No. 4/April
PN9
by PORCHER SPORT One more article to reveal the secrets of the materials provided by Porcher Sport
Certifications The certification discussions were heated recently again due to the CIVL and MA decision to go only for serial class gliders. The article sees into the Sky point of view regarding the recent move.
Bert Maddelena Interview
Porosity, porosity? What about the point of a view of a RiP AIr founding father and specialist on the technical check ups?
EOLE First hints on the new product that should allow all the novice pilots to master the take off techniques easily.
SKY DRIVE lite A short info about the new coming product. Heads up!
News from the SKY
PN9!
What is hidden behind the 3 letters? Reserves, SKY and Porcher Sport are closely linked by the state of arts material. Today, PN9 is the lightest cloth on the market used for reserves. It is exactly that particular cloth that allowed SKY to developed all the outstanding products like SKY LITE or SKY LITE Bi. It was the mixture of the state of arts designing strategies, precise manufacturing and Porcher Sport PN 9 that resulted in 55,9 square meters of light material with weight bellow 3 kilograms. The recipe to produce such material is really simple. Use 22 dTex yarns instead of 33 dTex and go for the weaving. That is all‌very easy, isn‘t it? No, it was not so easy because the requirements for the structural strength were extremely high, the demand for the porosity is of course essential and the weaving must be just excellent.
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The material as is now represents two years of hard work on the side of Pocher Sport. In between it was hard job for SKY to be sure that the material could be used for serial production and all the products could be EN and LTF certified. But in fact it took also 2 years before the first prototype became the serial products and we could start the SKY LITE range production. And during the 2 years we all were proud to work hand in hand with Porcher to deliver for the market such an excellent product.
Just check the result: PN9 is strong enough and is used to produce canopy for BASEJUMPERS. PN9 is better in many technical criteria to traditional and famous F111 material. And thanks to PN9 we have been able to produce small, stable reserves.
ISO 9001:2008 Manufactured in Europe Quality born in SKY
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How about the certification? Some thoughts and reflections on the FAI, CIVL and PMA discussions concerning certifications and their influence on the pilots, R&D processes and hence the market as well. The assessment of a glider is, indeed, a very hot topic. It is hot for some manufacturers using glider grading as a marketing tool and hot for some pilots who use the glider certification as a reflection of their skills and experience. After the decision of CIVL and FAI to suspend the open class category gliders from the competitions, all the manufacturers and laboratories must have worked hard to find a way how to certify new EN D (competition) gliders. How to make a B-stall with 2 liner? What is the right B line? How to reach the values described for EN D glider in asymmetrical collapse? It seems obvious that
"A B C D Can I bring my friend to tea E F G H I J I love you" (The Beatles - All Together Now)
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EN certification standards will have to be revisited to frankly describe the new trends and tendencies in the latest development of paragliding wings. All the manufacturers grouped in PMA and laboratories organized a round table to find a quick solution so that the competition pilots could get certified gliders for the new competition season, e.g. 2012 season. It was impossible to create a new special competition category due to the lack of time. So the solution focused mostly on some improvements and agreements that would allow the first competition gliders to meet the certification criteria. It seems obvious that the 2011 gliders in the D category will shortly be just old and out fashioned gliders. Gliders mostly designed for the XC flights with the sport spirit, nice handling, reasonable safety margin will be shortly replaced by hot competition machines; higher speed,
higher aspect ratio and, all in all, performance became the motto for these days D gliders. That reveals that there are some limits to the EN certification glider stratification and the issue should shortly be discussed and the new EN standards should be defined. Some ideas started to appear and they slowly will also reach WG 6 (work group meant solely for EN 926 definitions) as the first step for the adoption into a new certification standard. And what is the Sky Paragliders point of view? We were indeed ready to come up with a new EN D glider. We did not aim for a competition glider, we wanted to introduce a glider with nice handling, excellent and well balanced performance and safety within the defined category. But being so much afraid that the new 2012 and 2013 EN D gliders will totally ruin the category we postponed the project for a while. We wanted to use the category for a perfect, well balanced sporty and XC glider. Should we introduce it now, it would immediately be handicapped by all 2 liners that will display higher performance. Also, we still think that SKY should not join the usual and fashionable trends of underscoring the gliders - EN D will become EN C and then? Who knows what? What will happen to EN B? EN A? Years after years, the aspect ratio of the gliders is increasing and you might notice the gap between the aspect ratio of gliders within one category (check please the http://www.flightclub.org/service.html to learn more - the data base is organized by Martin Schwarz, Sky Paragliders importer for Germany).
