Photo Page 7

  The Club (GBSC) recently acquired an ancient, single drum, winch (in need of a paint job :-) ) from the Post Mills Soaring Club - but it runs well. The engine is a sizable V8.

Winching is not common in the US but is done extensively in Europe and elsewhere. Many European winches have 4 or more drums so you can get a lot of gliders aloft in a short amount of time.
  The drum holds more than a mile of cable, which will likely be replaced with Spectra rope in the future.

The idea is that you put the winch at one end of the field and the glider at the other, and then the winch reels in the cable at 50 or 60 knots or so (wind dependent) and launches the glider. A typical release altitude is about 1/3 of the cable length.

  Here we have the glider 4000 feet away and we were getting launch heights of 1200 to 1300 feet. We are still very much in learn mode here (Oct '09). The club has members from the "continent", where winching is done extensively, and they are teaching the rest of us. Note the light signal on the truck closest to the glider.
  Here we see the take off from the winch end. The acceleration is "brisk", to say the least, and the glider is off the ground in dozens of feet. Oh, yeah, on this day the wind was straight across the runway at about 25 knots.
  Here is a launch shown from the other end of the field. Note that the cable is attached close to the glider's center of gravity. This is important because in mid-climb, the glider is pitched up 45 degrees. If the cable is attached to the nose, it's impossible to pitch up enough. It's a real rocket shot.
  About 1/3 of the way into the climb.

The advantage of winching is that it's much cheaper than an aero tow and, with a multi-drum winch and a trained crew, you can throw a lot of gliders in the air in a very short amount of time.

 
  Near the top of the launch. It's all over in about 30 seconds.

The disadvantage of winching is that the release height is much lower than that from an aero tow so you don't have too much time to find the thermal that will get you out of town. But, if you do need a relight, the wait is not very long.