Winch Launch Safety

Winch and aero-tow launch methods both have similar hazardous situations that the pilot must be aware. The major difference between winch and aero tow is that everything happens appreciably faster during a winch tow and thus the winch-launch pilot must be ready to react instantly to any hazardous situation. Thus winch safety depends an quick recognition of possible hazardous situations that can occur plus training to avoid as well as recover from such hazardous situations. The secret of safe winch launches is to expect every launch to fail and when it does, continue to fly the glider. Examples of possible hazardous that can occur during winch launch, plus appropriate remedies are listed in the table below.

What is interesting about winch tow is that the correct recovery response to most hazards is invariably, lower the aircraft nose. The following articles elaborate on some of these hazardous situations:
1) The British Gliding Association is concerned about the accident rate during winch launch and have published articles on this in Sailplane and Gliding. These are "Safe winch launching" in S&G vol 56 #6, "Time for lateral thinking" S&G Vol57 #1, and "Six eventful seconds" S&G Vol57, #2
2) George Moore of Spokane, Washington wrote a thoughful and definitive article in January 2010 entitled "Launch Failure Recovery Strategies and Analyses" that discusses possible non-recoverable scenarios during winch launch.