Towed launch

In flatter countryside, pilots can also be launched with a tow. Once at full height towing can launch pilots up to 3000 feet altitude, the pilot pulls a release cord, and the towline falls away. This requires separate training, as flying on a winch has quite different characteristics from free flying. There are two major ways to tow pay in and pay out towing. Pay in towing involves a stationary winch that winds in the towline and thereby pulls the pilot in the air. The distance between winch and pilot at the start is around 500 meters or more. Pay out towing involves a moving object, like a car or a boat, that pays out line slower than the speed of the object, thereby pulling the pilot up in the air. In both cases, it is very important to have a gauge indicating line tension to avoid pulling the pilot out of the air. Another form of towing is static line towing. This involves a moving object, like a car or a boat, attached to a paraglider or hang glider with a fixed length line. This can very dangerous, because now the forces on the line have to be controlled by the moving object itself, which is almost impossible to do, unless stretchy rope and a pressure tension meter dynamometer is used. Static line towing with stretchy rope and a load cell as a tension meter has been used in Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and other Eastern European countries for over twenty years under the name Malinka with about the same safety record as other forms of towing.