Winch Launching in US

On Jun 9, 4:06*pm, wrote:
On 5 June, 15:22, "john hawkins" wrote:

I have recently started gliding again after a long absense. I no longer have
funds to support my power plane habit and am soaring as less expensive means
of getting airborne. I am surprised to see that winch tows in the USA are
still almost non existant. Why not. Surely a winch is much cheaper than a
tow plane. I see that a new winch is manufactured in CA but My god the
price!

I would appreciate readers of the new group to educate me.

There is some interest in winch launching in the US, but instead of
just importing or copying some well proven European designs, the
leading lights decided to build their own 'superwinches' which are
still under development with no guarantee that they will be any better
or safer! In fact so far the reverse seems to be true.

You paint with a rather broad brush, Del boy. There are two
commercial winch development projects in the US, one being a Dutch
collaboration. To date, established, active winching has little or
nothing to do with either project. Forgot to add MI and (soon) LA to
the states where winching are current activities. Note there are
multiple winch sites in some of the previously mentioned states also.

Frank Whiteley

On 10 June, 05:59, Frank Whiteley wrote:
On Jun 9, 4:06*pm, wrote:





On 5 June, 15:22, "john hawkins" wrote:

I have recently started gliding again after a long absense. I no longer have
funds to support my power plane habit and am soaring as less expensive means
of getting airborne. I am surprised to see that winch tows in the USA are
still almost non existant. Why not. Surely a winch is much cheaper than a
tow plane. I see that a new winch is manufactured in CA but My god the
price!

I would appreciate readers of the new group to educate me.

There is some interest in winch launching in the US, but instead of
just importing or copying some well proven European designs, the
leading lights decided to build their own 'superwinches' which are
still under development with no guarantee that they will be any better
or safer! In fact so far the reverse seems to be true.

You paint with a rather broad brush, Del boy. *There are two
commercial winch development projects in the US, one being a Dutch
collaboration. *To date, established, active winching has little or
nothing to do with either project. *Forgot to add MI and (soon) LA to
the states where winching are current activities. *Note there are
multiple winch sites in some of the previously mentioned states also.

Frank Whiteley- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes you are quite right, but winch launching gliders still seems to be
a very minority activity in the States, as compared with Europe where
about two-thirds of all glider launches are by winch and most gliding
clubs own at least one winch.

Derek Copeland

P.S. rec.aviation soaring still doesn't seem to be working on GP
Net!!!!