The winch
In order to get a glider into the air, you either need a powered plane to tow you, or set up a winch. A tow plane is very expensive, so I decided to have a winch built.
Jonathan Tayamora, a paraglider pilot here in the Philippines, happens to be a gifted engineer.
Jonathan’s winch appears to be a masterpiece of glider winches. It is powerful, yet mechanically very simple. Acceleration is smooth, controls are easy to handle. The shifting mechanism for both drums is his invention. He converted a truck differential. We have installed a 1000m steel cable (0,42cm), locally sourced.
The winch is installed on an Isuzu Elf truck. The engine comes from an Isuzu 320hp turbocharged diesel truck. We could buy a second hand Voith fluid turbo coupling to dampen the acceleration.
You can see the winch operating in this documentary: