Winch Signals

At 17:45 09 April 2009, Nyal Williams wrote:
Andy,

Funny you should metion that; I used to work on pipe organs, but this
never occurred to me. I'm really interested to know the history of the
phrase.

At 16:54 09 April 2009, Andy wrote:
On Apr 9, 9:31=A0am, Andy wrote:
=A0Pulling a sliding
plate flue damper "all out" gives maximum flue draw and the hottest
fire.

On further reflection the term could have come from pipe organs where
"stops" are pulled out to control airflow and hence sound volume.
Pipe organs predate 1300. ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_organ

There must be a reference to the origin somewhere on the internet but
I didn't find it yet.

Andy



I learnt to winch at Dartmoor Gliding Society. We winched using an ex RAF
winch with a 7 Litre Diesel engine. They had previously experimented with
land lines (run around the perimeter fence and then later burying them) but
sheep and other rodents got to eat/chew them. Now there is a dedicated
ground frequency for the club. The launch point, winch and retrieve
vehicle can all communicate with each other. Its more flexible than a
land line because if the launch point is short handed one person can wing
run and talk to the winch using a hand held transceiver. The retrieve
vehicle can communicate which is useful if mending a cable break etc. In
addition the launch point and winch are out of sight of each other due to
the slope on the runway in either direction. No one has transmitted on
our private frequency when we are launching.

The radio calls a

'Take up slack (type of glider) (solo if a two seater and only one pilot)
North/South cable'.

The winch driver then takes the cable in slowly until all slack is taken
up.

When all slack has been taken up:

'All out, All out'

The winch driver give appropriate initial throttle according to
weight/type of glider and wind. When it comes over the crest the winch
diver controls the winch by eyeballing the catenary of the cable. If too
fast the pilot wags the rudder - yaws. If too slow the pilot puts the
nose down to regain speed.

Any problems the launch point calls ' STOP, STOP, STOP' and the winch
driver immediate cuts the power.

Note take up slack is said once,
'all out' is said twice
and
'STOP' three times.
Even if the engine is noisy or the radio distorted then the difference is
always clear.

In Belgium I winch in Flemish and German. Tost V8 auto winch atop a ex
German army truck. We use land lines and field telephones. The routine
is basically the same but a bit more wordy. The differences are that the
cables are colour coded - important because we use a 2 winch set up,
Flemish and German winches side by side and whoever is next in the queue
takes the next cable irrespective of the club membership of the pilot or
whose winch it is.

We don't wag the tail as a signal for too fast but the pilot calls the
speed in kph and the launch point relays the radio call via the land line
(which is permanently open during the winch launch) to the winch driver
who corrects the speed appropriately. The airfield is dead flat so the
winch driver can see everything.

Its horses for courses. After having over 3 years of doing it the British
way and over 3 years of doing it the Belgian/German way there isn't much
in it and I wouldn't be so bold to say that one way is better than the
other.

Whatever calls/routine you do adopt stick to it and make sure everybody
uses the same terminology and calls each and every time. Non-standard
calls causes confusion and accidents.




Gavin
Std Cirrus, CNN now G-SCNN, #173
LSV Viersen, Keiheuvel, Belgium