Gliders with less bar pressure means it takes less effort on the pilot to fly them - you can move the control frame around with very little pressure from the glider wanting to return back to trim. Our club makes it mandatory to aerotow any curved tipped glider and any H3 and below pilot with a vertical stabilizer fin to help take away the roll and yaw instability that happens when you fly them fast (under aerotow). The 'problem' with ANY curved tipped glider is that it is very tough to keep them flying straight while aerotowing when the pilot has very little experience. We find they winch-tow as easily as a Falcon/Malibu but when you crank on speed on these H2 single-surface gliders, they don't drop out of the skies. The next step up is the single-surface, curved tipped gliders - the NorthWing Freedom and the Icaro Piuma. Here in the flats, once it gets over 15-20kmh winds, it is very tough to have a multi-thermal soaring flight on a Falcon/ Malibu without being forced to go cross-country - the thermal drift is just to great to thermal up and confidently make your way back upwind to get back to where you took off from.Īt that point, we see the curved tip gliders bring a nice performance advantage. They have ample performance for ridge soaring and light thermal flights. I can see even in the mountains, you could easily enjoy a Falcon/ Malibu for much longer than in the flats. They are just so much more roll and yaw stable and especially since aero-towing is the big goal here in Ontario, that stability can make the difference between making aerotowing easily manageable or a stressful situation. That leaves you with an Alpha, Falcon or Malibu. Relaxed, carefree airtime is critical when you are starting out and for that matter, the 3rd longest Ontario XC flight in 2020 was on a Falcon3 - he got more airtime than the other pilots flying that day - what could be more fun!?Īt some point extra performance is nice but for your first glider, I think it should be with truncated tips (not curved tipped). Taken right from WillsWing's article - today's lowest performing glider on the market (the Falcon at time the article was written) is higher performing than the highest performing glider on the market in 1980 - and they were flying 100 mile flights then. This graph below just adds the rough cost a new glider as well to throw that into the equation. Hover your mouse over any of the lines and bars in the charts for detailed values. Conversely, the red area (to the left of the intersection) indicates how much your experience & skill level needs to compensate for the reduction in passive safety. To me, the light blue area (to the right of the intersection) shows a margin of error the glider MAY help you with when, not if, you make a judgement error.
I thought it was interesting that the two lines intersect as you migrate from an H2 to an H3 glider - I think that it shows that after you move on from an H2 wing, you should be in tune with your realistic skill level.
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