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- [Carlo] Welcome to the Flybubble paragliding channel.
- [Nancy] We are free flight experts
and equipment specialists,
helping you get the best flying experience.
- So the ARAK AIR feels very similar to the ARAK,
which I've flown quite a bit.
Nancy and I have flown the ARAK quite a lot
and really like it.
It's a very nice Mid B glider, very reassuring.
It's got quite a steady turn, very calm, reassuring,
but agile enough, it's not too slow,
very comfortable to fly, very enjoyable.
Yeah, very good, very nice Mid B.
On launch, the ARAK AIR is very easy, very nice to manage.
As I say, in the strong wind, you know,
just because of being a lighter glider,
it takes a bit more to manage,
but in terms of how it inflates and how the glider comes up,
it comes up pretty progressively,
slight tendency to hang back
and a slight tendency to dive at the top.
But pretty damn good, actually.
Yeah, very steady that way.
And it's very nice for kiting
'cause you can easily control the glider
and put it off to one side and kite the glider across.
Very good for Cobra Launches as well
if you fancy that kind of party trick.
But yeah, that works nicely.
Both on the ground and in the air,
the leading edge, the glider feels very solid,
going very calm and reassuring, confidence inspiring.
It feels pretty collapse-resistant,
flying in some pretty weird, mixy air just earlier,
and I didn't have any collapses or anything.
But the glider would unload,
I lost pressure in the glider
and others commented it was just the air,
and the glider handled that very nicely.
Definitely quite calm and reassuring.
In terms of feedback,
it's kind of like, I'd say,
on the sort of milder to moderate feedback.
It's not a very feedbacky glider.
You can feel what the air's doing
but it's a little bit on the dampened side
so you kind of need to tune into it a little bit.
I'd put the agility
around about the sort of middle of the range of agility
for a Mid B class.
It's moderate, it's perfectly fine
to be able to turn around in thermals
and turning the ridge lift and that,
but it's not the most agile glider.
So if you're a pilot that prefers something
that's more nippy and agile, say, for example,
the Skywalk Tequila 4 was quite a nippy, agile glider.
This reminds me a bit of that
but this feels more steady to me,
it feels more calm and steady.
It turns flatter with a bit less energy.
And, of course, I'm talking about
with a similar kind of wing loading.
Yes, so I've just flown out, tested the glider out
as far as I could and come back,
and purposefully landed further down the slope,
'cause I wanted to get down
where there's less wind.
'Cause at the top of the hill, it's a bit breezy.
And in that strong wind,
the lightweight material of the glider
makes it harder to manage,
the wing tends to lift up more in the breeze
and trailing edge lifts up.
That's the same with all lightweight gliders.
So in the strong wind, it's a disadvantage
because it's harder to hold the glider down,
it keeps wanting to lift up, trailing edge,
the wind gets under the trailing edge
and the glider just lifts into the air.
You need more careful management
with the rear rises and the brake lines
and your body position the right tension on the glider,
not too much, not too little.
When you're down in the lighter winds,
so, here on the slope, the winds here are quite light now,
then the light material is a real bonus
because here the glider inflates more easily,
it's easier to build the wall,
it's easier to actually kite the glider and bring it up
because it has less weight, less inertia,
it'll float up nice and easy.
And then, because there's less weight in the glider,
it needs less wind, less air flow
to actually keep it up in the air.
On the same day, if it's very light,
you'll notice all the lightweight gliders,
the pilots are managing to carry on ground handling.
But the gliders with the standard weight material,
the heavier gliders, particularly if they're quite heavy,
you'll notice they're struggling
and they're really floundering around quite a lot.
So yeah, so that's pros and cons.
So lightweight materials real advantage is,
well, obviously for carrying, they're more compact.
They're also an advantage in light winds and nil wind.
They're easier to inflate and to come up.
And in strong winds, they're a bit of a disadvantage.
So it's pros and cons.
The speed bar is relatively light to moderate, I'd say,
and nice and smooth feeling.
It picks up a good amount of speed, sort of medium amount.
If I remember rightly, from standard trim,
I was at about 15Ks an hour into wind.
And then, with full speed bar,
I had a bit over 25, 26Ks an hour.
So it's picking up about around, say, 12 kilometres an hour,
I guess, it's off speed, not very scientific.
just based on gliding into a smooth wind.
As I say, a nice pickup of speed,
it still feels efficient, but it's not very fast.
Certainly the High B gliders are a bit quicker.
In terms of pitch, interestingly,
flying around in some snotty, crappy air,
the glider was quite pitch stable.
Moves a bit, but relatively pitch stable.
I noticed some other gliders were moving around a bit more.
But then when I actually tested the pitch
with some dolphining
and trying some pitch inputs,
I was surprised the glider actually pitched
more than I expected, probably something to do with the air,
to be honest, as well as I was pitching the crappy air,
made it kind of pitch and unload a bit more.
But yeah, it does actually have some pitch,
well, if you want to build up the energy in the pitch,
it can do that.
I did manage to, after a few pitches,
manage to make it front tuck a little bit,
but again, that might be partially the air.
Yeah, so it's got that energy and pitch.
When you're just soaring and flying around,
it feels nice and stable.
But when you want to make the glider pitch,
when I was playing around,
it's actually got a bit of energy, which is fun.
Testing the roll, trying to do some mild wingovers,
it actually builds up energy nicely.
It's got a tendency to roll a bit like that in the turn,
so could build up some nice energy with wingovers.
Not big anything, but it's just still got some energy there.
As you get to the higher part of the turn
and try and build up the wingovers bigger,
the glider kind of wants to dampen things out
and calm things down a bit.
So to do that, you need sort of precise inputs
and heavier inputs to get it to do a bigger wingover.
The big ears are easy to pull,
not very high pressure and they come in quite easily.
The glider wants to reinflate so they kind of flap a bit,
if you adjust how much brake you pull,
get the right position, they flap around a bit less.
So that was fine, there was no problem there.
But yeah, they don't just sit stably.
And then, when you let go,
they pretty quickly come out on their own.
Some gliders, the big ears are more stable,
but kind of stick, and then you have to pump them out.
This glider wants to reinflate.
And so, therefore, while the big ears are in,
you have to hold them in a bit more to keep them in.
For a pilot,
stepping up from say a High A glider or a Low B
that doesn't wanna quite go up to the High B class,
they want a lightweight glider,
then the ARAK and the ARAK AIR are a fantastic choice.
Particularly, if a pilot prefers something
that's more reassuring and solid feeling and quite calm,
very kind of confidence-building from that point of view.
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