Gravity Assistance
Early pioneers in powered and unpowered flight used gravity to accelerate their aircraft to a speed which allowed its wings to generate enough lift to achieve independent flight. These included attempts to achieve flight from towers, city walls and cliffs. Generally more successful were attempts in which speed was built up by accelerating down hill and mountain slopes, sometimes on rails or ramps.
Read more about this topic: Assisted Take Off
Famous quotes containing the words gravity and/or assistance:
“Grown beyond nature now, soft food for worms,
They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith.”
—Derek Mahon (b. 1941)
“Man cannot produce a single work without the assistance of the slow, assiduous, corrosive worm of thought.”
—Eugenio Montale (1896–1981)