New winch height record

Here is a YouTube video of a MEL winch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3quhC6cD6rU

Wayne
http://www.soaridaho.com/


" wrote in message
...
What is a Mel winch?

What does UHMWPE mean?

Thanks,

Michael

Bill Daniels wrote:
From Europe:

________________________________________________
"On Sun, November 25, 2007 9:31 am, peternarinx wrote:
Yesterday, on the airfield of Weelde ( EBWE) in Belgium, Peter
Mink reached 1718m AGL with an ASK21 and a Mel winch."

"The length of the runway is 3100m including the grass at both ends
and the winch is on the ground. You can see the airfield on google
earth 51 23 48 N , 04 37 77 E. They said that the conditions were
not optimal yesterday......."
_________________________________________________

1718 meters is 5,636 feet AGL. The runway length is 3100 meters or
10,170
feet.

With the new light weight UHMWPE winch rope and a modern high performance
winch, great heights can be achieved.

Bill Daniels

On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 15:53:27 -0800, "BT" wrote:

how many glider club or commercial operations have 10,000ft of "runway"
available.
granted.. for most 4000ft runways.. it could prove very beneficial

BT

Wouldn't it be possible to locate the winch outside the airfield's
boundary, and launch with a longer rope on a 600m runway?
Is this common practice at some glider sites?


Aldo Cernezzi

On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:27:23 +0000, bagmaker
wrote:


With a runway of 3100m and a launch of 1718, the current known record
is 55.42%

I can offer 63.8% (Ka-8b, 670 m height on a 1050 m standard steel
cable).

Bye
Andreas

2cernauta2 wrote:

Wouldn't it be possible to locate the winch outside the airfield's
boundary, and launch with a longer rope on a 600m runway?
Is this common practice at some glider sites?

If geography allows you to retrieve the cable (no bushes, roads, walls,
rivers, whatever between start place and winch), if the safety of
uninvolved persons is not compromised, if there's no road, house,
whatever the cable can fall onto, if you can find an agreement with the
farmers whose fields you will cross while retrieveing the cable... and
be sure there's no regulation which prohibits cables above a certain
height. If you can fulfill all these requirements, then it would
certainly be worth to give it a try.

"John Smith" wrote in message
...
2cernauta2 wrote:

Wouldn't it be possible to locate the winch outside the airfield's
boundary, and launch with a longer rope on a 600m runway?
Is this common practice at some glider sites?

If geography allows you to retrieve the cable (no bushes, roads, walls,
rivers, whatever between start place and winch), if the safety of
uninvolved persons is not compromised, if there's no road, house, whatever
the cable can fall onto, if you can find an agreement with the farmers
whose fields you will cross while retrieveing the cable... and be sure
there's no regulation which prohibits cables above a certain height. If
you can fulfill all these requirements, then it would certainly be worth
to give it a try.

I would speculate that Spectra or Dyneema is a lot more forgiving in this
regard. It's possible that sites unsuitable for steel cable would be
workable if Spectra or Dyneema is used.

Steel cable is heavy and can damage anything it falls on. Because it forms
kinks and weak points, is easier to break. It's electrically conductive so
power lines are an extreme hazard.

Spectra or Dyneema is so light that it 'floats down' more than falls so is
unlikely to damage anything unless it is pulled across something under
tension or the connecting hardware does the damage. It's also a very poor
conductor.

Bill Daniels

On Nov 26, 3:03 pm, John Smith wrote:
2cernauta2 wrote:
Wouldn't it be possible to locate the winch outside the airfield's
boundary, and launch with a longer rope on a 600m runway?
Is this common practice at some glider sites?

If geography allows you to retrieve the cable (no bushes, roads, walls,
rivers, whatever between start place and winch), if the safety of
uninvolved persons is not compromised, if there's no road, house,
whatever the cable can fall onto, if you can find an agreement with the
farmers whose fields you will cross while retrieveing the cable... and
be sure there's no regulation which prohibits cables above a certain
height. If you can fulfill all these requirements, then it would
certainly be worth to give it a try.

And if cable breaks at *all* heights can be safely dealt with...

I like to think of quietly lobbing an instructor with a pre-solo student up
over a vertical mile at 6AM for 40 minutes of instruction in glassy smooth
air.

This is slightly OT, but... is there an optimal launch height at each
stage of training? For example, a few really high launches at the very
beginning (so that the student has time to practice things like speed
control and turns), and then a lot of standard (~1500ft) launches
(circuit planning and landing)?

Bartek

"brtlmj" wrote in message
...
I like to think of quietly lobbing an instructor with a pre-solo student
up
over a vertical mile at 6AM for 40 minutes of instruction in glassy
smooth
air.

This is slightly OT, but... is there an optimal launch height at each
stage of training? For example, a few really high launches at the very
beginning (so that the student has time to practice things like speed
control and turns), and then a lot of standard (~1500ft) launches
(circuit planning and landing)?

Bartek

Of course. Early trainees gets high launches until they can fly the glider
reasonably well and then a lot of low launches for landings and launch
failure training.

For low launches, 1500 feet or less, a retrieve winch can be used to get the
rope back for another launch achiving a launch every 2 minutes or so.

It would be great to have both capabilities.

Bill D

You would also need to make an adjustment for headwinds to make it really
fair.

Mike Schumann

"bagmaker" wrote in message
...

A typical winch launch yeilds about 1/3 of the runway/field available,
this is a fantastic result, Bill!
Perhaps we should be measuring the launch as a percentage of field
length, then there would actually be a record available for everyone to
shoot for, regardless of locality.
So...
With a runway of 3100m and a launch of 1718, the current known record
is 55.42%


Get out there and break it!!


bagger




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bagmaker



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Rent a 100' wide swath in the middle of a field.

Mike Schumann

"Todd" wrote in message
...
In my corner of the soaring world, we have lots of 1 mile by 1 mile
fields (section lines) so the diagonals area bit under 7500 ft. Still
might be good for an almost 4000 ft launch. Any friendly farmers out
there?



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