New wing!

I've got a new wing! It's a Niviuk Artik3 and it's great!

Eulogy of an Aspen 2
The Gradient Aspen 2 finally started showing signs of the many hours it has spent in the blazing sun, carrying me safely for miles and miles of xc flying (also the abuse it's copped in the ground-handling paddock, tow paddock, and some pretty average launches). I flew distance PB's on it (150km, and 300km), did my first full stalls on it, got sucked into clouds by accident and purpose, achieved many season goals (not get injured this season - for almost five years, fly from Bright to home, Mystic to Hotham, Mystic to the Mt Buffalo Horn, over the Mt Buffalo plateau, Feathertop to Mt Beauty via the Northwest Spur, Feathertop to Buffalo Village to Mt Beauty, return from the Kiewa Valley via Tawonga Gap, and many more...). I've flown in some big, scary air on it, but very rarely felt insecure. So many times I've flown further, longer because I've picked up a climbed up off to one side because of the great feedback from it.
But shortly after reaching the 400hr mark the performance started degrading quite quickly and noticeably. I was preventing an increasing number of frontals (and it hardly ever frontalled) and asymmetric (which were taking more work to pop out), the sink rate was increasing and the glide rate decreasing....  Clearly, it was time for it to retire - besides, 400hrs is pretty good for a wing! Thanks for a great wing, Jiri!


I'd pretty much decided to get a Niviuk wing, as it would make changing from the solo to the tandem much easier (when switching between Niviuk & Gradient I'd almost always turn away from the thermals for the first 10min or so...) and had flown the Artik3 twice before (2.5hrs) and really liked it. I hesitated a bit, mostly because it was 18months old and a lot has happened glider technology wise in that time (shark nose intakes, 7-lines-per-side EN C & B's, better profiles and weight distribution methods, etc), but after taking one up again it was just so much fun that I decided to go for it. 
I had been flirting with the idea of trying the Peak3 (2 line, EN D) as it was due out any day, but in the end decided that since I'm not a comp pilot, and average around 100hrs a year (including tandems), and the recent EN C's were so good... I'd rather fly something a bit safer, and hopefully feel comfortable enough to keep flying on the wild days - than be running my safety margin past zero as soon as the air starts getting chunky!

I've towed with it, launched in really windy conditions, and flown in some pretty ratty conditions, and I'm rapidly gaining the confidence in it that I had in the Aspen. So far it's turned very little in collapses, is noticeably more collapse resistant, 2-3km's faster on trim (doesn't sound like much, but you really notice it!) and way faster on 2nd bar. The brake pressure is higher and thermalling with it is quite different - I think a lot because of the increase in aspect ratio and greater wing loading. Most thermalling seems to be more of a two part sequence - first roll the wing, then pitch up into the turn. The wing feels like it has a much higher wing loading (but it doesn't) and flies much more homogeneously, more like a single 'wing' and less like an inflated shape than can blow apart easily...
Initially I was getting pulled off my feet on windy launches, but once I started moving smartly towards the wing as I pulled it up that all stopped, and I've since launched it without problems in wind just a couple of km's/hr below the trim speed. Behaves welll, and once it's in the air - I usually catch myself grinning involuntarily a couple of minutes into the first climb...

I'm keen to see how the 2013/2014 flying season pans out - what with the Sup'Air Delight harness, LK8000 flight computer, UHF radio, VHF radio, and all the bit's and pieces I carry around in my flight deck - if I don't make some good flights by the end of next summer it won't be the equipment holding me back!