MacPara 2012m. spec. pasiūlymai

[img]https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=0467cd01fe&view=att&th=135a4e7d08accb38&attid=0.1&disp=emb&zw[/img]
Marvel (EN C) Review from XC Magazine

Marcus King loves the handling of this Sports Class wing

MAC PARA’S DESCRIPTION
The Marvel offers sporty agility and amazing performance in the EN C category. It is the perfect glider for pilots who want performance and XC capability.
[img]https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=0467cd01fe&view=att&th=135a4e7d08accb38&attid=0.2&disp=emb&zw[/img]
BACKGROUND
Mac Para are one of the long-time established brands in our sport. They have had a consistent range of wings over the last few years: from the Progress starter wing to the Magus XC Serial Class racer with the Magus as their Open Class flagship.
Their Sports Class wing has been the Envy series, currently in its second incarnation. We tested the Envy2 back in issue 127 and found a wing that, “was no more demanding than most 1-2 [EN B] wings,” but that had, “an extra dose of performance”. When at this year’s Kossen Testival Mac Para’s designer Peter Recek told me that the proto we were watching coming into land was their new project that was being designed to fit in the EN C above the Envy, I was keen to get a chance to fly it. Peter said: “When we were testing the Magus XC2 we realised with a few modifications we had the potential for a very good EN-C wing.

“With the Marvel we are looking to achieve similar performance to the Magus XC2 combined with great climbing ability and lovely handling.”

CONSTRUCTION
As so often seems the case with Mac Para wings the design of the wing is very clean and classical. The aspect ratio of 6.48 is nearly in EN D territory; Ozone’s M4 has an AR of 6.5. This high aspect ratio combined with a cell count of 75 and the familiar Mac Para colour scheme help create the impression of a sleek racy wing. The sail itself is made from Porcher 45g/m2 on the leading edge with 40g/m2 used elsewhere. This along with other savings have helped Mac Para keep the overall weight down, which has to be good in this class of wing that will often be used by travelling adventure pilots. It seems that these days you can’t have a wing without nylon rods in the leading edge and the Marvel follows this trend. The rods go back a good 20cm or so along the chord; not as much as some but more than others. The leading edge is entirely open except for the cells in the tip. Going to the back of the wing one modern innovation is conspicuous by its absence: Peter and the team have opted to go for a classic trailing edge rather than use mini ribs.
[img]https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=0467cd01fe&view=att&th=135a4e7d08accb38&attid=0.3&disp=emb&zw[/img]
The risers are made from suitably thin webbing, which add to the racy feel. The design is relatively simple with just three risers – from each of which the three main lines come. Only the A riser is split. Three sheathed main lines are attached to each riser with the stabilo also attached to the B riser. Although the wing has three lines on each side it isn’t a true three-liner as the C lines split to two tab positions in the centre of the wing. The upper lines are all unsheathed. The speed system makes use of large Harken pulleys and also features a step-down ball making half-bar easy to find. The brake handles are standard webbing handles attached via magnets and have a swivel to prevent line twisting. The wing is available in four certified sizes covering a weight range of 70kg to 130kg. There is also a Marvel 38 with a weight range of 140kg to 185kg but this is uncertified.

LAUNCHING
During the test period – a three-week trip to Nepal – I launched in a wide range of conditions. The wing proved to be easy to launch whether reversing in windy or thermic conditions, or forward launching during the day’s last gasps. All my launches saw the wing rise smoothly and it took little controlling once overhead.

IN THE AIR
As soon as you are in the air you get a true feel for the lineage of this wing. If you have flown any of the new breed of EN D wings it will feel very familiar. You will have the same taught feel of a single wing cutting through the air. However, it all just feels that little bit more relaxed – but without feeling dumbed-down. The wing is engaging to fly and there is a good level of information on hand to help you find the best lift. But all the information is passed on smoothly and there are no sudden surges or jumps to unsettle you. Undoubtedly this wing needs a little more piloting than a lower-end EN C wing, but the information fed to you means you will naturally fly the wing actively. The Marvel uses bunching in the brake system where the brake lines go through loops on the trailing edge that are pulled together with the initial application of the brakes. This helps the wing turn quickly but flat. Indeed this wing doesn’t exhibit large amount of roll – that isn’t to say you can’t get it up on a wingtip by applying a measure of weightshift as well as increasing the amount of brake. The lack of roll may mean it is less ‘exciting’ to fly, but it makes for efficient climbing. The brake pressure itself isn’t high but starts to ramp up as you get towards the stall point, giving plenty of warning of an incipient spin.

