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Aerotow Fuel Costs & Winch Launching
My UK gliding club has just been forced to increase the cost of 2000ft
aerotows from £25 to £29 (about $58), just due to the spiralling price of fuel. A good case for more winch launching perhaps! Derek Copeland |
#2
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Aerotow Fuel Costs & Winch Launching
In article , Derek Copeland
writes My UK gliding club has just been forced to increase the cost of 2000ft aerotows from £25 to £29 (about $58), just due to the spiralling price of fuel. A good case for more winch launching perhaps! Derek Copeland Too right! I know of two UK clubs which use LPG as a fuel for winches. We are doing more winching at our club; you can get to 1400 to 1500 ft at about a third the price of an aerotow to 2000. There seems to be an idea that winching is far more dangerous than aerotows, but I am old enough to remember a time when we were killing two or three tuggies every year. -- Mike Lindsay |
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Aerotow Fuel Costs & Winch Launching
We use LPG in the winches at my UK club and the fuel costs are fairly
negligible. A decent winch shouldn't cost very much more than a decent tug, and has far lower maintenance costs and requirements. You also don't need a licenced pilot to operate it. With a long enough winch run and using lightweight synthetic cables, it should easily be possible to get to 2000ft+ launches, especially if you can launch into a bit of a headwind. Derek Copeland At 09:20 26 May 2008, Mike Lindsay wrote: In article , Derek Copeland writes My UK gliding club has just been forced to increase the cost of 2000ft aerotows from £25 to £29 (about $58), just due to the spiralling price of fuel. A good case for more winch launching perhaps! Derek Copeland Too right! I know of two UK clubs which use LPG as a fuel for winches. We are doing more winching at our club; you can get to 1400 to 1500 ft at about a third the price of an aerotow to 2000. There seems to be an idea that winching is far more dangerous than aerotows, but I am old enough to remember a time when we were killing two or three tuggies every year. -- Mike Lindsay |
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