ORIGINAL: qldviking
Hi I too have used hi starts for quite a while, and one I also found was to have the hook on the glider more forward than usually recommended, on my last glider (recently totalled
[:@] ) I had the hook slowly moved forward to about 1/2 way between CoG and the nose. it made for a more forgiving launch without the radical nose up without sacrificing much if any height gained. My glider was 174"ws R/E and I was using 1/4" surgical tubing doubled up to 100 foot with 400 feet 130lb dacron with a 40 inch 3 inch wide streamer, all of which worked quite well. I will in the very near future be building another glider, I miss my lil baby too much [
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Sounds like your hi-start was not strong enough for your ship. But as long as it flew, and you liked it, that is all that matters. But I would not endorse this suggestion as a general rule.
1/4" hi-start rubber would be appropriate for a 2M 78" wing span ship in the 20-45 ounce range.
Doubled it might be good enough for a 3M ship where you want something between 12 and 18 pounds pull.
But yours was 4.4M. I would imagine that that plane was on the order of 6 pounds. For that I would want 24-30 pounds of pull on the hi-start. I have a 1/2" rubber hi-start that would probably be good enough for that one, but I have a heck of a time pulling it back that far by myself AND handling a 174" plane. For a really good launch of a 4.4M ship, that would be what I would expect to use in terms of a hi-start.
But, again, as long as you were happy, that is all that matters. Certainly moving the hook forward would help when you have an underpowered hi-start.