Resolving vectors is an important technique in A-level physics, and is useful in a huge variety of situations. We are going to work out the vector components of the forces acting on a glider. Before reading any further, it would be worth taking a moment to watch the following video of a glider launch: www.tinyurl.com/PRvectors. Pay particular attention to the winch cable and the angle at which it is in relation to the glider.
Gliding uses a variety of conventions and non-SI units when it comes to measuring height, speed and so on. As a bit of practice for handling data, I will leave it up to you to convert the values I use to values that you are more familiar with. Table 1 contains some useful information for conversions.
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