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Cross Country Soaring also has a winch!

This page contains some images of the "winch clinic" we held  May 19-21, 2008.  While winches are routinely used in much of the world to launch gliders, they are pretty rare in the U.S.  with perhaps fewer than a dozen sites nation-wide. Winches are fast, economical, quiet (compared to a tow plane), simpler maintenance, fun and GREEN (one quart of fuel gets a sailplane to 2000AGL). Did I mention fun? Here we are getting ready for another launch. They each take less than a minute from 'initial ground roll' to 'parachute back on the ground'. And what a ride! Here we are set up a few hundred feet off the end of runway 30 with the 330HP winch and 5200 feet (a mile!) of Hi-Tech Spectra rope on the drum.

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Lots of help form the workshop crew.

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It goes up like a kite...a big, big kite.

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We started the day with introductions and a little classroom theory from Bill Daniels. Bill came out from Colorado to mentor us in flying the glider during a winch launch. Bill has been winching for many years and is a CFIG (instructor).
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Frank Whiteley, also out from Colorado, was our expert winchmeister. He first started winching in England over 20 years ago and is a passionate advocate. Here he gives us the basics before we position the winch. Both Bill and Frank were top notch, with extensive knowledge of the subject, a ton of experience, great attitudes and obvious skill. We have made hundreds of smooth launches since their visit.
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During our first few launches we found some splices in the rope that we decided to re-do. Rope breaks are rare, as with aero-tow, but when they do occur, they are handled easily by the pilot due to the length of the runway ahead and the altitude so quickly attained.



Staging #1.
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Locked and loaded.



0-60 in about three seconds. What a great feeling.
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Just airborne. Click HERE  for a short video of the launch.
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Already enough speed to begin rotation into a 45 degree climb.
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About 40 seconds later the Grob 103 is at 2000AGL.
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The connecting ring back-releases automatically when the winch reduces power at the top of the climb. The pilot can also pull the release if desired.
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The parachute is then reeled in...
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And dropped with precision.
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Steve Wheeler's Ask-21 grids next. This is Steve's first winch ride, too. Bill usually demonstrates a few launches before handing the controls over to the student pilot.
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Fast start.
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The 21 gets a nice high launch!  Glider pilots wishing to obtain a ground-launch endorsement, or ANYONE wishing to experience an exhilarating and memorable ride, are most welcome. I post the winch launching days on "The Daily Schedule" (click  the "Calendar&Links" page below). We do aero-tow on these days also.


|Cross Country Soaring, Inc.| |Welcome| |Rides| |The GIFT| |Instruction| |Prices| |Florida!| |Scholarship| |Calendar&Links| |Videos +| |Photos| |Directions| |Site Map| |Contact Us| |The Winch|