Prototype AWECS are easily testable on existing tourist ropeways. Multiline systems create highly stable control points in mid-air & keep gallop in bounds. Funitel & 3S system experience suggests that AWECS can safely hang in howling wind too strong for passenger comfort. The largest tramway gondolas easily carry 200 seated passengers suggestive that single AWECS elements rated to about 10mw are possible. A compelling flygen demo is as easy as hanging a small COTS HAWT from a detachable chairlift & winding it out to a spectacular spot.  

Modern hybrid ropeway systems mix conveyances like detachable gondolas & chairs. By such methods diverse AWECS modules can reeled out like laundry into strong clean wind. Hotswappable generators, gearboxes, & turbines allow tailoring a turbine mix to seasonal or daily forecast conditions. Flygens connected to nearby transmission lines already at mountain altitude have a considerable advantage over those that must carry all their conductor aloft. Sweeping tethered foils mounted with flygen turbines can go nuts without special automation. High altitude AWE can be flown off of ropeways incorporated primarily to avoid launching and landing headaches.

Terrain is a grand tool for airborne windpower research. Mountains thrust up into superior wind, but also create turbulence & shadows that ropeways can avoid. Isolated peaks with radiating ropeways can select favored wind directions. Gap wind occurs where a mountain ridge dams across prevailing wind with a gap allowing enhanced wind to blow thru. Narrowing valleys aligned with prevailing winds also boost wind.  Many follow a daily "breathing" oscillation when driven by sea & land breeze, or a longer cycle driven by passing weather systems. Where prevailing winds dominate, valley and gap winds can be pretty much unidirectional.

 Valley winds are accelerated jets with highly laminar-flow cores that only blow along a valley, not cross-valley. Such a feature can drive design in interesting ways, for example, a side box-canyon might be an ideal wind shadow for handling wings at ropeway WP terminal stations (a cavernous Terminal Shed of sheet metal can also create wind-shadow). The world's best gap & valley wind sites are an untapped terawatt scale resource where AWE methods can incubate in energy densities resembling high altitude wind.