Scale Soaring UK

How to launch a glider - you just roll it down the hill !
(roll the vid to 1:00 if you're feeling impatient...)



I've flown bungee launches off the Long Mynd - thats fun, but this looks like even more fun !

Phil

That was fabulous. Thanks for posting.
I wonder if it would work for our models ? ?
Makes me want to go out and try full size gliding . . only problem its 400km to the nearest glider field.

As an aside, does anyone fly GPS with 'Vintage' gliders? That Bocian seemed to be the best performer, maybe a future model build ? ?

Cheers
Phillip C
New Zealand

That was fascinating. It's certainly a 'clean' and carbon free way of launching and I was wondering just how/where they landed.

I don't see why it wouldn't work with models and I and a fair number of my club members have launched Zagies and the like from slopes by putting them on the edge of slopes like Haresfield beacon and launching them off with a shove from ones boot

John Fairbairn wrote: ↑03 May 2021, 11:38 That was fascinating. It's certainly a 'clean' and carbon free way of launching and I was wondering just how/where they landed.

I don't see why it wouldn't work with models and I and a fair number of my club members have launched Zagies and the like from slopes by putting them on the edge of slopes like Haresfield beacon and launching them off with a shove from ones boot

Around 8mins in, they are doing winch launches "the other way round", from the base of the hill. I've seen some other videos where they land out at the base, near where they are winching from.

As for green/carbon free.. not so sure as they use a 4x4 to tow them to the top!

M

I don't know if you know Aston Down, Stroud M, but they use a very different launch system on the airfield.

They have a single strand wire laid the length of the runway with a turnaround block at the up wind end. Each end of the wire has a tow hook link for the glider.

A BIG 4 wheel drive Yank thing hooks up to the far end from the glider and drives towards it, thus heaving the glider into the wild blue yonder. The glider drops the tow and the wagon carried on to the down wind end and drpps the wire for the next launch. Then goes back to the far end and the cycle goes on.

Very efficient and is probably about as green as a dammed great winch. Then again, once the winch has puled the glider up the wire still needs dragging back for the next launch. Emmmmm

Lets face it, there is no such thing as a free lunch

They are still gravity launching full-size gliders off the Long Mynd, given a healthy Westerly, as YouTube clips show. They have a mown strip on the edge just behind the clubhouse with a concrete well to hold the wheel in position while they line up.

In the 80s I remember watching a chap in our club launching his Alpina down the snowy slopes of Weardale. He would hold it level using the fin then let go and it would skitter off down the icy bank for maybe 10 metres before rising elegantly into the sky. It was watching that early Alpina that lit my passion for large scale soarers.

as YouTube clips show



BC

Is this what you mean?
https://youtu.be/zdCGb9-vjck