My Steps to Easy Winch Launch

[Martin James Attwell]

Hi All

My "easy" steps to winch launching with an offset hook:

- First setup with a drastic nose to the left direction
-Get the wing runner to hold back and make sure he/she UNDERSTANDS what you mean
- Get the winch driver to give SLOW acceleration
- Start with a boot full of left rudder
- Get the tail up as quickly as possible (this does not mean giving full down, as it will blank off airflow to the tail)
- Get the glider up onto its main wheel quickly (usually happens in the first 20m)
- Scale down on the rudder input as it now has full authority when the tail flies before the rest of the glider
- Watch out for over-run of the cable at this point
- Rotate slowly and keep tension on the line
- Enjoy the ride

This method gives me total confidence in winch launching as it does does not allow the glider to run off to the right to induce a ground loop.

Remember, if it does not work, pull the release before its too late.

Any other suggestions?

Regards
Martin
Lima 1

[Terry Fagg]

Hi,

It has been about 20 years since i flew a 15 but from memory i always found that i had less trouble if i kept the tail on the ground until i had considerable rudder control. The drag of the tail skid so far back from the tow hookmeant't that the force vectors were such that little side pull was experienced. Once you were really rolling it was no problem. From memory some pilots found that they had directional problems on aertow as well because the aerotow hook was not on the nose and so the same technique would be employed.I never had any real directional control problems by using the technique above , but i understand MartinJames thinking.
Regards
Ashtree

[Johan van Ravenzwaaij]

I feel comfortable with a rather fast pull of the winch. At the moment the there is no ground contact any more,  the tendency to make a right turn is almost nihil.  So I try to get airborne asap. Of course you need to start with full opposed rudder.