[img]https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=0467cd01fe&view=att&th=135a4e7d08accb38&attid=0.4&disp=emb&zw[/img]
ON LOCATION
I took the wing to Nepal during the test period. In the stable conditions of Pokhara the wing climbed effortlessly through the crowds. Once into the bigger hills and stronger thermals a bit more brake and weightshift got it easily centred. In thermals the wing was easy to keep locked in, and the smooth transition between flat and banked made it easy to stay with the lift as you climbed through the various layers of air. I found the handling so natural that I could leave the thermalling to my subconscious, allowing me to plan the next move or simply to enjoy the view opening up around me. When it’s time to head off on glide the wing shows its top-notch performance for the class. Gliding at trim the wing feels fast and efficient, as you would expect. With the large pulleys the speedbar is smooth and doesn’t require much force to apply. Going to half-bar gives a good increase in speed with no real noticeable increase in sink rate – indeed there is no steep drop off going pulley to pulley. The wing feels reassuringly solid on bar and cuts through the air nicely. It’s possible to keep in touch with the wing through the C risers but I found very little need to correct the wing on glides. Glide performance is always hard to put meaningful figures on, but from the glides I made on this wing I’m confident that it will put a smile on your face.

CONCLUSION
In a year of confusion in the world of Open and Serial Class racing we may well see a lot of pilots turning to the Sports Class to get their racing kicks. I’d be very surprised if we don’t see the Marvel amongst the wings at the front of the pack. When not racing, take it to the hills for big days out or even further afield for some adventure. I’ve long loved the Sports Class and this is a fine example. It combines really well-crafted handling and overall performance that you expect from higher class wings, with an extra level of safety that gives you that bit more confidence.

WE LIKED MOST
Climbing efficiency and smooth handling

WE’D RECOMMEND IT TO
XC and Adventure pilots plus Sports Class racers
Cross Country
January-February 2012

Opinions about Marvel taken from http://paraglidingforum.com

Adriana Cila
I just came back from a flying trip near my city. Valley is about 500 meters above sea level, take off about 900 meters sea level. humidity is high. I am very new with this glider, I just got it, about 1 month ago, But the wheather conditions here are not the best latelly. So no real hance to test it, until this past weekend. Well I was flying with 5 more frieds, a Ozone M4, Airwave FR5, Nova, Niviuk, etc… WHAT A GLIDERR!!!! It is not only my opinion, but everyone on the group did agree on this. This is a very high performance glider for its class.
The last day of our trip we decided to go XC, about 40K, I was head to head with the FR5, and the M4. My friend with the M4, was a little behind, slower, and lower. in most of the thermals betwen the M4 and me , I was the one climbing faster and higher. We had very long transcitions, my glide ratio was the best among the M4 , no number or gear to measure it, But against the M4 he did not have a chance, lot slower and sinking faster. The pilot on the M4, is a very experience pilot from the UK, over 10 years flying, so I discard the pilot, and I do assume that the big difference was because of the glider, I have been flying for only 3 years. my boyfriend has a FR5, and in the long transitions we were going same speed same sinking rate, Just 1/4 speed bar, same as him. He was totally amaze on the performance of this glider.
NOW the bad side..
I had 3 collapses, 2 of them asymetrical about 20% and 1 frontal. conditions were very strong, thermals of about 6-7 m/s, cloud base very turbulent, the M4 was collapsing all the time, me had 3, and the last collapse was a full frontal. Now the collapse recovery is nice but slow, and the tips remain close and do require pumping it. just the tips. The full frontal, was a little slow to re open, and it did opened a little asymetrically, the left side remained down, but not turning or cravats. Everything was just great. After we landed after 3.5 hours of active flying, we did talk about the great flight we had, The M4 pilot was impressed on the performance of the Marvel, my boyfriend did great remaks about it, and we all agreed that the collapses that the M4 and the Marvel had, were related to the high turbulence and strong thermasls. The Airwave fr5 did not have any collapses, but that is another story, he never had collapses on this wing. Well to the people that have been asking me on private messages about this glider. this are my first real opinions.
Canopy, very high performant, WAY better than Ozone M4
takeoff great
glide ration great
speed great
It require active piloting, and because of the flatenning that this glider has It moves a lot on the thermals reopening from collapses are a little slow, but are not agressive The only bad thing about it, is that the break is a little to hard for me, but this feeling could go away as I was used to fly a wing with very soft brakes, sigma 6.
In the next week or so, we are all heading to a lake, to perform maneuvers so, I will update this topic with the results.
cheers

