Instruments & Collaborative Intelligence
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To fly a paraglider safely, you don’t need to have an instrument. This is rare in the world of aviation! Nonetheless, modern varios are becoming more and more efficient in helping us to increase distances and the time we spend in the air. In this issue, amongst other things, we’ll take a close look at some instrument innovations…
quick test of the artik 5
news supair eona 2
independence pioneer 3
skyman rock 2
news highadventure beamer 3 reserve
news paratroc compress bag
news vario ungravity
news dolomiti superfly 2018
news neo container lite
news advance: daypack 3
news krushevo ozone open 2018
airtour 2018 competition or adventure?
news exomo
antartica seven virgin summits
flying with and without collaborative hitech instruments
collaborative flying: flarm&fanet
xc-tracer
gpsbip and captive sensors
vario screens: readability
segment screens flymaster vario ls mipfly
mipfly
news ascent h2
icarus x and icarus trophy
syride sys'evolution
test smartphone outdoor action-x3
caterpillar smartphone
traps in the water
test apco nrg xc II
portrait marie mateos
And of course you can also read it on one of our exclusive applications: Free Aero Magazine
Swing Arcus RS & RS Lite
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Our test pilot Philippe Lami has flown the Swing Paragliders Arcus RS over several months, in both the classic and the lightweight version. He has also used it in school.
The German manufacturer Swing now equips its whole range with their inhouse #RAST technology, developed by their R&D team, led by Michael Nesler. It first appeared at the Coupe Icare in 2016 on the school wing, the Mito.
One effect of the RAST: we noticed, during the course of multiple test flights, that the wing never overflew! In fact, the scoop was done in 2 steps, without any heaviness.
The Arcus RS / RS Lite was also really calm in deliberately induced collapses! In fact, only the front part of the leading edge crumpled. The rear part remained inflated and prevented the collapse from biting deeply into the chord. Less depth equals less rotation, indeed none.
Read the whole review here.
Paramotoring: Flight of the Swans
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Sacha Dench has been awarded the Britannia Trophy for Flight of the Swans.
She flew thousands of kilometres by paramotor to help birds. Read again the interesting account of her adventure, published in Free Aero Magazine 8_2016.
Sharing with Children
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Sharing your passion with children: obviously it is ideal to fly with them on a tandem adapted to their weight. But with a passenger weighing 20-30 kg, you can easily find yourself too low in the weight range, which is often a minimum of 130 kg. Flying at the bottom end of the weight range has some disadvantages.
Another topic in this article: special spreaders and harnesses for lightweight passengers.
Radical Sharing
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The Swiss pilot Ueli Kestenholz, regularly shares his ground shaving runs with passengers. With each passenger, he does a succession of ‘runs’ before progressively moving to more radical manoeuvres.
PWCA 2018 Brazil
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Some nice pictures of the second event in the 2018 World Cup event which took place in Brazil.
Foot launched paramotors & new Rollbar
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In good conditions, foot launched paramotors let you easily take passengers of all sizes.
You can count on requiring a minimum of 0.16 HP/kg of all up weight, to be comfortable. Thus a pilot and passenger each weighing 80 kg would need 160 x 0.16 = 26 HP to be comfortable.
Review: The new roll bar from Kangook attaches directly onto the swan necks. It is thus very easy to convert a solo paramotor into a tandem…
PWCA Brazil: watch live
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The next Paragliding World Cup will take place in Baixo Guandu, Brazil from the 14th- 21st of April.
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The varied tropical landscape and photogenic granite domes around Baixo Guandu make it a real favourite amongst paraglider pilots. Not forgetting the welcome call of the Caipirinha bars after a long day flying. However, this World Cup is going to be far from relaxing: 13 of the pilots taking part have already won a Paragliding World Cup and at least 28 have won a World Cup task!
Definitely worth watching: Super Final champion Michael Sigel and also winner of the World Cup in Baixo Guandu in 2013, currently lying 2nd in International XContest. Defending champion, Marco Littame, winner of the World Cup in Baixo Guandu in 2015. Andreas (Pepe) Malecki, who along with Michael Sigel, will be the top World Cup task winners there (8 task wins each). Acro pilot, Felix Rodriguez, (winner of the 2016 World Cup in Castelo which has similar terrain), like Michael Sigel, has won 3 World Cups, the most of any pilot in the comp.
As for those big Brazilian record holders, Frank Brown, Samuel Nascimento, Marcelo Prieto and Rafael Saladini, this must surely be theirs.
You can keep up with all the colourful characters on the PWCA App which is now available for iOS and Android devices. It gives the live Commentary, tracking and all the scores and makes the competition much easier to watch on tablets and mobile phones. It is planned to integrate photos and live Leading Points on the App for this competition.
App iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/app/pwca-live/id1298026851?mt=8
App Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pwca.liveapp
See also our last article about the Apps
Independence Air Taxi
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Independence’s specifications for this tandem: a manoeuvrable wing, ‘close to a solo wing’. Yes, that's true...
Niviuk Takoo 4
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The launch of the Takoo 4 tandem was eagerly anticipated, as the bar had been set very high with the version 3, which already largely satisfied the needs of lots of pilots and not just the professionals.
In fact, it’s a total remake, with a complete review of the shapes and profile. Niviuk have clearly taken into account the feedback from the professional pilots...