Wills Wing
Flytec

Oz Report

Volume 7, Number 85
11 pm, Saturday, March 29 2003

https://OzReport.com
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Will fly for subscriptions

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:00 pm GMT

Bill Belcourt|Heike Hamann|Kevin Dutt|Pat Denevan|William Belcourt

Oz Report readers who have helped out on Saturday: Heike Hamann (“Have just got back to reading your reports after a month of being busy flying and saw your request for subscription.  It is hereby enclosed with pleasure.  Have just finished the Aus and NZ Paragliding Nationals in Manilla, Australia.”), Pat Denevan ($20), William Belcourt ($20), Kevin Dutt ($50), more money pressed into my hands here at Wallaby Ranch.

You can see how to send in $10 for a yearly subscription/donation to the Oz Report below.

Discuss "Will fly for subscriptions" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic Florida Report

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:01 pm GMT

cloud|Florida|Mike Barber|Paris Williams|Quest Air|triangle|Wills Wing

http://www.davisstraub.com/Glide/wallabyweather.htm

Light to no winds.  High cloud base.  Bo and Paris from Quest Air were trying a 85-mile triangle.  I saw Bo flying overhead as I was test flying a Talon 150. Mike Barber joined up with them and landed at Quest to pick up a new Motocomm headset.

Many demo flights again today on Wills Wing gliders.  I restricted myself to the two Talons.  There is a 160 Talon for the really big boys.

Discuss "Florida Report" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic Governador Valadares

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:02 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Betinho Schmitz|Carlos Bessa|cloud|Filippo Oppici|Gerolf Heinrichs|Governador Valadares 2003|Guga|Jos Guggenmos|Luiz Niemeyer|Moyes Litespeed|Nene Rotor|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.evanews.com.br/2003/valadares/resultado.htm

José Luiz Moura Velloso «jose.luiz» sends the results for the last day at Governador Valadares.  Jose has been very nice to send in the results in HTML format which is much more compatible.

Sixth day:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 LEISER René Atos 1:18:21 863
2 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed AUT 1:19:08 835
3 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 1:22:08 787
4 CARLOS BESSA Cloud Bessa Wills Wing Talon BRA 1:22:31 779
5 FÁBIO CARDOSO NUNES Fabinho Moyes Litespeed BRA 1:24:30 754
6 FERRO Marcelo Moyes Litespeed 5 BRA 1:24:45 748
7 WOLF André Moyes Litespeed. BRA 1:25:11 741
8 BUSCA Alessandro (Alex) La Mouette Topless ITA 1:25:45 732
9 MARIO ANDRE FELSKE Monex Moyes Litespeed BRA 1:26:04 727
10 MASSIMO Turiaco (Max) Moyes Litespeed BRA 1:26:22 721

The ATOS was penalized, but it is hard to figure out exactly how.  Total for the meet:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 5364
2 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 4868
3 LUIZ NIEMEYER Luizinho Icaro Laminar BRA 4845
4 LEISER René Atos 4795
5 SALDANHA Gustavo (Guga) Moyes Litespeed BRA 4747
6 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed AUT 4633
7 OPPICI Filippo - Pippo Moyes Litespeed 4488
8 WOLF André Moyes Litespeed BRA 4476
9 BUSCA Alessandro (Alex) La Mouette Topless ITA 4469
10 CARLOS BESSA Cloud Bessa Wills Wing Talon BRA 4439

Well, a huge win for Nene and the Wills Wing Talon.  The story I heard was that Gerolf, Andre and Betinho agreed to fly together to see if they could get Betinho a win over Nene on this last day.  Betinho fell down and ended up 40th on the last day falling far out of second place.  He can afford to drop a day on the Brazilian ranking system.

