A great thread about safety point of winch launching. Re the guillotines. One boring rainy day a few of us winch drivers decided to test the guillotine, we had never seen one operate and thought it might be useful. We cleared the area and pulled the handle, it would not budge, the cables were rusted solid. I asked how often they were checked as a matter of routine, never got a reply.
I'm surprised the op hasn't asked the more pressing question of winch launching being 'what's it like?'
In my opinion it's the nearest thing to being launched from a carrier. Lots of nerves as the cable snakes away from you to full tension, stick held fully forward ( the Ka8 wants to fly too much) then the whoosh of speed as it accelerates to flying speed always threatening to drop a wing.As it launches 2 seconds later there's the tension of how far to pitch up, not enough and you over speed, too much and a cable break means you stall into the ground. Then you are into the full climb 30 deg nose up, monitoring vmax on the winch (51kts) a fair amount of back pressure on the stick ( but not too much). Then as you approach the top of the climb it flattens off. How are you going to release. If you pull off under tension the cable snakes back to the winch driver. You wait for the driver to back off constantly trying to squeeze a few extra feet. We used to wait for the back release then pull on the bung twice to make sure the cable had released. Then the environment changed instantly from hectic rushing to serene floating.
Not sure what other experience equals it.