Minimum number of flights for winch sign off?

From the the five years of winch training, amounting to about 1000 launches (and 52 years of auto launching) at Eagle Field I'd be hard pressed to improve on "Son of Flubber's" response.

But here are some comments anyway.

During the ground school preceeding flying a caveat we emphasize is that launching out of Eagle Field in a Duo with a 330 HP winch will equip the pilot with a good foundation in the technique, but a thorough briefing/checkout is necessary at any other site because it will have different conditions.

Our course consists of a minimum of 10 flights with an emphasis on unexpected launch termination (weak link breaks, etc.) At release the instructor takes over, dives, pulls to 60 degrees nose up and hollers "bang" as the speed winds back through 60 knots. At that point the student buries the stick in the panel until the nose is below the horizon and the total energy situation is assessed. These maneuvers are repeated three or four times on every launch until the student can do it asleep.

The only launch failure we fly is the most critical one - failure just as max nose up attitude is reached - about 150 feet.

There can be a wide variation in a student's aptitude for the training. For German's, Brits, etc. who learned on the winch and are looking for an FAA sign off this flying is a formality. At the other end are pilots not used to pointing "straight up" and need some repetitions to quell the hyperventilating.

And, echoing Flubber's comments about expanding "stickmanship," winch training is an excellent venue to expand a pilot's envelope of comfort with unusual attitudes. Could come in handy some day if they find themselves unexpectantly pointed in the wrong direction.

And these motorless "cat shots" are fun! Beats any Six Flags or Cedar Point ride.

KS

Hey Karl, I'm really looking forward to remove my "aero tow only" restriction on my US cert.
Whether at Mifflin (great place to fly) or your field, still worth the price and knowledge.

Hopefully I can, "get my poop compacted" to either one of those.

Hope to see you during the '18 season somewhere.

At 3:40 on that Eden soaring vid, they are going into land. My question is how do you find the airfield? Everything looks exactly alike!

On Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at 8:36:27 PM UTC-7, Nick Kennedy wrote:
At 3:40 on that Eden soaring vid, they are going into land. My question is how do you find the airfield? Everything looks exactly alike!

My first glider club in the UK was hard to find. Pilots told us they never saw it after overflying the area. One member got lost over the top and landed in an adjacent field. 800yard turf main and 600yard turf cross in the middle of barley fields. There were 50ft white chalk circles at the ends of the runways that sort of worked. Returning home from cross countries, we'd just follow the Peterborough to Colchester Roman road (only straight line around) until we could see Hadleigh over the nose. The gliderport would then be off the port wing. Local knowledge was pretty useful.

Frank Whiteley

On Wednesday, February 14, 2018 at 8:33:19 AM UTC+3, Frank Whiteley wrote:
On Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at 8:36:27 PM UTC-7, Nick Kennedy wrote:
At 3:40 on that Eden soaring vid, they are going into land. My question is how do you find the airfield? Everything looks exactly alike!

My first glider club in the UK was hard to find. Pilots told us they never saw it after overflying the area. One member got lost over the top and landed in an adjacent field. 800yard turf main and 600yard turf cross in the middle of barley fields. There were 50ft white chalk circles at the ends of the runways that sort of worked. Returning home from cross countries, we'd just follow the Peterborough to Colchester Roman road (only straight line around) until we could see Hadleigh over the nose. The gliderport would then be off the port wing. Local knowledge was pretty useful.

Wellington Gliding Club has always been pretty easy to find!

Old site (50+ years until 2016):
1) locate Kapiti Island, 9 km x 2 km x 1700 ft high, 5 km offshore from a small peninsular/bump in the coast.
2) the airfield is 1 km inland, in the middle of the bump.

New site (since 2016):
1) locate an apple orchid covered by bright white plastic, roughly a triangle with sides 1 km, 1 km, 1.5 km. Easily visible from 50+ km away.
2) 500m SE is a river. The main runway is next to the river, extending 2 km to the NE to a 90 degree bend in the river. Another river joins near opposite the midpoint of the runway.

On Tue, 13 Feb 2018 21:33:16 -0800, Frank Whiteley wrote:

Local knowledge was pretty useful.

Exactly.

There's a fairly recognisable lake 2km or so south and roughly in line
with the runway and the buildings of Skelling farm stand out well, just
west of the southern end. Coming from the closest point on the hill, the
line of trees on the east side of the runway is easier to see in real
life than in the video, and in any case trailers near one end of the
trees and gliders at the launch point generally stand out well.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

Just don’t do winch launches.

Let’s see you’re going to attach me to the ground with some homemade contraption? Who knows what the operators qualifications are. No thanks!

"Just don’t do winch launches"

What a short-sighted view. The economics of gliding are already keeping new members from joining the sport - and will just get worse in the future. Winch launching is a cost-effective launch method which can effectively launch gliders at a 1/10 of the cost of aerotowing. This is a major factor especially during the training phase where launches and landing are the critical skills for new pilots to learn. With proper training, winch launching should be no more dangerous than aerotowing.

On Friday, 16 February 2018 02:38:18 UTC, Charles Longley wrote:
Just don’t do winch launches.

Let’s see you’re going to attach me to the ground with some homemade contraption? Who knows what the operators qualifications are. No thanks!

Here in the UK all the winches I've seen at gliding sites are a professional product, usually a Skylaunch. The drivers have to be trained and signed off. Many sites - not just the biggest ones - have professional drivers. In the time I've been flying at a mainly winch site we have had one potentially fatal aerotow accident (tug upset) and one fatal winch launch accident.. Since we do far more winch and aerotow launches I think the conclusion is obvious - winch launching done properly is as safe as aerotows.

On Tuesday, 13 February 2018 14:53:27 UTC, Waveguru wrote:
What would be the consensus for the minimum number of flights to get a ground launch sign off for an experienced glider pilot? How many cable breaks and at what altitude? Of course it would take more for some and less for others, but I would think at least 15 launches with 5 cable breaks at various heights?

Boggs

Basic principles of instruction:
-- ground briefing
-- instructor demonstration
-- student attempt

Winch launch failure instruction:
-- full climb, low level, land ahead
-- full climb, higher up, can't land ahead
-- full climb, random height, gradual power failure

That's a minimum of 6 launch failures. Where I'm from we also do an initial climb launch failure (pre full climb), instructor demo only (more training accidents than real accidents.) So that's an absolute minimum of 7 instructional launch failures.

The good news is that winch launching is really easy, easier than aerotowing. A competent pilot will learn to winch launch in 4 or 5 flights, so your 15 launch suggestion is do-able, but I would include more launch failures. For ab initio training we do a lot more launch failures before and after solo, just to reinforce the "expect a launch failure every launch" mindset.

Currency is very important. The shape of the airfield will also affect safety, a nice big round grass airfield will be very different to a commercial airfield.