Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?

Bill....at best, not accurate.

On Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 7:26:57 PM UTC-6, Sean Fidler wrote:
Bill....at best, not accurate.

Absolutely dead accurate.

Sean Fidler wrote:

Winches are extremely expensive to purchase, to maintain, and insure and require skilled operators.

Wildly inaccurate and misleading.

Winch operators can be trained in a day.
Brand new winches can be expensive but the operating costs are extremely low.
Maintenance is penny's per launch.
Winch insurance may already be included in the insurance you have.

Brand new winches "can" be expensive? Can be? Wow! There is a plug.

I hear they are well over 100k. Or more! I have heard $250k plus for an advanced european system. "Can" be expensive? I also hear insurance is not cheap either. You say its included? Sure, for the glider. What about the club or operator? When is the last US purchase of a new winch system? What was the price? How many have been purchased in the last 10 years? What are clubs paying to maintain new and old winch systems? What are clubs paying to convert them from wire to spectra? I know of one club that is letting their winch rust rather than pay to upgrade.

I have nothing against winches. I think they are fine. But a car and a rope (auto-towing) is the cheapest, easiest to train method of launching a glider, period. Winches are more expensive and far more complex. These are simple facts.

I don't care, but this thread has been entirely hijacked by a bunch of winch people. For what purpose? Why the hyping of winches? Are you kids afraid of being displaced by auto towing? Why? Are you getting a "spiff" from the winch manufacturer perhaps?

My argument is that if I was a 20 year old and had the right situation (airport size, etc), I would rather have my buddy tow me up with his jeep for free than pay $40 for a tow. Now, why not expand this independence to everyone whenever possible. Another benefit of auto-towing is not having to wait in line or deal with a political soaring club environment. Perhaps interesting to some.

Anyway, as usual, I couldn't care less about this thread anymore. The forest is once again lost for the trees.

Here's another pay out winch video from the other end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWPbB2hxPKo

Boggs

And another next to the tow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB1KUrgAu58

Here one that's a little long, 13 minutes, but gives you the view from the glider. The tow starts at about 3 minutes. We get more height when the truck gets up to speed before setting the brake:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3ga-XJ_cdw

Boggs

From 1995 - 2000 we had a little club that operated mostly with autotow. The biggest expense was, eventually, overhauling the CV joints of the Dodge Ram, eaten by the owner.
I wrote a little instruction manual one weekend in 2000. Behind every recommendation in this is an un-told story.
http://www.danlj.org/~danlj/Soaring/...nch/index.html

http://www.ssa.org/Archive/ViewIssue...onth=10&page=1

This is a article in soaring by Tom Hardy. it describes his experience gathering a group of students and doing low level auto tows runs up and down the runway at a low flight level. I remember reading this when it first came out and was impressed at how much fun it seemed and and quick way to get alot of budding pilots stick time. I met and flew with Mr Hardy in Marfa back in the late 90's. He was quite elderly at the time yet drove there alone, rigged and flew, I was impressed.
T

Start your training in winch land and you get hundreds of low altitude releases. You get quite good at climbing out and recognizing the need to give up and enter the pattern. Even better, do winch training when you're a kid and your brain is a sponge.

Train with aerotow, and you take a relatively small number of 3000 foot tows and just enough pattern tows to achieve PTS landing standards. Climb outs from pattern tows are rare. If you have a CFI-G on board, and you might climb out if the lift is solid and easy when you release.

Move on to XC, fly less frequently, land once a day, and see a regression in landing proficiency. Make an effort to maintain landing proficiency.

Having trained with aerotow exclusively, I'll release at 1300 in reliable lift, but if I don't immediately climb, I head for the pattern. I've never practiced the more subtle decision making that one needs for relatively safe 'low saves'. I avoid struggling for lift below 1300.

If I changed my home airport to a place with a nice winch, a big flat field, and smooth low altitude lift (and not much sink, gusts and wind shear), I'd roll back my training, take a few hundred winch tows over a summer, and fill the low altitude flying gaps in my training. Maybe some place in Germany... The only thing that I've ever practiced below 1300 is circling in smooth easy lift and landing.

I'm an adequate and well-trained pilot for how I fly. If I were a 'natural pilot', I might feel differently. Going to a one-off, auto/winch towing camp would be a good experience, but I'd not have too much confidence in my fresh ground launch endorsement until I did a few hundred launches. People who did their initial training with ground launch have deeply rooted skills that I don't have. I could probably get a ground launch endorsement with a brief effort, but my skills would be thin.

I get stuck on the attitude of "giving up and heading for the pattern".
What works for me is to keep trying until I must lower the gear, turn
base, and land. There's no pattern (for me, at least) when flying that
low. Pick a a touchdown spot early, on airport or off, and work the
lift until you feel that your touchdown spot will soon become out of
reach. Maybe you'll drift to a location where there's another safe
landing spot, maybe not. The comfort comes from developing that feeling
for the glider and its response to your input.

On 10/11/2015 8:34 AM, son_of_flubber wrote:
Start your training in winch land and you get hundreds of low altitude releases. You get quite good at climbing out and recognizing the need to give up and enter the pattern. Even better, do winch training when you're a kid and your brain is a sponge.

Train with aerotow, and you take a relatively small number of 3000 foot tows and just enough pattern tows to achieve PTS landing standards. Climb outs from pattern tows are rare. If you have a CFI-G on board, and you might climb out if the lift is solid and easy when you release.

Move on to XC, fly less frequently, land once a day, and see a regression in landing proficiency. Make an effort to maintain landing proficiency.

Having trained with aerotow exclusively, I'll release at 1300 in reliable lift, but if I don't immediately climb, I head for the pattern. I've never practiced the more subtle decision making that one needs for relatively safe 'low saves'. I avoid struggling for lift below 1300.

If I changed my home airport to a place with a nice winch, a big flat field, and smooth low altitude lift (and not much sink, gusts and wind shear), I'd roll back my training, take a few hundred winch tows over a summer, and fill the low altitude flying gaps in my training. Maybe some place in Germany... The only thing that I've ever practiced below 1300 is circling in smooth easy lift and landing.

I'm an adequate and well-trained pilot for how I fly. If I were a 'natural pilot', I might feel differently. Going to a one-off, auto/winch towing camp would be a good experience, but I'd not have too much confidence in my fresh ground launch endorsement until I did a few hundred launches. People who did their initial training with ground launch have deeply rooted skills that I don't have. I could probably get a ground launch endorsement with a brief effort, but my skills would be thin.



--
Dan, 5J