The Auxiliary-powered Sailplane Association Inc. was founded in 1988 as a non-profit organization to encourage the design, development and safe use of motorgliders, self-launching and sustainer engine sailplanes.
The Auxiliary-powered Sailplane Association Inc. was founded in 1988 as a non-profit organization to encourage the design, development and safe use of motorgliders, self-launching and sustainer engine sailplanes.
The ability to self-launch gives you the opportunity to launch when you are ready, thereby avoiding the wait for a tow plane and the delay caused by all those other people in front of you
Using the motor to avoid landing out.. Most people like the idea, though some don't, believing the chance of landing out is what defines the sport.
Self-launch and self-retrieve are important, but these abilities don't really allow a change in the way you soar, but allow you to do it more conveniently and more often
One member reports "One day in lonia Michigan. the cu started early, but only to a two thousand feet AGL base. None of the locals launched when I did, preferring to wait for the bases to rise. The lift was less than one knot, but there seemed to be no sink, and every cloud worked. Gently dolphining from one puffy to puffy, I stayed between 1500' and 2000' AGL...
...as I covered about 70 miles in the first two hours.How different from our usual flying! I flew a four hour, 150 mile cross- country in these odd conditions, and never required the motor. Without it, I would have flown locally, but not gone cross-country. The locals rever did fly because the bases didn't rise until too late in the day"
