Hello all,
I finally purchased my own Hi Start from NSP. It is the standard version. Off hand, I dont know what length the rubber is, I do know the line is about 400ft and overall length seems to be about a football field long.

I'm launching a slightly modified Gentle Lady with carbon reinforced wings. I did about 10 launches with everything from 20-40 paces back. I would say that I reached about 150' high at the most in a light wind and the launches were fairly vertical so I know my hook is correctly postioned. On any given day with the club's winch, I can launch it over twice as high so I know its capable of getting more height.

So for those of you who have used the Pinnacle standard hi start, the question is, approximately how far back should I be pacing back to get the most out of the launch safely for a typical built up 2 meter such as mine.

Thanks

Keep adding some paces until it can reach the top of the launch where the model is close to being over the stake and the line is all off the ground and about 1/3 of the rubber is lifting up a little. That's about your best shot. But under no circumstances should you stretch the rubber longer than about 3 times its length if you expect a reasonable life out of it. It'll take 4 times but it'll start to show signs of wear much sooner. If at 3 times the rubber length the line is still not all off the ground then you have too much line. Shorten it and you'll actually get a higher launch. Pace out the rubber just sitting and then stretch it by twice that number of paces.

But you need to remember that you can't get higher than the line that's on the high start.

thanks, I'll try it out again at the end off the week and see what happens

I have a Pinnacle standard that I use for my Spirit 100 and my other larger planes. It is a pretty strong highstart.

I stretch my rubber 2 times as long as its relaxed length. In other words for 100' of rubber, I stretch it 200'.

I have launched 2 meter ships off this highstart and they are like a rocket on it. I do not like to use it for 2 meter planes and use a Pinnacle M or Aerofoam 2m highstart, instead.

EJ

Well I had taken Gentle Lady out on last weekend with my new highstart and had one of those heart stopping moments that every pilot dreads over. This should probably go into the crash section but read on.....maybe not.

In determining the number of paces to launch my Gentle Lady, I counted about 40 paces of rubber and ended up doing several launches, a few at 50 paces which resulted in a very nice launch in light wind, and a 60 pace launch into light wind. My last launch got it up to about 250-300 ft I'm guessing and it was about at the height I normally get from the winch. I circled around for a few times trying to find something but the wind was a little stronger up there and I wasnt getting any penetration. All of a sudden I lost all contact with the plane.......absolutely nothing. All I could do was watch it continue to circle around with my last radio input. It kept traveling around in simi tight circles as it was losing altitude. I started walking towards where I knew the wind would be blowing and it traveled the length of the field. I started heading east and and watched it as it almost clipped a tree and finally was ready to land itself on the concrete parking lot......my poor GL and its perfect monokote job. On its last circle around in narrowly missed the curb, flew a few feet back onto the grass and brushed a wingtip on the grass spinning it around and doing some sort of weird 360 on its nose like a top. I went over to it and just realized I got extremely lucky....no damage at all to my plane or anything else. The cause was a broken wire in the battery cable next to the plug. And to think this battery was in my composite sloper just the day before. Maybe I should have stayed in bed that day...

Sounds more like you should have bought a lotto ticket on the way home.

All's well that ends well. You still got your bird.

I use a Holliday histart with 40lb monofilament stretched 300%. It will launch as long as the histart. The mono cuts the weight some and lets it really get all the string. Might also add some stretch. $1.50 at Walmart for the mono.