this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2025
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Solarpunk Travel
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Community for those focused on sustainable travel. Our society's current levels of energy intensive and frequent travel are not compatible with life on a finite planet. We advocate for long-term slow travel to see the world, and low energy local travel to deeply experience your community. Green washing free zone.
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This appears to be a regular glider, so it requires towing by a regular (carbon-spewing) airplane to get airborne. It must be amazingly cool and fun, but it's always felt to me a bit like cheating.
Much more interesting are paragliders. There's a documentary about a couple of crazy guys who literally crossed the Karakoram using the wind and updrafts and nothing else. That really captured my imagination.
The pilot is flying a self-propelled glider that uses an electric motor to get airborne, seen at 1 minute into the video.
These self-launching electric gliders are actually getting pretty impressive - the FES (Front Electric Sustainer) systems only weigh about 35kg but can give you enough power to launch and even maintain altitude if you hit sink, making cross-country flights way more accesible without needing a tow plane.
Well that'll teach me for not watching before commenting.
Many gliders are also pulled up by winch and not airplane, and those winches are typically electric as well.
Interesting. Didn't know that.