Discuss "Governador Valadares" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic Wills Wing Eagle 145

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:03 pm GMT

aerotow|Airborne C2|cost|glide ratio|tow|Wills Wing Eagle 145

www.willswing.com

A few days ago, I had an opportunity to take a short flight on the Wills Wing Eagle 145, which is a glider positioned between the Falcon and the U2 in terms of the capabilities required by pilots in order to fly the gliders safely.  As I reported earlier, it is easier to aerotow from your shoulders than the Falcons (even a bit easier than the Attack Falcon) basically because it can fly a bit faster and so on tow you are not near the top of its speed range.

The Eagle is light handling in lift and has a better glide ratio than the single surface gliders.  Without the VG of the U2, you are not going to be going 70 mph, even if you could hold the bar in with all your might.

It was almost as easy as the Falcon to land, allowing the pilot to slow the glider way down before having to flare.  In terms of skills required it is a small jump up from the Falcon or any other single surface glider.

The glider classification scheme has a few funny aspects.  Part of the reason that gliders are divided into classes is to give the customer some idea of the skills needed to fly a certain glider.  Skills come only through practice and practice takes time.

If you apply yourself, have reasonable ability to break bad habits and learn good behavior, than over a certain amount of time and hours of practice you should pick up the skills to progress from one glider to the next.  It isn’t always clear if there is a four stage progression, or three stages, or just two – single surface then rocket ship.

The Eagle is meant to be the second stage in a four stage process (advanced hang II, beginning and intermediate hang III). Wills Wing believes that an experienced hang III (intermediate) pilot can safely fly a U2.

Most hang glider manufacturers want to sell their “intermediate” gliders to both intermediate pilots and advanced pilots.  On the other hand Moyes advertises their Litesport as an advanced glider, i.e. a glider for advanced pilots.

These king posted gliders are intermediate in other senses.  They are intermediate in cost.  They are intermediate in performance, perhaps some are closer to the performance of the topless gliders than others.  They are intermediate in handling (the issue re pilots’ skills).

Not all thee intermediates overlap, because there are plenty of pilots with advanced skills who would be plenty happy flying an intermediate glider, just as long as everyone recognized that they were still advanced skilled pilots.  They’d like to save the money, but they also want to save face.

This makes for a difficult marketing proposition for the hang gliding manufacturers.  How do they signal to everyone that this is a cool glider, even if it doesn’t have the highest performance?  How can they say that its handling characteristics are reasonably benign without threatening the manhood of those who might choose easier handling?

Then there is the perception that topless gliders are a handful.  Maybe they are and maybe not.  I sure found the Airborne C2 to be perfectly fun and easy to fly (well, not completely true, see below). I’ll have to try a Wills Wing Talon again and see how I feel about that.

Discuss "Wills Wing Eagle 145" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic Wills Wing Talon 150

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:04 pm GMT

aerotow|Airborne C2|ballast|cloud|Florida|landing|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Rob Kells|Steven "Steve" Pearson|tandem|towing|trike|tug|Wills Wing Talon 150

www.willswing.com

Too big for me at 195 pounds hook in weight.  With no ballast this glider is a handful even in Florida air.  Why would anyone want to fly a glider that was flying them?  That required that they react to what the glider was doing on its own, rather than control what the glider is up to?

Apparently some people think that is what hang gliding is all about.  Get on a real hang glider, that is one that is over powering and then suck it up and fight that glider as you would fight mother nature to control it. Well, let ‘em.

I had flown the WW U2 160 in light conditions and though I thought that it would have been too big, in the light conditions it wasn’t bad.  Given that experience I thought I might be able to handle the Talon 150.

On aerotow I found that the pitch pressure at ½ VG was about double that of the U2’s. I couldn’t keep the glider down low enough to keep the tug’s wings on the horizon.  I remember that I was having similar problems with the Airborne C2. It was a big glider.  See these articles re trike towing the Airborne C2:

https://OzReport.com/6.237

https://OzReport.com/6.238

https://OzReport.com/6.239

Finally, I pin off next to Rob Kells doing a tandem flight and start circling up in broken 100 to 200 fpm with bits of 500 fpm.

