In article ,
acrawford wrote:
See:
http://www.alisport.com/photo/movie_eng.mpg
Excellent! At first I thought it was a bunch of PW-5 haters
pushing the thing off a cliff. Then I turned up the sound and
heard it was "slope launching." What a great video! ;-P
As Judy pointed out it's a little sketchy if the slope drops off a cliff.
If something goes wrong (catch a wingtip, etc.), or the glider doesn't
accelerate enough before going over, things might get interesting...
But my god if that isn't the simplist form of launch I can imagine.
Oh, and in the U.S. there is no required "slope launch" endorsement :-)
I'm guessing 500 feet or less of slope that drops 25 feet would
be sufficient (something like a 5%-10% grade).
I'd sure like to find a spot like this in California, USA :-)
Thanks so much for all the feedback...this is quite the
glider brain trust..
Mark Boyd