ANAKIS 2 ANAKIS 2 is the successor of the first generation of this well known and popular entry level/intermediate EN-B/LTF-B glider. It’s predecessor was brilliant, so the successor must be even better – an extremely demanding task. It was not the R&D team´s goal to increase speed and glide ratio just to have an impressive datasheet for marketing-purposes. The improvements of the ANAKIS 2 can be found mainly in improved efficiency, homogeneity, and even more pleasure in flight. Because only a pilot in total harmony with his wing is able to use his glider´s full potential. Anakis 2
S
M
L
XL
Layout (m2)
23.20
25.10
26.80
29.00
Layout span (m)
10.72
11.15
11.52
11.98
Number of cells
46
46
46
46
Weight of the glider (kg)
4.20
4.45
4.70
4.95
Take-off weight (kg)
58-80
73-95
88-110
103-130
Trimspeed(km/h)
37
37
37
37
Max.speed (km/h)
50
50
50
50
Test
EN B
EN B
EN B
EN B
LTF test
LTF B
LTF B
LTF B
LTF B
More info at www.sky-cz.com
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We, at Sky Paragliders, strongly believe the gliders should not be classified by a certification authority. We think that is the responsibility of the manufacturer to describe the glider and the pilot. It is not the label (A, B, C or D) that will tell you anything about the glider, it should be the fair message of the manufacturer. And that is what we will do for future - all the next development will closely be linked with the true information about the glider and the profile of the pilot. We will no longer focus on the label given to the wing by a certification authority.
ISO 9001:2008 Manufactured in Europe Quality born in SKY
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www.sky-cz.com
to be or to be in heaven ?
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Interview
Bertrant Maddelena was possible because the designers learn a lot in a very short time. Paragliding is still very young sport indeed. But besides of the designing skills, it is also the material that helped to improve a lot. From the legendary F111 the technologies moved to 6.6 nylon and polyester nylon. That step was done by famous Aile de K and the famous Randonneuse. This new material was coated and all of a sudden, the rigid structures allowed the wings for very easy inflating. The needs of the designers brough further and further improvements and new materials appeared shortly. That resulted in more and more astonishing performance of the wings. Also the life span of the gliders is increased a lot. Bertrant Maddelena is 50 years old. He established and managed the company named RipAir together with his wife Ania since its beginning till 2011. He is considered as one of the most reputable experts in the paragliding field and many pilots and experts seek his advice for many tricky questions. The wings we fly nowadays differ so much from those in the era of Bosson, Betemps & Baud first flights. Glide ratio has been improved and it is five times higher than it was then. The design of the glider is absolutely different. Our sport has its roots in the skydiving and the initial 7 cells gliders could not be longer compared with 80 cell gliders flying today. The big step (for the paragliding, not for the man kind)
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To improve the safety, homogeneity and performance, the designers use lighter and in fact better materials. So, it would be worth to remember the market leaders that keep improving their materials and hence our wings and thus the whole sport field, e.g Porcher Sport and Dominico Textiles. Part of the discussions about light materials is the life span of the glider. And here we come with some questions for Bertrand Maddalena where we searched a point of a view of someone checking and measuring more than 3000 gliders of different manufacturers yearly. In last 20 years that would result in a pretty huge experience stock.
Bertrand what could affect the life span of a glider? What are the major improvements in the materials used in the last 20 years? "At first sign, it would definitely be the colour, these days the colours are very stable. The major improvement is the industrial process which allowed the production to supply the same quality in the whole production batch." Porosity, how important is that to the glider? "Porosity allows us to check material stability, cloth with a high level of porosity is a cloth that will loose most of its coating, and of course the material stability is affected." Did you use a scale to define how much a fabric is used? "Like most of us, I’m using JDC instruments, accuracy of this instrument is not perfect, but for a new fabric we have 500 s for ¼ liter. When we get 50 seconds we consider that the glider is good. Less than 10 seconds, fabrics coating is too weak and stability could be affected. And if for a school glider 5 is an acceptable value, 15 is the limit for a competition glider." What could affect the life span of cloth? "Of course, hours after hours glider is getting older, but you could expect 300 to 500 hours before you reach the limit. But what could destroy the fabric even faster than the airborne time is the stocking of a wet glider in a car. The worse will be that you place your glider wet in car which is over heated by the sun, the new coating (water base) will not enjoy that behavior." Is it correct to say that porosity does not affect the glider performance? "Yes, it’s not the porosity which effects the performance. We use porosity as a marker to assess the fabric stability."
