Successful Winch Launch Operations from Public Use Municipal/County Airports

On Tuesday, July 16, 2019 at 12:59:23 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Hi Richard, I own/operate a commercial glider operation (16 years now!) at a Municipal airport in Faribault,MN called Cross Country Soaring, Inc. The majority of our operations are behind a Socata Rallye 235E pulling a pair of Grob 103 Twin IIs and a dozen private owners. We do a fair amount of winching also. A decade ago I bought a 330HP Gehrlein winch and have a mile of 6MM Dyneema on the drum. The trick to operating at a GA airport (in my experience) is to get everyone on board - the local power pilots, the airport manager, FSDO. You can't approach it with, "gliders are one of the seven categories of aircraft and have a right to operate from federally-funded airports blah blah". That argument can be easily toppled at a meeting (that you aren't invited to) where concerns about safety, legit or otherwise, win the day. Instead, write up a "Winch Operations Manual" which covers every step of a winch launch. It should absolutely reek with courtesy towards power traffic, professionalism, and clear radio communication. Once your local FSDO signs off (yup - send them a copy), the airport manager can relax and most local power pilots think it looks cool as hell. :-) The hard part is playing second fiddle while winching. E.G. radio: "Glider holding for inbound traffic (ten miles out)". Or, "Winch retrieve car, clearing the active for Warrior on downwind (doing it's 10th touch-and-go)". That's hard. But, it's the price. Also, take the local power guys up on a launch or two. No charge. It will be the best money you ever spent. The main goal is to appear professional and courteous to the more...er...rigid pilots out there. Good luck!

You summed it up nicely, Don! in addition to all the things you mentioned, we ask the city employees running the airport to add 'Gliders operating off the field' to the AWOS. Also, the winch operator announces every takeoff warning approaching traffic not to do a mid-field crossing below a certain altitude (typically twice the expected release altitude) for the next minute since wings and Spectra don't mix well. We also invite the local power and jet guys regularly to fly with us. The biz-jet guys have followed our request to call in an estimated time overhead instead of '15 miles out to the north', which gives us a much better idea for whether to go or hold the launch. As I mentioned above, communication is key!

How do you deal with waiting for inbound traffic with a rope laying the length of the runway?
We are fortunate enough to be able to operate off the grassy area next to the main runway, so we don't have that problem.

Uli
'AS'

Regarding winch lines on the runway, we also tend to winch from a dirt/grass area next to the runway, so we don't have to worry about they line on the runway. We have done both, and have tried things like keeping the line in the gravel next to the runway, but it is not ideal to have active operations on the runway while you have a line out. So we found an approach to not do that.

And as mentioned, our radio calls also advise traffic to avoid area of launch to keep traffic clear of the line. But we are particularly vigilant in watching for other traffic in or near the pattern or transitioning, and we just don't launch until we are confident the space is clear.

Mike Hendron

How do winch operations handle NORDO traffic at airports open to the public?

On Tuesday, July 16, 2019 at 2:15:33 PM UTC-4, son_of_flubber wrote:
How do winch operations handle NORDO traffic at airports open to the public?

Good old 'MK-VIII' eyeballs in a head on the swivel!
Uli
'AS'