Traditionally the gliders were not self launching but were towed to an altitude and then glide for long time with the help of rising columns of air. The trends are changing now with self launching gliders who have their own electric or piston motor to take it to a desired altitude. There is always a lot of scope for innovation in these things and so some engineers and designers have come up with a glider that has a jet engine attached to it that folds neatly in to its fuselage.
The traditional gliders always faced a problem of “landing outâ€. Often a pilot will push his or her luck in the elusive search for invisible lift and find they are too low and too far from a proper runway. So they land in a field or some alternative site possible and then transport the glider back to its airfield.
Desert Aerospace combing a high performance glider and a jet engine normally used in unmanned aircrafts. They are both made in the Checz Republic. The TJ-100 weighs only 45 pounds and produces 240 pounds of thrust. Desert Aerospace has modified the glider to fold the engine back into the fuselage once the glider reaches the required height. The engine which is placed right behind the cockpit allows the glider to climb at 900 feet per minute.
Via: Gizmodo