ANTEA 2 ANTEA 2 is a performance wing designed for advanced pilots and XC or competition flights. Typical SKY handling will help pilots to "feel the air". ANTEA 2 also providesa high climbing rate when thermalling. ANTEA 2 provides new technological solutions (e.g. ADIPRENE reinforcements, competition lines, new high speed profile), and it stillkeeps its forgiving behaviour and light weight. Antea 2
S
M
L
XL
Layout Surface (m2)
22.7
24.6
26.35
28.55
Layout Span (m2)
11.17
11.63
12.04
12.53
Layout Aspect ratio
5.5
5.5
5.5
5.5
Projected Surface (m2)
20.15
21.83
23.39
25.34
Projected Span (m)
9.25
9.63
9.96
10.37
Projected Aspect ratio
4.24
4.24
4.24
4.24
Number of Cells
59
59
59
59
Weight of the Glider (kg) 4.5
4.7
4.9
5.1 XL
Antea 2
S
M
L
Take-Off Weight (kg)
60–80
75–95
90–110 105–130
Trim Speed (km/h)
38
38
38
38
Min. Speed (km/h)
24
24
24
24
Max. Speed (km/h)
57
57
57
57
Max. Gliding Ratio
> 9.5
> 9.5
> 9.5
> 9.5
Min. Sink Rate (m/s)
< 1.1
< 1.1
< 1.1
< 1.1
Certification ENC/LTFC
yes
yes
yes
yes
Certificated paramotor take-off load (kg) = Take-off load + 25 kg for M, L sizes and +15 kg for XL size.
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Coming soon... EOLE State of the art product aimed mostly for the paragliding schools. It will not be used and marketed as a speed glider and will for sure not be appreciated much by the speed riding fans. It will allow many schools to boost the initial training and help the students to familiarize with the take off techniques easily. Just check the pictures, they will say it all ...
REVERSE 2 REVERSE 2 is the harness that has changed the concept of harnesses. It is an all-in-one glider bag that can be converted to a light and comfortable harness with a reassuring airbag and an innovative 10 mm back protector made from ultra-dense (impact-resistant) foam. REVERSE 2 brings the advantages and safety of the traditional airbag harness with foam back protection by combining the two systems. What you experience is maximum comfort and safety. The REVERSE 2 could be your daily leisure flying harness. CorduraŠ and high quality materials are light and durable. If you like hiking, you will appreciate the comfortable bag and the lightness of REVERSE 2. The volume is big enough for all pilots who like to fly and travel light.
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Coming soon... SKY DRIVE lite It's not usual but we would really like to introduce our new product with a warning: • It’s not a standard parachute like traditionnal round shape reserve. • The packing is highly sensitive for tiny mistakes, any mistake could result in troubles when deploying. • After deployment, the management of a glider and the reserve might be tricky. • We highly recommend to fly with additional round shaped reserve. • SKY DRIVE could not replace a basic parachute reserves, and it’s mostly dedicated to real experts. What else: We decided to include in the range a new SKY DRIVE – rogallo type reserve. The goal was to supply to expert pilots a steerable parachute with a big area and still very light. The SKY DRIVE lite weights only 2 kgs. The process we used to develop this parachute is fully new. We used to test the reserves over the water and after each test we had to dry the parachute before we could perform the next test, and the motivation of the team was very low during winter when the water is less
than 6°C. It was not very pleasant of course and more than unpleasant the process was very long. Our new way allows us to perform more tests to validate more details than ever before in a very short time. What made the difference? • Tomas and his skills • a sensored dummy • a trike which could carry more than 200kgs of payload More details will come soon. Keep your eyes open!
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News from the SKY Monthly magazine published by Sky Paragliders, Published April 2012 © 2012 Sky paragliders All rights reserved
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