Hi,

Ive had a funny idea, but im not sure how a plane would react to it.

Build preps:
Get a motorised whinch (Car whinch, or one of those oldfasionned army spinners with a crank and motorise it) with a footpaddle (Pressbutton, pianohinge, 2 pieces of plywood, do the math) and about 5 feet of fairly thick electrical wire. Make the motor slowly unwind its coil when you press down on the paddle. Wind about 300 yards of ordinairy kite string onto the whinch and tie a nice strong loop on the other end of it (NOT the kind that works as a noose!). Make an attachment point right on your planes CoG.


Operating it:
Find a good spot where theres a nice constant wind (beach perhaps?), and put your whinch on the ground and make sure your plane cant yank it around. Have a friend hold up the plane with about 2 yards of wire, and get it to hover like a kite (this is the part that im not sure if it will work), then carefully push the paddle and let it roll out to a nice height. Then you can think of something that releases when you dive down and go a little forward, or add a servo that pulls a releasehook. Carefull you dont get tangled by the falling string though .

Reason for all this? Holland is a perty flat country, so I guess I will have to miss out on slopeflyers, thats why I thought of something to get it up there without a vicous catapult system or some plane towing it.

Will the plane have enough freedom of movement to keep its hover when its held in spot by a string?
Let me know what you think, pitch in a couple of your own ideas if you like.