New winch height record

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

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

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

BT

"Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote in message
...
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

These coordinates put me on the bridge next to the
Eiffel Tower. I cut and pasted.

At 17:24 25 November 2007, 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

Try: 51°23'42.85"N 4°57'41.54"E

Bill Daniels


"Nyal Williams" wrote in message
...

These coordinates put me on the bridge next to the
Eiffel Tower. I cut and pasted.

At 17:24 25 November 2007, 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

George Moore of Spokane, WA has developed some very convincing math that
says 50% of the initial rope length should be possible as release height
under no wind conditions.

As you go to longer ropes, the percentage used for ground roll and rotation
into the climb becomes less and as you get higher, you may encounter higher
headwinds which also adds to release height. I would expect higher
percentages simply due to longer ropes.

All this depends on several things. Using Spectra or Dyneema rope which is
10 - 12% the weight of steel cable for a given strength, using adequate
power to maintain a rope tension of 1 to 1.5 x glider weight and managing
that tension precisely with a computer.

In this case, they used an ASK-21 which specifies a black 2200 pounds-force
weak link. This allows a lot of power to be transfered to the glider.
Apparently it was flown solo which means a tension factor of ~1.5 x weight
was possible.

All very technical, of course. Where it's a game changer is training,
particularly glider aerobatic training. An aero tow to 1700 meters is way
over 100 Euro. The winch launch was probably less than 10 Euro.

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.

Bill Daniels


"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




--
bagmaker

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?

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

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

wrote:
What is a Mel winch?

Picture he

http://www.machinefabriek-el.nl/content_6.asp

What does UHMWPE mean?

Ultra High Molecular Weight PolyEthylene

Marc