By Steve Shupert
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A winch is used to tension a rope, which then moves, lowers, or stabilizes an object. It is also used on smaller vehicles as a self-rescue tool, such as for pickup trucks and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs).
Many fire departments are installing winches on apparatus, typically using a square-tube receiver-style hitch and sometimes in multiple locations around the rig. This powerful and useful rigging tool has many uses, limitations, and potential dangers included in the advantages it brings to the scene. We will discuss these issues as well as rope inspection and other concerns.
When determining how you will use your winch, there are several important considerations you must keep in mind. First, winches don’t lift, they pull. Yes, you can elevate a pulley (snatch block), but you are risking fouling the winch line—they just aren’t made to lift or suspend an object. A winch is designed for pulling an object on a relatively horizontal plane. A rule of thumb is that anything pulled above or below 45° from horizontal is considered hoisting. Hoists use a different braking device than a winch. Most winches are made with dynamic brakes, meaning a gear system will automatically hold the load. Dynamic brakes use the winch gears for resistance, which is why they are unstable for lifting or suspending objects. If you were to use a winch to suspend a load, the load could easily slip, and the gears could become damaged, resulting in catastrophic failure.
So, a winch is not a hoist and should never be used as such. Hoisting requires an elevated anchor point; other options such as a recovery rotator, tripod, ladder truck, or crane are likely better options. Some confined space rescue crews carry hoists on their tripods. When moving people with a mechanical hoist or winch, carefully weigh your risk/benefit considerations. It is difficult to feel the load (human) bind up, which could result in an additional injury.
When selecting a winch, determine the largest load you would reasonably pull or stabilize. The average car weighs about 3,500 pounds. The working load limit (WLL)of a winch is a bit of a moving target. It is determined by the rating of the wire rope or synthetic rope. And, all winch ratings are determined by the tension developed by the first layer of rope on the drum. The first layer is the only layer that will provide a pull equal to the working load limit. The capacity of a winch decreases as more layers are wrapped on top of each other around the drum, changing the diameter of the drum. Each additional layer drops the WLL by approximately 10%. The capacity listed on the winch assumes pulling on the first layer of rope. This is similar to a high-pressure air bag’s capacity where the taller the bag grows, the less it can lift.
Before using the winch, check the vehicle, fluids, tires, brakes, etc. Check that the winch is powered up, that the line plays out smoothly and is in good working order, that there are no broken or loose parts, and that electrical connections are bright and tight.
As stated, WLL is determined by the rating of the wire rope or synthetic rope on the drum. It is important to consider other factors that will reduce a winch’s capability. Wire rope can be damaged by pinching, fraying, kinking, or corrosion. Hazards at the scene can cause damage. The same is true for synthetic rope. It is prudent to limit your pulls to a value significantly less than the winch’s WLL. Industry experts suggest that it is good to maintain a 4:1 safety factor for every pull. Using this factor, a 9,000-pound winch should be limited to a 2,250-pound pull. This is a big dip in capability; however, keep in mind that if you are stabilizing a vehicle, most of the car’s weight is transmitted straight to the ground, and unless the vehicle gets in a bind, you are not pulling the entire weight. If you are just holding the vehicle in place, the demand on the winch is much less. If you are pulling the car up a hill or out of a body of water (the car is now full of water for a bit), these added loads will need to be considered in the planning.
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) , Standard on Automotive Fire Apparatus, suggests a minimum of 75 feet of rope for each winch. You can load more rope, but in winch work, more rope is not necessarily better. Keep in mind that to achieve the maximum pull from your winch, you need to lay off enough rope to get to the first layer (the layer closest to the drum). You do not want to stretch out all the rope and load the rope termination at the end of its line coming out of the drum either—this is a sure way to break your winch. Always maintain four to five wraps of wire rope on your drum. The drum is meant to be loaded, not the very end of the rope. A drum with too much rope will mean that you may not be able to pay enough off before reaching your pull point and you will be winching on the upper layers of the drum. This will reduce your pulling power and reduce the efficiency of your winch motor. Apparatus placement is critical in winching operations to obtain maximum pull. Ideally, the apparatus is straight in line with the load, and the distance between the apparatus and the load leaves four to five wraps of wire rope on the drum.
