You can use that approach to fly w/o a medical.....you need to have a "Glider" rating on your certificate and at the time (15 years ago) there was no self-launch caveat.......The glider I flew was an experimental Moni motor-glider with a 26 hp 2 cycle engine. The other issues was how it was defined as a glider....the FAA had some obscure arcane way of determining whether it was a glider or not...ie. L/D radio, power loading, etc, which prevented you from taking any homebuilt and calling it a "glider".
Regards; Noel Anderson
