Part of the explanation for lower flight numbers for the lower numbers last year was due to flooding and a pandemic. Even the last year the winch paid a profit over expenses for the year. It has been profitable for the last 3 years. That money helped to pay the expenses of Aerotows.
Aerotows lost money in 2 of the last 3 years.
Winch flights cost the club about one tenth of a typical aerotow.
Winch day member flights are more than 90% profit.
In the last 3 years the winch has had more use than any of our single place gliders. Does that mean the BOD wants to sell them also?
The winch has proven itself as safer than aerotows . We have had 2 near fatalities in our aerotow ops.
I have flown with hundreds of members. I have found that the student pilots that we have turned loose on the winch have better traffic pattern skills than our veterans flying their high performance ships.
With our current push on safety, maybe we should require all members to go through the winch training.
Larry Kase