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Jan
25

Speedflyer Mathematics

300m cliff + 30 seconds = 9.5 sqm

time to (mis)use my 9.5 sqm fluid Speedrider for footlaunching

nowind to slight tailwind at the landing zone, almost no thermal activity on the rockface + a tiny breeze at takoff = ready for the first attempt !

If i would not have known from numerous skilandings with this wing that it can be flared down to 25 kph I most likely would have soiled my pants when I blasted out of the final turn and cought myself thinking "hmmm... that might be a little too fast for a footlanding..."

Seems i wasn't too wrong as later on the final approach speed showed to be in the 140 kph range (measured by my gps so most likely +/- 20% inaccurate) - I am sure it would be great fun to flare past a radar box in this setup ,-)

Thanks to sufficient routine from using it with skis the flare went perfect, but I messed up the last few steps of the runout by not fully aligning with some tractor tracks and subsequently stumbled over the upper track that was hidden in the grass - i was already very slow so i luckily did not hurt myself.

The 9.5 worked surprisingly well for this kind of application but in the end it is very questionable if the extra speed and maneuverability justifies the multiplied risk and absolutely zero error margin compared to 11 - 15sqm wings.