Do you always fold up your glider in exactly the same way? Something to do with how we fold our wings was brought to my attention recently after testing a relatively new zulu for  prosity. Ninety nine percent of the wing was in excellent condition, yet sadly one small part of the leading edge failed the test quite badly! So how can it be that most of the wing was in great shape whilst the most important part of the wing was not safe? The answer is quite simply to do with how it’s owner put his little flying machine away each day. Too many people always fold the wing in exactly the same way. I always tell people to fold up differently. If you fold your wing from the wing tips to the center and then fold it up all along the center the tissue will always get creased in the same places resulting in the centre of the wing loosing it’s enduction much faster than the rest of the material. Another thing that I see people to do is that they fold to the center and whilst sitting on the ground they pull the wing towards them which each fold, dragging the center of the canopy across the grass with each pull. Again, with time, this constant dragging of the nylon across the ground will wear out the enduction and cause the porosity of your cherished glider to drop dramitically.

Whilst on this note, it’s also a good idea to concertina the leading edge if you can in an attempt to prolong the life of your stiff mylar cell walls. Maintaining the rigidity of the cell walls is especially important for the take-off characteristics of your wing.

I started looking into the maths too. The Gin Rebel has impressive glide ratio of 8.9! The Gin Sprint, however is at 8.7. I worked it out that if I cross my valley in Verbier for a typical cross country flight (assuming still air), I would arrive at the other side less than 50 meters higher on my Rebel than Bruce on his Sprint. If I’m looking to win a competition or break a World record, this incredibly slight advantage, just might make all the difference, but as a recreational pilot out to enjoy a good XC flight I really don’t think it’s going to change a lot.

1-2 category wings are no longer what they used to be. Designers have done an incredible job bringing the performance of these wings up to compete with their bigger brothers. I really feel that I see too many people who fly a few weeks of the year flying on a category 2 wing. Do you need to step up? Or actually do you need to step down?