The glider is being knocked about and I’m being knocked about with it. I’m not happy.  I’m climbing up, but I’m thinking what is the point of this?  I’ll go and land.

No. I’ve got to write up a report on the Talon 150, so I’ve got to give it a chance.  I’ve been flying single surface and intermediate gliders and here I am on a big topless glider and it’s a handful partly because I’m not use to it. Just relax a bit.

So I do. Things calm down.  I let the bar out to where it wants to go with the VG off, far in front my head.  I climb out to cloud base.  I notice that I can put the VG on and I don’t have to bump the bar around to keep it in the turn like I did on the U2 when the VG was half on. That’s a nice touch.

I also test the bar pressure with various VG settings.  It is about double that of the U2 (which, after all, is my benchmark).

I count and find that it takes me eleven pulls on the VG to go from none to full.  Rob says it is the difference between the CAM VG on the Talon and the standard VG that pulls back the cross bars on the U2. Steve Pearson says it is also a function of the spectra line used on the U2 which has less resistance going around the pulleys on the U2. By contrast the VG on the U2 was like a flick of the wrist.

As you may recall from my last article on the U2 and its VG, I was surprised by its VG and how I know part of the reason.  The Talon VG is the VG as I recall it (see articles above about the Climax). It is quite a haul to go from no VG to lots of VG, and after a while it is too much of a bother.  This VG just says to me, I’m too much trouble to deal with.

Sure if you’re a competitor, it is worth it to get every bit of performance and then handling out of your glider.  I’ll just bet that most of the time most pilots just pull a little on here and let a little off there.  And, wish that the VG would be a simpler matter.

I test the whether the glider spirals in at different VG settings, bank angles and speeds, and it doesn’t. Doesn’t appear to have a turn either.  In turns it is steady as she goes, and just push way out on the bar.  I was doing only a little bit of high siding now and then.

Still it was stiffer than the U2 in turns and “felt” heavier.  A bit of yaw it seemed.  (BTW, I spoke with Pete Lehmann who got a new Mylar Talon 150 and he is quite happy that it doesn’t have any of these characteristics, but is so sweet and easy.  He wonders if it is the sail cloth.)

The Talon 150 has a great glide and I felt confident when I was five miles away from the Ranch that I’d make it back with out a problem.  With the VG full on the bar pressure was a little more than double the U2’s bar pressure at full stuff.

I was concerned about landing the Talon after all my other good landings on the single surface and intermediate gliders.  Would they screw up my flare timing?  Of course, there was no wind in the landing zone, as there was no wind in the air.

I came in fast got down into the ground effect and whacked it in. No damage to the glider, me, or the nose nappy.  The next landing I saw on it was worse.

Discuss "Wills Wing Talon 150" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic Wills Wing Talon 140 (actually 143 or 144)

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:05 pm GMT

cloud|competition|landing|Mike Meier|Rob Kells|towing|tug|Wills Wing Talon 140

www.willswing.com

As soon as Rob Kells heard my thoughts about the Talon 150 he wanted me up in a Talon 140 (which is actually bigger than 140 sq. ft.). Mike Meier was concerned when he heard I hooked in at 195 as he thought that I would be happier in the smaller Talon 140.

I was.  I took off late in the afternoon after the 3 PM lunch in light lift.  In fact there wasn’t any lift and no one was staying up until I got drug to the west and got in under a cloud that was working for me. This was the western sea breeze and it was great.

Aerotowing the 140 was much better than towing with the Talon 150. The bar pressure with ½ VG was almost (but not quite) as low as the bar pressure of the U2 (both sizes). I could pull in and keep right with the tug.  I even tried towing with one finger and was successful.

I got off at 2,500’ and flew west to the cloud that turned out to offer about 100 fpm to cloud base.  It was an easy climb with no VG. The glider thermaled easily with no high siding at all.  I just put it in a circle and it stayed there.

The glider had a heavier feel than the U2-145, a slower response rate and it would yaw a bit reacting to pilot inputs.  I didn’t have to bump it at all though to get it to turn.

