Tailwind strategy: how to launch it further

Almost everybody plays Tailwind the same way for the first dozen goes: draw the band all the way back, aim it at the sky, and wonder why the numbers stop improving. Both halves of that are wrong, and they are wrong for different reasons. Here is what is actually going on.

Harder is not further

The catapult brings the aeroplane up to speed over a short stroke, and getting to speed over a short distance is a violent acceleration — tens of g at a full draw. Every airframe has a figure it takes cleanly, and past that the wing strains: it loses lift and gains drag, and it keeps them for the whole flight.

So over-drawing does not simply waste the extra band. It spends the glide you chose that aircraft for. The flight looks fine for the first second or two and then quietly refuses to go anywhere.

That figure is what the strength bar on the pick screen is telling you. The lightest aircraft in the fleet wants roughly half a draw. The strongest takes nearly all of it. If you fly two different aircraft with the same launch, one of them is being flown wrong.

How to find an aircraft's draw

Keep the angle fixed and change only the band. Go out one notch at a time and watch where the distance stops climbing — that is the point where the airframe started paying. Then stay just under it.

The tell in flight is distinctive: an over-drawn launch climbs beautifully, tops out, and then comes down far steeper than it went up. If you see that, it is not your aim. It is the draw.

Why straight up loses

Height is worth a great deal in this game, because a gliding aeroplane turns every metre of height into several metres of distance. That is a real effect and it is why the best angle is steeper than most people's instinct.

But it does not follow that vertical is best. An aeroplane thrown at the sky arrives at the top with no flying speed left. A wing with no air moving over it does nothing at all, so it hangs, drops, and has to dive to get its speed back before it can fly again — and it spends most of the height it just bought doing exactly that. Fired straight up, it comes down close to where it left.

The best angle is the steepest one the aeroplane still arrives at the top flying. In still air that is high — higher than it feels like it should be. Push past it and the distance does not taper off politely; it falls away.

The wind decides the aim

The dial at the top left is rolled fresh for every attempt, and it is the single most useful thing on the screen. It moves the best angle a long way:

The cost of ignoring this is not small. A player who finds one good launch and repeats it regardless of conditions gives away around a third of the distance on the windiest days.

Choosing an aircraft

None of the six is best. Flown properly they all reach within a few per cent of each other, which is deliberate — the pick screen is a choice, not a ranking. What differs is how each gets there, and which day suits it.

• Light and lifty aircraft float beautifully and own the calm days, but they are fragile, so they want a gentle draw, and a headwind pushes them about badly.
• Heavy and blunt aircraft take a full draw and punch through air that stops the light ones. They come into their own in a gale.
• The even ones in the middle have no weakness to work around, which makes them the best place to learn the catapult.

Each aircraft keeps its own record, so there is no cost to trying the fleet against the same weather.

Small things worth knowing

• Distance is counted where the aeroplane stops, not where it touches down. A gentle, shallow arrival rolls a long way; a heavy one does not.
• The band shows you the draw and the aeroplane shows you the attitude. There is no read-out of the angle on purpose — a number would turn the aim into something to copy rather than something to judge.
• Nothing is random except the wind, and you are shown it before you touch the band. Two identical launches on the same day give the identical distance.

The short version

• Find each aircraft's draw by going out a notch at a time until the distance stops climbing, then stay just under.
• A launch that climbs well and then drops steeply was over-drawn, not mis-aimed.
• Aim high in still air, low into a headwind, and steep with the wind behind you.
• Straight up loses: it arrives at the top with nothing left and falls out of the sky.
• Pick the light aircraft for calm days and the heavy ones for rough weather.

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