As I did promiss to some of you guys, I want to give you a second report on flying the marvel. We just came back from a very intensive paragliding trip, all over Colombia, south america, we were guiding a group of 10 British pilots thru the main XC sites in colombia. Well the marvel was flying every day for 13 days, very thermic conditions and long XC, including flying 1 day with little rain. These are the comments.
1) It is an Active wing, not as passive as other DHV 2, It does require the pilot to be alert always in thermic conditions
2) As I said before, big ears, have tendency to stay in, do require some input to liberate them
3) Spiral dives are OK, we did strong spirals and could not see anything wrong, not tendency to stay in spiral.
4) Fast wing, on speed bar, does not sink too bad.
5) we flew with a total all up weight of 90 and the wing size is M, It does performs great, good gliding ratio and speed
6) I had some collapses and its recovery was always very nice, I had 1 more frontal, that it did recover perfectly, But it is giving me the idea that this canopy likes to frontal on me, as with previous wings, I never got Frontals, ofcourse the other wings were dhv 2 also. None of the frontal I got with the marvel were bad, the 2 of them so far, did recover nicelly.
7) Turning and thermaling is a great plus on this canopy, The group of pilots from the UK, mostly were using Ozone RUSH, DELTA, MANTRA, and none of them were able to bypass me on the thermaling, I was always going into the thermals under them, and then passing them and reaching cloud base first. Why always arriving to the thermal after them, Just because I was in charge of taking all pilots off the Tsake off , so I was the last one to take off.

Our main impression of the marvel is: THIS IS AN ACTIVE WING, that performs very good, and requires active piloting. This is it for now, The weather is getting great here, so We will be doing an SIV for our selves in the next couple of weeks, I will let you guys know any results that I may obtain fron it.
cheers
Adriana Cila

German Matajira
Now my personal comments about this (German Matajira). I do fly an airwave FR5, been flying for a while, I have whitnessed most of what Adriana did say. and the only comment that I can make is.
One day flying on a thermic area, there was long transitions, the transitions were calm the thermals were strong. we were cloudbase 5 gliders, I did go for a long transition they all followed me, after 5 minutes on calm air, quarter 15% speed bar, I saw the M4 sinking and sinking just behind me and the Marvel. Lets do not even mention about the other gliders, they were not even close to keep up. after every long transition, I was waiting for them, re-grouping and then jump to the next.
Every single transition has the same, the marvel was too close to me, which BOTEHRS ME, come on I HAVE and FR5, the highest aspect raio Comercial canopy, 8.5, competition level, glide 12, and this girl was just behind me all the time. on a DHV2 come onnnnnn. but it was real.
This was the case, for 20+ days of flying all over, just contact the pilots that are now in the UK, for the comments about climing and gliding, they will say something. I do not post their names, but if you live in the UK, just ask for the group that went to south america on a XC trip, and their instructor.
German Matajira http://paraglidingforum.com

Spec versija “Svajokliams”: http://goo.gl/BZ4oF