Seminole Lake Glider Port.

On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 7:18:02 PM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
I remember getting around 1,300' using an 1.800' straight rope, but
that was on a dry lake bed with practically unlimited distance for
the tow car.Â* My pulley tow had the pulley attached to the back of
the tow car.Â* HERE
is raw video of me in my LS-6 during shooting for a program aired on
ESPN back in the 90s.Â* I got a bit enthusiastic near the top of the
climb causing the tug to lose traction.Â* The passenger in the Jeep
was Emerson Fittipaldi, winner of the Indianapolis 500.Â* He was the
host of the show.Â* The opening scene is not me, it's a couple of our
members doing a low pass for the show.
We did the same thing back in the late 70's in Miami at the old Kendall Gliderport. The tow vehicle was an old station wagon and we were able to get our auto tow rating back in the day when it was a rating instead of endorsement.



On 4/2/2020 12:11 PM, John Foster
wrote:



On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 11:33:19 AM UTC-6, wrote:


Ive got 1800 ft of spectra and a schweizer towhook mounted on a trailer reciever. The part I need to build is an electric reel for retreaving the line.
Dan


How high do you get with that rig, Dan? I'm interested. I've been pondering a design for a pulley that can be mounted to a trailer hitch receiver to do reverse auto tows. I'm considering a 4,500' length of Dyneema to be used on our 4,800' runway, but I also need to get signed off for ground launches first as well.





--

Dan, 5J

Does Florida's April 3's stay-at-home order apply to people who want to launch their gliders at Seminole Lakes?

Does Florida's April 3's stay-at-home order apply to people who want to launch their gliders at Seminole Lakes?

Based on the following information I cut and pasted from the actual order section 3 II, it appears there is no issue at this time for the gliderport to remain open to pilots with aircraft as long as all adhere to the "social distancing guidelines"

Section 3. Essential Activities
A. For purposes of this Order and the conduct it limits, "essential activities" means and encompasses the following:
1. Attending religious services conducted in churches, synagogues and houses
of worship; and
11. Participating in recreational activities (consistent with social distancing guidelines) such as walking, biking, hiking, fishing, hunting, running, or swimming;

I am not "anti religious", but....packing a bunch of peeps together for ANY reason across the globe just seems stupid....

My opinion.....

Good answer Marc. That is the way we interpreted it also. Soaring is like running, swimming and any other outdoor activity that can use social distancing to keep people safe. But if you share aircraft, like in a partnership, everyone needs to throughly wipe down the ship so all surfaces you touched are cleaned. You can mitigate this by wearing gloves when you pull out and stage ships. If it’s your own ship, that eliminates every issue except hook up. I wear gloves for that and remove them before getting in cockpit. Please stay away from the office and hanging around the tow pilot. Pay your bill over the phone. Thank you for everyone’s patience, we will be back training when it is safe to do so. 😀�

On Friday, April 3, 2020 at 5:54:17 PM UTC+1, Rich Owen wrote:
Good answer Marc. That is the way we interpreted it also. Soaring is like running, swimming and any other outdoor activity that can use social distancing to keep people safe. But if you share aircraft, like in a partnership, everyone needs to throughly wipe down the ship so all surfaces you touched are cleaned. You can mitigate this by wearing gloves when you pull out and stage ships. If it’s your own ship, that eliminates every issue except hook up. I wear gloves for that and remove them before getting in cockpit. Please stay away from the office and hanging around the tow pilot. Pay your bill over the phone. Thank you for everyone’s patience, we will be back training when it is safe to do so. 😀�

If done sedulously that takes care of contact transmission but you still have to maintain strict person to person physical distancing. The evidence as regards aerosol (as distinct from droplet) spread is all heading in the one direction and it isn't for the better.

That's probably debatable.
Currently you can still go boating where I am. Obviously by yourself or with persons you are already in contact with.

Gliding is even more isolated. Of course this has been discussed ad nauseam here lately.

T.B.S.S. has shut down operations.

I'd like to keep flying. I've already commented I think some of these shut downs are overreaching.

That being said I am cool with sitting things out for a couple of weeks.

However we need to accept that this horrible disease is in the wild and we will have to deal with it permanently. I am hoping and praying for a viable vaccine. However we cannot shut down the country like this through the coming months. It's just too much. I'll risk sounding crass by stating that at some point in a "war" you have to accept the fact that there will be casualties, and then try to continue living life.

On Friday, April 3, 2020 at 10:02:29 AM UTC-4, son_of_flubber wrote:
Does Florida's April 3's stay-at-home order apply to people who want to launch their gliders at Seminole Lakes?

I really do not know the answer to that, better speak to a lawyer about liability. I will be flying off my own strip with my own towplane. I have invited a couple others to join the group.

My club, Southern Eagles (Butler, Georgia, USA) got it’s start doing ground launch with an old LTD and a truck wheel pulley mounted to a trailer hitch. 4500 feet of dacron rope and a 5000’ runway got our Ka-7 to 1600 or more if there was some headwind. The beauty of the pulley launch was the 2:1 mechanical advantage. Acceleration on launch was very rapid like a winch and the tow car needed to go no faster than 30 mph at most (we usually hit maybe 28 mph in no wind). Low vehicle speed meant we could even operate off dirt. Sometimes got single seaters to over 2000 if we had a bit of wind on the nose. We still have the pulley and Tim McGowin recently bought 4000 feet of dyneema. We gonna get back into the ground launch biz. Hey Dan, maybe we come up Sylacauga way and do some ground launch with y’all after all this social distancing is over.

On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 5:42:15 PM UTC-7, Waveguru wrote:
My pay out winch works very well.

https://youtu.be/OWPbB2hxPKo

Boggs

Looks like this was shot on the Alvord Desert - how much distance did the launch take and what speed was attained? How do you control the payout? Is the reel motor driven for retrieval?