Last weekend we held the annual Christmas Party of our club (www.Kampenwand-flieger.de). This year we included some flying in the afternoon. Our main intention was having fun together – in spite of a grey winter day, which otherwise wouldn’t be very appealing in terms paragliding. So we added some Glühwein (hot, spiced red wine) to “prepare ourselves against the cold”.
- Me on the Mentor 3
We also had planned to do some performance comparisons. I had asked Pipo Medicus and Mario Eder how they normally do this at NOVA: identical harnesses, same harness adjustment, 100 % exactly the wing-load, same clothes, same everything. Then get up early on a zero wind day, launch, get “levelled in” wing to wing while in the air – and THEN compare. When I told Mario that we have an elevation difference of less than 100 meters, he said that the launch itself will be more important than the L/D of the wing. We didn’t let ourselves disencourage as the main target was the “social part” and NOT L/D test. Yet, everybody was kind of curious how the brand-new MENTOR 3 would do.
On this afternoon we had a reasonable range of wings in the air: Sky Anakis 2, Swing Astral 6, Gin Boomerang 6, Ozone Delta, Advance Epsilon 6, Team 5 Green, Gin Sprint, Gin Sprint X-Alps, Skywalk Tequila and a handful of Mentor 2s.
As Mario had promised, launch conditions had a major impact, so providing L/D figures here would simply be nonsense. Still it was visible that the MENTOR 3 clearly outperformed all other wings.
But most important: we really had a great day out! During winter times when there isn’t much “real” flying going on, this idea is a nice format to meet with others and have fun. I can strongly recommend it!
Cheers
Till
(Of course, I have to write this, as I am NOVA’s PR-guy. However, everybody else who was present could see it too.)
Lothar launching Mentor 3 for his “winning flight”
Mentor 3 with Mentor 2 at the landing
Mentor 3
Lothar on his Mentor 3 still flying
Jürgen Schreiner provided great transportation to us!
“upper” launch site
Our president Rainer Fischer on his trusty Delta had to recognize that there is still room for improvement…
Ozone Delta and Mentor 3
Andi
Dec 5, 2012 -
Thanks to all who organized this event! It was a great idea and the pilots and spectators had lots of fun :-)
As mentioned by Till, it’s not possible to perform a reasonable gliding ratio test due to the shifting and unstable wind, the lack of height, different pilot weights and harness configuration and most of all how the gliders were launched and flown.
I’m looking forward to next year and wish this could be an annual event.
Fly safely and the very best for 2013, Andi