I’m getting the hurlies just thinking about it.

Small planes such as those shown can take off from a short grass strip. And as a bonus, the same grass strip can also be used for landing! Contrast the cost of clearing a strip of grass and keeping it mowed with the cost of building, maintaining, and powering a tower and swivel mechanism, plus a hoist mechanism. Then add the cost of building a landing strip, because you’ll need it anyway. Now figure the issues of pilot training, safety (what if the cable breaks before you’ve got speed?), performance in wind, susceptibility to wind damage during storms, etc. and it’s not hard to see why this idea never took off.

It’s a classic non-solution to a non-problem. The only problem it solves is the need for takeoff runway, but since you still need a landing runway, it doesn’t really solve that very well. Granted, many planes can land in slightly less space than the require to safely take off, so it’s not totally useless, but it’s not worth all the other problems it introduces that are worse than the problem it tries to solve.

My guess is the inventor hadn’t logged much time as a pilot.

Was he winched up and then brought to speed by the tower or did he fly under his own power?

What about headwinds?

This could work for small planes (with some huge potential danger) but what is the point?

Or instead a swiveling hitch that is at the top of the plane before takeoff and at the left side of the plane at release?

Could more rope be played out as it’s speeding up to reduce the G forces?

(Strike comment #6.)

Pretty good, considering he may be in at least a 60-degree bank at that point. Two problems with that. First, a 60-degree bank is a 2G turn; not fun for long. Second, as the plane banks around the pylon, it loses lift due to the turn. To get well above stall speed, the plane would have to fly much faster than normal takeoff speed.

And never mind the time to hook up and lift the perfectly-balanced plane…