The Winch
We are lucky to have a professionally-built winch for launching when we are not using the towplane. The V8 engine drives the 6000' drum via an automatic gearbox. We use Tost weak links: the Blue for the Twin and White for the singles.
Our winch was designed for wire. We have used single strand high tensile for many years. This worked well enough with a skilled driver but launch heights were not great and we had many breaks. We swapped to using a section of multi strand wire. This reduced our breaks but was very heavy and our heights were reduced a little more. After following recent developments in NZ and other countries we decided to trial a 1km portion of synthetic rope. This has worked really well and gave a smooth launch. The only breaks were caused by either the remaining wire or the wire/rope join.
In 2005 we finally ditched all our wire and replaced with 4mm Dyneema. This is a very light and strong synthetic rope with good abrasion resistance.
Launch height is typically 1500-1800' (no wind).
A few reminders for winch drivers
* Use 96 Mogas
* Check fluids!
* Use 2nd gear
* Accelerate the PW5 slowly
* Think SAFETY at all times
* Study the instructions below
Click here for detailed driving instructions
See the BGA website "safe winching" for some good advice on flying the wire!