Take off from Lukla with glider by towing.

    I posted a video about this a while ago, which made several people smile. Saying that this is impossible in reality, piston engines cannot deliver such a high power at such altitude, especially without turbocharging. Later, when I found out that towing is also possible with autopilot and thus can be viewed from the Robin, I made two more videos. Based on these it seems that the skeptics were right, and according to IPACS too, it is not easy to take off and fly from Lukla towed.

    Here is the original video.

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    Edited once, last by Small Planes (May 19, 2024 at 3:02 PM).

    With autopilot, the glider will get stuck in the trees and will be completely under the Robin, which will probably lose its speed. So it seems that according to IPACS you can't officially take off from Lukla by towing.

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    If I take off without autopilot, the low speed warning sound comes from the Robin, and then poor Robin eventually stalls, the towing automatically stops. In other words, it is really not advisable to fly by tow here.

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    Quote from Small Planes

    With autopilot, the glider will get stuck in the trees and will be completely under the Robin, which will probably lose its speed. So it seems that according to IPACS you can't officially take off from Lukla by towing.

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    Of course that doesn't work and it probably hasn't been done yet. You don't always have to take everything so seriously 🤷