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Michael
Re rope on winches:
I think I can answer most of your Q?'s.
A trace is used at the glider end, this is a length of the rope covered by fairly stiff hose.
No recovery chute is used.
The stretch in poly rope is not discernable on a launch but is a very desirable feature when a snarl occurs at the winch when running the rope out.
The South Gippsland winch is a 1955 Ford F100, the gears are 3 on the tree.
Twist on the rope! Put pressure on it & it soon loses any twist.
Swivel --waste of time.
Rope is normally spliced, but a reef knot will do to keep operations going at a busy time/or can't splice.
Weak link -- length of appropriate strength rope between the rope & trace.
Reason for being the first Club in Australia to use rope on a winch
or at least officially.--- joint use of a rather restricted airfield. Wire has a rather bad press with at least 2 cases to my knowledge of becoming entangled with aircraft in Australia.
We only use polypropylene rope. The brand names vary, but is the highest strength marine rope available to the fishing industry.
We use 10mm Garline which is available from all suppliers to the
industry. The Gympie G.C. is using 8 mm Super Danline which is
similar. I think that both the Lake Keepit & Mangrove Mountain Clubs are currently using rope on their winches. Overseas some people are using a braided 4/5mm rope called Dyeena, Vectra or various other brand names. I looked up the price of this on the Web & could only find quoted prices of around $2.00 per metre,
this is about 5 times the price of poly rope.Over the years we have discarded poly ethylene rope as being too soft & unreliable
while the off the shelf rope as held by most hardware shops is too variable in quality to be considered.
Finally our rope is laid out on grass with it crossing either a bitumen runway or a gravel one, depending the runway in use.
It also spends a fair bit of time being retrieved across barb wire fences & the bitumen runway.
Hope I have answered most of your Q?'s.
John O'Neill CFI. SGGC. Leongatha.
-------Original Message-------
Date: 01/24/05 00:27:56
Subject: [Aus-soaring] Rope On Winches
Can anyone out there who is using rope on winches or has had experience
doing so please let me know if:
-they use a trace on the glider end of the rope
-they use a recovery chute
-how do they cope with stretch in the rope (ie: use non stretch rope or
auto transmission or some other means) ?
-What technique you use to get the twist out of new rope ?
-Is the swivel effective or a waste of time ?
-Do you splice your joins or tie knots ?
-Do you use a rope or metal weak link ?
-Do you use a tension measuring device ?
-why did you go with or stay with rope rather than wire ?
-which ropes have you tried and liked or disliked ?
-what surface are you operating on: ie grass gravel etc ?
Cheers
Michael Derry
Have Fun Flying Safely
PS Hopefully someone from the Gippsland Gliding Club will reply.
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