Winch demo wanted near St Louis

More...do the winch operations that pull the light line for a retrieve winch have more control for a parachute drop in the case of a weak link break?

In a perfect world, its never a line break someplace else, but seems like if a chute took off crosswind after a link snapped, there's a little time to have the retrieve end to snag it back.

BTW. When we train winch drivers we have little contests "flying" the chute down to a specific spot in front of the winch. Some of them get pretty good after ten tries. (Our minimum requirement to operate the the fishing reel solo) Karen

Before my time here. We did it again when the steel wire rope caught a tie down and made some sparks. The biggest fires have been set by the railroad.

Frank Whiteley

On Friday, February 1, 2013 9:02:47 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
I recall years ago when a soaring club in Colorado, USA dropped the winch

cable across overhead power lines. It started quite a grass fire!





"Bryan Poehler" wrote in message

...

At 16:43 29 January 2013, kirk.stant wrote:

The St Louis Soaring Association is interested in setting up a winch demo



Kirk,



You probably know this but the BGA has a good web page on winch launching

safety at:

http://www.gliding.co.uk/bgainfo/saf...hlaunching.htm



Bryan

Kirk,

How long is your field with the overrun?

We use the same type of winch as Don (from Faribault) and with our 2700 ft field, we are routinely achieving heights of 1000-1100 ft AGL, and the highest launches have been 1500-1600 AGL.

Dave

On Friday, February 1, 2013 6:47:24 PM UTC-6, Dave Springford wrote:

How long is your field with the overrun?

Dave, our main runway is 2700' long, with a 500' displaced threshold at the south end and a 1200' field at the north end (that the club owns and could use if desired, with a little work). If you Google maps "Highland-Winet airport" you will see a good aerial shot of our field (including our tow planes and our L-13AC waiting for a tow (the Pawnee has just been refuelled). We have busy roads at both ends but no nearby powerlines - pretty much surrounded by open fields.

So, without any physical changes, we could use 3200' launching to the North by staging in the underrun, or South with the winch in the underrun. If we went to the effort of extending a takeoff runway/winch path to the North, we could add another 1000' or so our available distance.

Most of our glider ops takeoff to the North (towplanes land back to the south if winds are light).

Kirk 66

On 2/2/2013 11:01 AM, kirk.stant wrote:
So, without any physical changes, we could use 3200' launching to the North by staging in the underrun, or South with the winch in the underrun. If we went to the effort of extending a takeoff runway/winch path to the North, we could add another 1000' or so our available distance.


GBSC Occasionally winches out of 8b5 and have 3500 feet available with
the over run. On light wind days, get get about 1200 altitude - enough
to get out of town on a good day. IMHO, the extra 1000 ft available to
you would be worth it.

http://home.comcast.net/~verhulst/SO...oto_page_7.htm

Tony