Oh my aching back.
The sucker weighs a ton and the battery to support it is always the largest in the line because it can draw so much current.
So if you have any element of brightness to you at all you wait till someone else gets out there winch and battery and leave yours in the car out of sight. If no one shows up in the first half hour you think about getting yours out but the walk to lay out that 300m of line is more than any one in their right mind wants to do.
Ouch. 300m to the turnaround. (FAI is merciful only 200m)
So now we need a retriever. Now you talk about rats nests. But if the owner knows how to operate it no sweat. Just come in and quietly ask for an occasional launch. Stay your distance though if things are not going smoothly . Buy him some coffee on the way in or something else on the way out.
All this pain because of the ease of an easily made powerful heavy winch. (Can you understand now the popularity of the high start avoiding the weight of this winch and this battery)
But quietly in the background you have people ask weird questions. Why few line breaks and such high launches with the weak Bosch and the mono line.
Well in truth Chuck has a point. If you do anything wrong in the setup mono is the ultimate pain. Times I have spent a couple of hours unwinding a line that was new and I did not wish to throw out.
But if you had followed the rules things "normally" go smoothly
Now the pain - the "Bosch" starter. If you go and ask for one that is the right model off the right car 9 out of 10 you will be given the wrong one. You will get the new gear reduction unit rather than the original direct drive that you need.
Now if you do get it you now need to put on a machinist's hat and make a new nose for it. At this point you will have a small projection out the end and by some means you can couple this to your spool and carry on.
Now if we all said nuffs enuff we might be able to cut through this morass and go to the other winch. We hope winch Dr gets us on this track shortly.
Now we typically launch higher with the 1.1 Bosch than we do with the Ford 4hp because we tie a retriever on the line to get it back and all the air drag terribly burdens the system particularly since the long 300m line is preferred.
Retrieve line by walking: your out of your mind we would be losing weight .
So the ease of getting our hands on the long shaft Ford motor, the work of loading it and its battery and the idea of walking just about wipes out the idea of an FAI style launch system and owning your system
But don't forget there is little innovation in the basics. We saw that old Ford long shaft and that is what a winch is supposed to be .
The "Lucas" motors are also available and the m45 is almost a perfect size for the class unfortunately it is as heavy as the Ford long shaft but does not draw the current so though large is only about 1.1hp. The m35 is also available but the rating is between .6 and .8 horsepower. BUT get this they both have long shafts and no machining is necessary but they are as scarce as kangaroos in Maine. I have owned several of the small m35s and one of the m45. Again the m45 is WORK carrying it.
Ok line breakage what a headache. So what do you do buy heavier next time. Why because you know that so and so is coming with Icon or Supra.
BUT on the Bosch motor you have only 1.1 hp and you can have line stronger than that. Besides in the suggested format the contestant supplies his winch. Again "out of your cotton picken mind". But this means your winch; your line; you fix it; you set it up to launch your plane. No wonder people don't have the fondness for the Dassle size or the 2m slightly smaller. You launch on a hawser and pull it back with some baler twine. The plane gets pulled to bits trying to lift enormous loads of the weight and the wind drag. Change that to mono of the right size and the average launch with not much sweat would be around 800feet. I swore again can you imagine "feet" those things are supposed to be meters.
Rick
Richard Hallett Pittsfield ME
James V. Bacus wrote:
> We have winches, but they use a starter motor of a USA car (FORD longshaft) instead of a bosch type motor. These winches are typically much stronger than an FAI winch, and are typically spooled up with braided twine instead of mono, which tends to last a little longer than mono. (Especially for guys that are not used to it.)
>
> Some of us for fun put mono on these winches... it's almost like a good two man tow. 8-)
>
>
>
>
>
> At 10:41 PM 3/3/2005, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> The main reason I can perceive is that not everybody wants to own a
>> winch?
>
>
>
> Jim
> Downers Grove, IL
> Member of the Chicago SOAR club, and Team JR
> AMA 592537 LSF 7560 Level IV R/C Soaring blog at www.jimbacus.net
>
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