Once as a lad on a Scout Jamboree (a big international camp) I got a ticket to go gliding.
After my go, I was stood next to this huge Swedish older Venture Scout (or whatever they have) watching the winch they used to launch the gliders. It was basically an articulated lorry cab sat on the back of another lorry cab, to drive it around. The one on top had the cab facing backwards and a big winch drum on either side where its back wheels should be.

The wire cable is run out to the glider, hooked on, then the clutch released and the winch winds the wire in. It picks up the tension in the wire, yanks the glider forward, and at some point it picks up enough speed to take off. The pilot releases the cable as he passes overhead, and a little parachute stops the steel buckle on the end of the wire dropping fast enough to crack someone's skull. At least, that's the plan.

When the wire snaps, however, there's nothing to stop the tension in several hundred yards of wire whipping back half the length of the runway, over the winch, and lashing a two-inch-deep gouge in the tarmac a few feet to my right. To this day my parents don't know how awfully close I came to going home in two rather slender but very separate boxes.
( joefish It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks, Fri 16 May 2014, 14:13, 2 replies)

there's literally nothing more sexually arousing than a story of young boys being horribly maimed

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 16 May 2014, 14:55, closed)

You'd have had to use some sort of binding strap to hold the two halves together
For your purposes.
( joefish It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks, Fri 16 May 2014, 16:06, closed)