On 13 Mar, 20:15, Derek Copeland wrote:
At moderate climb angles, and as long as you are not totally dangling on
the end a bit or rope (as in a helicopter lift), the glider is essentially
still in free flight during an aerotow. To produce enough lift to climb,
the glider's wing must be at a higher angle of attack for a given
airspeed than it would be in normal gliding flight.

How much extra lift do you think is required to climb?

Or looking at it another way, the wing has to support the normal weight of
the glider and its occupants, plus the component of the weight acting
backwards and downwards, so an effective increase in wing loading.

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't make sense. Lift has to balance all
the other forces acting at right angles to the direction of flight.
You can't count the weight twice.

Ian