It was finally time to buy a winch for my 3 meter composite sailplane, the Space Pro. For the past year since I've had the plane I've been using the 3 meter high start made by Aero Foam which has worked very well pulling up my glider. I have always wanted to launch off a winch for reason of higher, stronger launches and also to be competitive when entering competitions. I would have liked to enter Visalia this year but I didn't have any winch experience. The sailplanes are starting to make a presence at Baylands park and all that's missing is the winch. When shopping for the winch I shopped around for the best price/value. I also searched the forums for feedback fro existing winch pilots to see what the hot winch was out there. I narrowed it down to Tim McCann's Winch Kit and The Winch Doctor. I preferred Tim's design over The Winch Doctor so I emailed Tim and inquired.

From the start I got a good vibe from Tim, I knew that I was making the right choice. Everyone that uses Tim's winch has nothing but positive things to say about it. Tim let me know right off the bat that the waiting list for the winch was about 5-6 weeks which was fine with me since it would take me some time to gather all the parts needed to assemble the winch. I went ahead and got on the waiting list.

At this point I was ready to begin putting all the pieces together so I would have all the parts ready for when the winch arrived. Tim has very detailed explanations of all the parts needed to complete the winch and also has alternatives to some parts which is great if you want to customize it to your own preferences.


 

12 volt Ford Long Shaft Motor

The first piece that I would tackle was the starter motor. The winch requires a Ford Long Shaft Starter Motor. At first I thought that this motor was going to be hard to get. There was word on the forums that an online company was selling brand new 6 volt motors used to run the "Rabbit" for dog racing. There are 3 different power combinations that you can choose from. They go like this:

12/6 : This setup is MILD
12/12 : This setup is MEDIUM
6/12 :This setup is HOT

The first number is the motor voltage followed by the battery voltage. I opted for the medium setup. Most club winches have the hot setup but I prefer the medium setup to spare some wear and tear on my plane and the motor doesn't work as hard and heat up as much. I also wanted this to be a good all around winch for other club flyers to use without too much intimidation.

I called about 3 places searching for the motor and ended up purchasing a rebuilt 12v motor from Griffin Auto Parts, the cost of the motor was $57.99. The motor comes with a gear assembly that is easily removed by removing the pin and sliding the assembly off.

 

I also ordered the Cole Hersee solenoids from Griffin Auto parts. They ran about $27.99 a piece, I later saw them on a website for $18.99 a piece, I really didn't shop around for those, it was convenient that Griffin already had them. I believe Cole Hersee to be one of the better brands of solenoids and that was one area I didn't want to sacrifice quality, I'm putting my trust in these guys. These are also the recommended solenoids in the design plans which are available on Tim's website.

 

 
I had two choices on the battery disconnect switch. The first choice was the Cole Hersee brand. I think these disconnect switches are pretty basic and I didn't want to spend $67.00 on the Cole Hersee brand so I opted for the Polluck brand available through JC Whitney, the price for the switch is $27.99 and it comes with the face plate.

 

 

The design plans had 3 alternatives for the footswitch. The first and most expensive was a Linemaster Clipper switch for about $24.99. I decided not to go with that one because I felt it was a bit too bulky. I wanted a switch with a smaller profile so you don't have to arc your foot as much. I went with a Linemaster model as shown on the left. The cost was about $13.99 and I like the lower profile.

 

 


 

 

 

The baseboard for the footswitch was made out of 1/4" plywood and a piece of leading edge balsa. I added the graphic and laminated with a layer of 6oz glass.

The footswitch has mounting holes on the underside to accommodate a baseboard.

Below the graphic it reads "FLY AT OWN RISK"

 

 

It was a bit tricky to find a place that had the 1/O gauge cables. I tried a couple of welding shops but most provided the service and not the parts. I was driving down Commercial Blvd. and came across "The Battery Inc.", it was a hole in the wall which was hard to spot. They were able to cut all the cables to exact length and also crimp them for me. Total for the cables only, $42.00.

The plugs for the cables are like the Anderson Power Plugs found commonly on industrial equipment and are available through McMaster-Carr. Total for the 4 plugs that are needed $34.00. There are several other ways to make your connections but I found these to be very neat and convenient.

 

For the towline I went with the popular #21 Nylon Seine Twine from Memphis Twine. It's a 200lb. line which should be more than enough for 3 meter ships.

2 rolls are necessary for most fields.

 

 
Here is the way the winch kit arrived. It was very well packed! There were slots in the blue foam carved out were the pieces were placed. The winch frame was wrapped in bubble wrap and a inventory sheet was provided and hand checked to make sure all the parts were there. The packaging felt like it was an item pulled off the shelf in a department store, very neat.

 
Here's the drum. What a beauty. It's mind boggling how these things come out so smooth. I barely wanted to get an finger prints on it but I knew that was unavoidable.

 
Here are all the parts laid out. The parts bag holds all the screws needed and also holds the straps that will secure the carrying handle to the motor.

 
First I installed the power plugs per the directions. I'm still not sure if I have set them up correctly because they don't snap on too tight when I connect them. Maybe I have to bend the tabs inside, they didn't come with any directions and I wouldn't know any better since I've never worked with these plugs before.

 
Here I installed the battery disconnect switch and the two solenoids with the copper bus bars.

 
It was too late when I noticed that the power post coming out of the motor was too long. While trying to align the motor to the frame and scratched up the frame. I took a dremel to the post and cut off a 1/4" of length.

 
Here's progress so far.

 
This is the backside. The negative cable was cut slightly long hence the curve in the middle. These are some heavy duty cables.

 
Here is one of the jumpers that connects the two solenoid frames. Some sort of grounding feature. Tim explained to me that I can either route in on the top or the bottom to be out of view, I chose the bottom of the frame.

 

And finally the completed winch. When I originally plugged everything in it didn't power up. Don came over and we troubled shooted. We discovered that the power plug tabs weren't making contact. We bent them with a flat nose screw driver and that seemed to fix the problem.

I can't wait to get it out to the field and give it a try. Don has volunteered to be the guinea pig with his Spirit sailplane.

All you guys reading this, dust off your sailplanes and bring them out on Sundays. Let's have some fun!

 

This concludes my review on the Tim McCann winch kit. Overall I feel that this is a very well built kit. It was very well packaged and the instructions were very straight forward. The quality of all the parts are superb. Dealing with Tim was a pleasure. He answered most of my emails in the same day offering extra guidance as I put the winch together. I highly recommend this winch kit to anyone from a beginner to an expert. If I was able to put this kit together then anyone can.

For more information on this winch kit, please visit: www.superskeg.com

 

 

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