JMF,

What you should be looking at is the third big photo in the article: the altimeter is showing 1850m. The one you mention is actually 250m,apparently on a long final. As Poland is mostly flat, at many airfields the glider pilots set the altimeters to 0m. IMO, combined with the 'strange' location of ZERO at the bottom of the dial, that helps a lot in visualizing the gain or loss of height in those critical 500m over the field elevation. You launch, and the pointer hand goes up, just as you do. And vice versa.

They don't seem to mention the cable material in the article. Maybe somebody reading this group in Poland can answer.

Tom