aux powered glider, but some of us are just not into that option either due to finances or due to a love for simple classic machines. I guess I may need to get my auto tow rig put back together.
Dan

--
Dan, 5J

Ive got 1800 ft of spectra and a schweizer towhook mounted on a trailer reciever. The part I need to build is an electric reel for retreaving the line.
Dan

On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 11:33:19 AM UTC-6, wrote:
Ive got 1800 ft of spectra and a schweizer towhook mounted on a trailer reciever. The part I need to build is an electric reel for retreaving the line.
Dan

How high do you get with that rig, Dan? I'm interested. I've been pondering a design for a pulley that can be mounted to a trailer hitch receiver to do reverse auto tows. I'm considering a 4,500' length of Dyneema to be used on our 4,800' runway, but I also need to get signed off for ground launches first as well.

Only place Ive used it is on the big dry lakes in southern NV. There with miles to run alway get above 1200ft agl. I have been leery of the pulley n reverse pully setups,try to keep things dirt simple.
Dan

I remember getting around 1,300' using an 1.800' straight rope, but that
was on a dry lake bed with practically unlimited distance for the tow
car.Â* My pulley tow had the pulley attached to the back of the tow car.
HERE
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k9a4v2wbg9fok9r/Ground%20Launch.mp4?dl=0 is
raw video of me in my LS-6 during shooting for a program aired on ESPN
back in the 90s.Â* I got a bit enthusiastic near the top of the climb
causing the tug to lose traction.Â* The passenger in the Jeep was Emerson
Fittipaldi, winner of the Indianapolis 500.Â* He was the host of the
show.Â* The opening scene is not me, it's a couple of our members doing a
low pass for the show.

On 4/2/2020 12:11 PM, John Foster wrote:
On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 11:33:19 AM UTC-6, wrote:
Ive got 1800 ft of spectra and a schweizer towhook mounted on a trailer reciever. The part I need to build is an electric reel for retreaving the line.
Dan
How high do you get with that rig, Dan? I'm interested. I've been pondering a design for a pulley that can be mounted to a trailer hitch receiver to do reverse auto tows. I'm considering a 4,500' length of Dyneema to be used on our 4,800' runway, but I also need to get signed off for ground launches first as well.

--
Dan, 5J

My club, Southern Eagles (Butler, Georgia, USA) got it’s start doing ground launch with an old LTD and a truck wheel pulley mounted to a trailer hitch. 4500 feet of dacron rope and a 5000’ runway got our Ka-7 to 1600 or more if there was some headwind. The beauty of the pulley launch was the 2:1 mechanical advantage. Acceleration on launch was very rapid like a winch and the tow car needed to go no faster than 30 mph at most (we usually hit maybe 28 mph in no wind). Low vehicle speed meant we could even operate off dirt. Sometimes got single seaters to over 2000 if we had a bit of wind on the nose. We still have the pulley and Tim McGowin recently bought 4000 feet of dyneema. We gonna get back into the ground launch biz. Hey Dan, maybe we come up Sylacauga way and do some ground launch with y’all after all this social distancing is over.

On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 12:10:51 PM UTC-4, wrote:
I wonder if someone made a low ball offer for SLGP right now how quickly Mihai would grab it? This could go on for some time to come, no one really knows. I assume that he was "not on the property" during the Seniors as advertised. I guess the excuse will be that the flight restrictions implemented by DONALD interfered with his movement. Or maybe not?

Walt Connelly
Happy Helicopter Pilot

Could this be the Romanian fire sale of 2020 ?