Hey guys,
does anyone of you have some experience with winch launch?
Such a winch is quite expensive, and you need an appropriate terrain to lay out the whole length of the cord.
Since Drones become cheaper and cheaper, and even more powerful, why not use a drone instead of a winnch to launch a paraglider into thermals?
the motors, propellers ESCs and the battery used for the OpenPPG could also be used (with a different controller and a different frame) as a quadcopter to possibly launch a paraglider in exchange for a winch.
Any ideas?
I do winch launching in Alberta, we have a very old system shared by about 10 guys, its a payout winch so you don’t lay the line out, you drive down a road and slowly let the line out, using the momentum of the vehicle driving to pull you up and control the tension of the line being released by hydraulic brakes on the drum. Our winch is very cheap, probably worth $can. You could build a self launching static electric winch for a fraction of the cost of building a large enough drone to pull you into the sky. It doesn’t seem practical or feasible to use a drone to tow you into the sky. You could probably buy a tesla car for cheaper to tow you up instead of the size of drone you would need to tow up to cloud base.
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There’s a range of hills (roughly 200m high) in my area, where soaring is a big thing when winds are coming from south.
Problem is there’s only a ramp for those delta hang gliders up the hill. paragliders can not launch there.
in the landing spot, a few meters south, down the hill, (have a look on the map: Google Maps ) they do towing with ultra light planes. this is also purely for those hang gliders, as the ultra light planes are too fast for us paragliders.
you drive down a road and slowly let the line out
There simply is no space to use a car or a winch to pull us up - hence I will be using my OpenPPG to get in the air and start soaring.
but there are tons of other paragliders, who do not have a ppg license.
The only option would be to use a drone.
You could probably buy a tesla car for cheaper
a Tesla is what, Model S 120,000 USD ?
seriously speaking, I doubt that a drone that would have enough thrust/lift to pull a paraglider would cost more than 5.000 dollars.
Hey, even the OpenPPG has enough thrust to push us in the air - the only difference is that we’ll be carrying it on our back, which means it does not have to lift it’s own weight.
just check this video, this drone lifts a whole person!
It would definitely be able to pull a paraglider into the air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At3xcj-pTjg
tow up to cloud base
No need to go up to cloud base, 200m above ground level is way enough to start soaring and catch thermals to go even higher.
So @dzubot since you do have some experience with winch towing - would you let a drone tow you?
Over 25 years experience towing paragliders - this is all I do. Just ask me and I will be glad to answer you. I designed a bunch of systems over the years and trained people how to safely use the rigs from both ends of the line (one of them John Bouchard, became US. National PG champion). Here’s the latest (85lbs) and work on a fat 40lbs Lipo battery - enough juice for two days on the field towing students all day long. Built in cooperation with someone else (see attached photo) - ’ of line - it can do self-towing - the cart is only there to carry it to the beach but the winch is connected to the my car most of the time as I use it to teach PG/PPG on huge sod fields in NJ. P2 TRAINING AND DRONES - YouTube
Beware,… there is a lot more to it than building a winch - anybody can do that - if the tow operator does not know what he is looking at in terms of lockouts, how to recognize their onset and prevent them to begin with then forget the idea, it will spell disaster quickly. This is one of the reasons why the USHPA has implemented new towing rules with certified tow operating schools in the States.
I don’t think at this point I would let a drone tow me up. If I were you it would be most ideal to get a stationary winch, and do step towing. So you tow up to vertical over the winch then fly downwind still attached to the line, turn around and again fly into wind to gain more altitude. You can get quite high with step towing. I can see many things going wrong with towing with a drone. You need to keep a precise amount of pressure on the line for towing which is why it is best to have a winch where you can control the pressure on the line with a wireless remote. This drone launching would require a very skilled pilot to operate the drone you would need to ensure the line would t get in the props. I see so many issues. You’d be better off to have a drone carry you up like in your linked video and jump from it with dbag once you are high enough. I just can’t see a typical drone having enough power/battery run time to get you to altitude though at this point unless it’s a manned drone like the ehang 184 which at this point is the cost of a Tesla.
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