Early in my gliding life with a few hundred winch launches I remember calculating the ratio of one winch launch failure to 38 launches. Hardly a scientific fact though.
In the few years I've been at Caboolture I believe there have been at least 2 unintended premature separations of the glider from the tug, not necessarily a rope break. Kevin Roden On 12 April 2011 20:32, Kenneth Caldwell <golflimaunif...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 5:09 PM, stephenk <steph...@internode.on.net>wrote: > >> Three breaks when I was at the back end of the rope out of ca 850 >> launches. One on the ground taking up slack, one at 200ft and one at 1400ft. >> The latter two on the same day on different ropes with different students >> (four flights apart) at a weeklong course in 1986. >> >> Zero breaks (so far) when at the front end of the rope out of ca 700 >> launches. >> >> I have had three unintended separations from the tug in 2000+ aerotows. > In each case it was due to a faulty tow hook at the tug end. Two happened at > over 1000' and were of course no problem but one happened just short of the > fence when departing glider 10 at Camden. I was in the back seat of a K7 > giving a visitor an "AEF". There was no chance of landing ahead before the > fence nor yet of clearing the trees and river. A turn to starboard seemed > the best bet with some open space between some bushes although there were a > number of concrete tie down blocks (Ex WW II ?) scattered about. After > turning through 90 deg I could see that the inboard tip was well clear of > the ground and I completed a 180 to land back the way I had come. The rope > was draped over the wing and tailplane. The passenger seemed quite > unconcerned! > > Winch launch failures are much more common may be as 2% but you should > always have somewhere to land. Does anyone on the list have any good > statistics on winch launch failures in Australia? > > cheers, > Ken > > > _______________________________________________ > Aus-soaring mailing list > Aus-soaring@lists.internode.on.net > To check or change subscription details, visit: > http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring >
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