The VG was the same as the VG on its bigger brother, and as much of a pain to use.  Sure you can get use to it, but the U2 version was so much nicer.

I had no trouble flying in light lift and controlling the glider, although I noticed that it got knocked about a bit coming into the landing zone, and the glider would yaw when hit.  Disconcerting, but normal for a topless glider, it seems to me.

I came into land in a good breeze and had an uneventful landing.

The Talons are competition topless gliders for pilots willing to put up with a more demanding flight experience, getting yawed about a bit, and a good workout with your right arm.  Pull in the VG and the bar and you go fast with reasonable but more than double the bar pressure of the U2.

I wouldn’t recommend these gliders to anyone but competition pilots and competition pilot wannabees.  Why fly them when Wills Wing and other manufacturers have so many other choices that are more fun to fly?

Discuss "Wills Wing Talon 140 (actually 143 or 144)" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic The 2003 Dragonfly Cup

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:06 pm GMT

Bob "Skydog" Grant|cloud|Cloud 9|competition|Dragonfly|magazine|Tracy Tillman|USHGA

Bob Grant «Bob» writes:

Now for the biggest prize offering of the 2003 Competition season so far.  Sponsored by Tracy Tillman and Lisa Colletti and the Draachen Fliegen Soaring Club (DFSC) at Cloud 9 Field near Lansing Michigan.  A whopping $6,074 is being offered in merchandise prizes and the amount is growing.  Be sure to check out The 2003 Dragonfly Cup info in the April issue of USHGA magazine and on the new DFSC website at - http://members.aol.com/dfscinc/index.htm

Discuss "The 2003 Dragonfly Cup" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic Paragliding Championships in Manilla

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:07 pm GMT

competition|Heike Hamann

www.flymanilla.com

Heike Hamann «heikeh» writes:

We flew 13 out of 15 competition days (spanning two competitions).

Discuss "Paragliding Championships in Manilla" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic BLIPMAP wind speeds

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:08 pm GMT

BLIP|John "Jack" Glendening|meteorology

http://www.drjack.net/BLIPMAP

I wrote that during the Nationals in Chelan last summer that BLIPMAP under predicted the strength of the winds.  Dr. John W. (Jack) Glendening «drjack» writes:

This did motivate me to add a few (more) lines to the parameter descriptions to (hopefully) warn folks about the fact that the windspeeds can be misleading if there is a large change in wind direction through the boundary layer - this is how things get improved.  The boundary layer average "one value" prediction is useful in the simple case of winds being roughly the same through the boundary layer, as often occurs, but for complex wind profiles one really needs to look at that complexity - either via the FSL sounding page or a BLIP - to see what to expect at flying levels.  This is why a human forecaster is needed!

Since the BLIPMAP uses RUC forecasts, the only reason why I can conceive that there would be a notable difference would be because of averaging opposing (and thus offsettling) winds or unless the wind at flight level was somewhat jetlike, with a max well above that at other levels.

I'm still thinking about whether a simple windspeed average (i.e. not allowing opposing winds to cancel each other) would be better.  Have also thought of just averaging winds in the upper half of the boundary layer since people aren't flying close to the ground (because averaging in the air near the surface will produce a lower "average" speed than than actually occurs at flying heights) but that has its own complications.  Life (or at least meteorology) does not seem to be always simple.

Discuss "BLIPMAP wind speeds" at the Oz Report forum   link»

The Oz Report, a near-daily, world wide hang gliding news ezine, with reports on competitions, pilot rankings, political issues, fly-ins, the latest technology, ultralight sailplanes, reader feedback and anything else from within the global HG community worthy of coverage. Hang gliding, paragliding, hang gliders, paragliders, aerotowing, hang glide, paraglide, platform towing, competitions, fly-ins. Hang gliding and paragliding news from around the world, by Davis Straub.

The Oz Report is being read from (approximately) these locations:
Locations of visitors to this page