Miniwing, paraglider, speedflyer...?
People were skiing with small canopies or old parachute.
At the time, our gliders were aim for more flying, foot launched, more surfaced, not really what speedflying was about. We decided then to call them “Mini wings”.
A couple of years ago, all manufacturers started to use this trendy “name” for everything that was not a paraglider, creating then a big confusion onto the public!
At the same time, in our quest of versatility, we were increasing our surfaces, getting some of our gliders to fly more in the same conditions than paraglider, even though they kept their “Miniwing” characteristics (pitch less, direct handling, short lines).
Today, our range offers glider from 7.5 to 26m2… can they all be called “Miniwing”? Can we call the big sizes “Paraglider”?
Today, there is still no definition of “Miniwing”, even federations of each country are lost in that one.
Can we look only to the size and/or wingload? Probably not as Acro wing or CCC gliders have also a very high wing load or small surface…
From now on, We will only call Miniwing every of our solo glider that is used with a wing load above 4.5 to 5kg/m2 and which have a glide ratio below 8.5/9:1.
Learning with a LittleCloud glider?
What kind of flights I can do with a LittleCloud glider?
Light gear?
EZ or GT?
What makes LittleCloud glider so unique?
Handling: All our gliders, take a big attention on the handling characteristic. This handling can be describe as direct, progressive and very intuitive.
Pitchless: pitch is a behavior that we think is useless for flying (except acro). It makes the flying more complicated, increase the consequences of flying incidents. Note that a lot of people are mixing the “pitch” and the “bite”. A pitchless glider can still have a “bity” behavior on thermal!
Long brake travel: we believe that safety is coming with long brake travel with a hard point before stalling. This will reduce the risk of oversterring a partially closed glider or incidents when playing with the stall point (top landing, soaring…).
Intuitive: we work hard to make all gliders easy to understand and to use. You will feel safe and straight like at home.
Safe: on top of provocated flying incident, we fly a lot all of the gliders in a large kind of conditions to make sure they are behaving safe. We publish flying incident tests video to give people an idea of how they behave in provocated collapses.
What is the difference between a LittleCloud and a regular paraglider?
Shorter lines: more reactive on the toggles. Offers you a precise and fun handling. The turning radius is shorter and you can core the thermal much more narrow. The short lines gives a pitchless behavior to the LC, which will make you feel more comfortable and allow you to focus on your flying. You can feel some little “attack” on the pitch or roll, but they are stopped immediately by the pendulum momentum. Preparation is much quicker and you will need much smaller take off place.
Speed: the LC gliders are a little bit less surfaced for the same AUW. This will give you an extra couple of km/h of speed (4/5km/h), a good wind penetration, and a very good collapse resistance (note that like any soft structure, it will inevitably collapse at some stage!).
Because of these 2 differences, you will have to adapt a bit your way to handle your glider:
– use more the outside brake to stop the dive in the narrow turns or flatten them in weak conditions.
– Anticipate a little bit more when thermaling, especially in weak conditions where you will have to focus more on the core and work it. In the end, you should be able to perform the same kind of flying that a regular PG. We manage to fly up to 200h a year (still we have to work;-) ). Big distances have been achieved with Goose and GT!!! Even with a EZ L wing was possible to fly 100km distance.
