This is how the Luftwaffe aces learnt to fly. In this case the Schulgleiter (training glider) was towed to 1500 ft by a plane, but in the old days, as the expert commentator at Hahnweide explained, it rarely flew over treetop height because it was usually launched by a bunch of boys pulling on a bungee cord. Apparently construction of this airframe was begun by a Hitler Youth group in Leverkusen in 1944, but not completed until 1953.