Helmet:

I've chosen an open-face helmet to use for flying. A full-face made me feel too enclosed, missing the sensations from the wind and the sound while flying. After a comparison I decided to use the Lazer Jetstream which felt comfortable to wear and preserving my sight and sound perception.

Radio:

It's nice to be able to communicate with other pilots while flying, for example when you're flying in a group. But it is definately necessary to be able to contact emergency services when you, or some other pilot, had an accident. After sorting out the differences I bought the Alinco DJ-596 Dual Band. It's in fact a cheaper version of the well-known DJ-V5. Because I use an open-face helmet, I can't use a headset. For that reason I ordered a speakermic which allows me to operate my radio.

I also got myself two PMR-radios for a very low price at a discount supermarket. This allowed me to keep in touch with my girlfriend down below without spending a lot of money to a second Dual Band Radio. It has a reasonable reach and we'd enjoyed it very much, especially while making the videos.

Sunglasses:

The sunglasses serve two purposes. You wear them to prevent yourself being blinded by the sun, but also to prevent you from getting dust or insects in your eyes. For me the Adidas 246 Twini met all my demands. It has a wide visual area and keeps my eyes well protected. Because of the very soft rubber piece at the nose, it's really comfortable to wear. I ordered it with two types of glasses: Bronze L.S.T. (Light Stabilizer Trail) and Silver Mirrored. The last  one has a little bit more light-absorbing characeristics and therefore I mostly use it for skiing in winter. Be carefull not to buy polarized lenzes for flying because they influence your depth-perception.

Acro gear

After doing the SIV-course with Jocky Sanderson in May 2004 I noticed I really, and I mean REALLY, liked the speed and adrenaline in doing more extreme manoeuvers. My learning curve went steep and with safety always in my mind, I grew more and more confident enjoying my wing in spectacular positions while flying. After doing a more or less 'custom made' SIV-ACRO training with Jocky in May 2005, I decided acro-flying was 'my thing'.

Harness & Reserves:

For me it was important to fly with equipment that could withstand the forces that would occur flying aerobatics. Therefore I did some market exploration and finally settled for the Sup'Air Acro2. This is a dedicated acro-harnes, with some obvious advantages. In the first place it has a very decent construction quality. It also provides me with a lot of storage space at the back of the harness. The harness has an excellent fit and I feel really enclosed by it, something I like. Less room for sliding from left to right in for example a SAT, as I did in my (presumably too big) former harness. Also the hangpoints are lowered to improve the feel with the harness and to further increase the agility of the wing. Finally it can be equipped with two reserves. I already had one reserve, a Pro Design B-Safe and I also decided to buy the new Independence 7-UP reserve. A SIV-video capture of two 7-UP deployments fully convinced me. A quite new design with very rapid opening characteristics and good pendulum stability. This wil be my main reserve on my right side, where the B-Safe will be my backup on my left side.

 

Progression

Due to this progression into acro I also noticed I was reaching the limitations of my Swing Arcus. I still think this wing is the perfect intermediate wing with a good speedrange and amazing stability. But at this point our ways had to split. The wing was able to keep up with me reasonably doing high wingovers, SAT's and helicopters, but when pulling off some transitions from a (normal) spiral entry, I noticed it just wasn't agile enough. From an asymetric spiral I could do a transition, but it had to be possible doing it from a spiral-entry. I just missed the speed and energy for the completion of the manoeuver. Also the really heavy braking on the Arcus was somthing I didn't like that much anymore because combined with the lack of agility it made it quite physical to keep a good SAT going with a double wrap.

I was adviced some wings that would be able to handle my acro-ambitions in a decent way. But of course, doing acro means developing some rather strong G-forces to a wing and harness. This made me decide to go for a dedicated acro-wing. Backside of that story was the fact that dedicated acro-wings were more the stuff for pro-pilots, not the kind of pilot I am. There were some acro-orientated DHV-2 wings in the market but their designs were a little bit too old in my opinion and I looked for something new.

U-Turn FreeForce 22

When I encountered the U-Turn FreeForce it immediately draw my attention. It's a direct descendant from his big brother the G-Force, a real pro-acro-wing, which already competed succesfully in many competitions. With a decreased aspect ratio compared to the G-Force, but the same groundplan, the designers were able to keep the FreeForce within the DHV-2 category. Still preserving lots of dynamics and putting a wing in the market for beginner-acro pilots, like the kind of pilot I am.

Wing:

Variometer:

To be able to fully benefit the thermals you use a variometer. It tells you if, and how fast, you are ascending or descending. It's just like an elevator. If you're starting to go up you can feel the motion, but when you're at a steady speed going up, you can't feel it anymore until the motion (the elevator) stops. I choose the Brauniger IQ-Comfort. It's a simple edition with all the necessary functions I use, like an altimeter and flight-memory

First experiences while towing with my new U-Turn FreeForce 22

Due to changed personal circumstances I’ll be able to fly a lot more in the near future. So I went to enjoy myself instantly by going to our towing-field for some winch-supported flights.

I still got to get used to towing a little bit because as being used to mountain take-offs, it’s strange to adapt yourself to being not completely in control of your ascent and having your canopy way behind you while you are pulled up. Well… it’s for the good cause, so I went for it. Because of the limited height, I only did some really nice wingovers and stuff, but nothing else. These were still my first flights on my new wing and my philosophy is to gradually build on our relationship ; ) That means I won’t be doing wilder stuff when I’m not at least 500m above the dirt.

Normally when towing you’ll be released between 250 and 350m, but the 17th of june I actually was able to pick up some thermal activity. When I released at 280m, I was able to climb up in soft lift (1-2 m/s) and reach an altitude of 800 meters. I found it pretty easy to thermal this wing. And let's cut the crap: Altitude is what I waited for ! I really wanted to try the SAT on my new wing for the first time. In some topics at forums I noticed pilots saying the FreeForce is a little slow for SAT-entry, which caused some of them to spin the glider on entry. With this in mind, I decided not to take a wrap this first attempt and to keep it at the safe side with a late entry. This would possibly result in a spiral-SAT which rotated to fast and with a kind of low wing angle. And that’s exactly what happened. But I prefer this above spinning the glider on entry. Because of lacking a wrap I was able to pull just a little more brake on the inside, I was definitely flying backwards, but technically I would call it a spiral-SAT. Nice trial on a brandnew wing anyway, but next time at altitude, I’ll be taking a wrap and really pull a nice SAT again. Comments: compared to my former wing (Arcus2002) the FF22 isn’t slow at entry.

Also other pilots and instructors were impressed with the agility of the FreeForce and even wanted to try it out. Of course they landed with a BIG smile on their face ; )

I’m getting to know this glider more and more, getting used to it’s tremendous speed and agility. The wing loves to dive into wingovers, spirals or other tricks, it feels like it just needs the energy. I also found that in fact that’s a thing I have to take into account time after time. I was used to the very docile Arcus, but this new baby brings you down really energeticly so you have to take care of that when landing. Also it felt a little bit pitchy around its horizontal and vertical axis when I came in to land. I think this had to do with thermal activity in the base-leg, which made everything quite bumpy. Active flying required. But I have to note I use an acro-harness (SupAir Acro2) which has really low hanging points and the chest-strap at it’s widest setting (about 60cm)all the time while towing, thermalling, tricks and landing. To that might also be a major factor which caused the wing to feel a little bit nervous at landing. When flying high in the air, the wing is really stable and it gives a lot of confidence while flying.

A short towing movie with some wingovers can be seen when you click the wingover-animation above.