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Contact us for delivery prices outside of UK
![]() Windtech «Zenith» This is the replacement wing for the Tecno of this Spanish brand. It did surprise everybody when it passed the certification in Class B. Remember this is a high intermediate wing very ambitious. It is fast and has a great handling. Only three risers although the rear one is doubled in the top floor and the front one has a split riser for big ear maneuvers. The line set up is only in two floors (the top one unsheathed). Each cell out of three has a line. It has a thick profile with the center of pressure well advanced and an elliptical vault short and compact. V risers and no battens. Thin risers and a soft and very effective speed system. It comes with a 4 colors design very original and it profits from the bottom surface transparence to show the brand image "flyman" of the top surface.
It was a surprise that the swiss certification manager, Alain Zoller, rated the new Windtech intermediate wing in Class B. The B rating is associated to advanced beginners gliders but not for an expected class 2 glider with such performances. Whatever the case is this is a guarantee of the high passive safety and the well behave of its reaction in collapses, shooting forward, turns and so on. The XS is missing but the other 3 sizes are B rated (spin , frontal and asymmetrical collapse), all the other maneuvers are A. How this wing is?
The top surface is quite flat, clean and well defined. The brake handle is rigid has a swivel and is connected to the riser with a clip. These ones are long and well separated making B descents quite simple. The big ears reopen by itself and the stall arrives first in the wing tip, going backward and twisting before the full canopy goes backward. This arrives below 23 Km/h (depending on the size and load). In flight Inflation is very easy. It has a good preinflation very ligh and does not shoot forward when is above your head staying still and stable. You only need then to load your weight and go forward then you are airborne. When there is nil wing you need to run fast since the trim speed is high. The brake does respond quickly it is not hard but neither soft. You fell very well the wing and has a quick answer to side movement with a light pitch control during the first degrees. This is very welcome when turning and enter the thermal, it bites it very effectively. The canopy is very solid and you don't feel the wing tips going forward or flying on their own. The wing goes in the turn quickly and maintains one of the best Windtech quality, this is the ability to turn tighter without changing the inclination. To achieve this you have to apply more brake input during the turn and when the wing goes slower apply more inside brake without changing the angle of inclination. This does work much better with low angles of inclination and is a perfect solution to center quickly and grasp firmly the thermal core. This is not a panacea but brings forward a surplus in handling when piloting with accuracy.
The best virtues of the Zenith are the speed and the high glide angle for such a moderate aspect ratio. Also the handling is great. Some details need to be improves, for instance all lines are the same color (although this will change in next production units). Some wrinkles are visible around the frontal attachment points probably due to the separation between lines and also the rises fun out loosing the aerodynamic advantage of the thin risers well in line. However the glide is quite remarkable, it belong to a high intermediate but with a B rating (you can compete in Class Club). 4 sizes (the big size is removed) but with a good weight range between one another between 60 and 115 kg so you can choose the prefered weight load. If flies really well with the maximum load but since it does not need more speed it also flies great at the middle of the load. You have to forget about the B rating and think as this is a high intermediate with performances and piloting of a 2 wing but with a high passive safety. Windtech's experience of 15 years.
Performance (Zenith)
*Measures at 1500m QNH and 28ΊC Manufacturer Windtech (Gijσn, Spain) Designer Αlvaro Valdιs Production Gijσn (Spain) and Sri Lanka
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From Paraglidingforum.com I felt at home very fast with this wing.No problem with the brake length or handling. The wing felt very solid to me, light and very easy to inflate and control - not over passing at all. To that point that I went flying thermals hands up to see what was going to happen. It is very solid and pitch stable. Kind of wing that I would go fly to take pictures. At the end, it will close but it is much more collapse resistant than my Airwave/Mustang (DHV2). The brakes pressure increases a lot when lowering hands. Impossible to stall it by mistake. Kind of tiring to keep it at min speed for a while when top landing. When flying at full bar (pulley against pulley) across active thermals, got 3 asymmetric collapses and one frontal. It is very stable with a half-bar. The wing is fast in active air/face wind, at least this was my impression. Was flying for the whole afternoon almost alone so no way to compare it with anything else. At the end of the day I was able to compare it against another wing (Sigma5) in very weak thermal conditions. There was not much difference noticeable climbing slowly up to the top. Although, I don't know the other pilot's weight and wing size. .
APRIL 29, 2010 | BY FREDRIK AHL | WINGS This review was sent in by reader Vincenzo Di Francesco. This is his thoughts on this new glider from Windtech This is an independent review of the recent wing of Windtech available on the market from March 2010. The author has about 2000 hour of flight on different wings mainly in the intermediate class, his test flight of this wing size M loaded at 100 Kg has been done in Socorro SP Brazil, a site with mountains ranging from 700 to 1500 meters with abundance of vegetation and of rain. Conditions where generally weak normal with the exception of some day with prefrontal meteo conditions and with meteo wind of about 20 km/h in the central hours of the day, maximum vario range was 5 m/s and minimum -6 m/s. Wing description may be found on the windtech
site, to make few comments here the wing has a pronounced Lets see its behavior in flight, all the
comments here are based on my personal experience have not been verified Take
off
Handling & feelings The great difference in the handling of this
wing is due to the brakes, they have an impressive utilazable range Lets talk a little more about the brakes in
turns, there are two optimal modus operandi, the first at trim speed This second style of thermaling is more sensible for the purpose of centering the core, as well permit to change the wing course promptly and effectively giving an high value of handling for this wing, it is really possible to turn tightly, with flat turns with inclined turns and to center the core releasing both brakes or pushing them low when dolphining inside the thermal. Unfortunately this high tunability of the wing has a cost, the brakes are quite hard at this point, remember that if they tend to go slack this means that you are approaching the stall point so my suggestion is to operate the wing in the harder part of the brake resistance and to monitor accurately the feedback of the force necessary to pull down them. Except the tradeoff of a high physical exercise on the brakes this method permit very fast climb in thermals dampening the turbulences and keeping the wing in full control, essentially you are putting more than 10 kg on each brake so you are hanging now on 4 points the two risers and the two brakes handles being in full touch with the wing movements. This is my suggested method to ride strong punctual thermal cores, just a recommendation, avoid to do it when very low. I highly discourage the shortening of the brakes line, I saw a performance degradation both at trim and ad full speed if the brake lines have not a wide curvature under the relative wind pressure, brakes have to be left free at pulley to leave the trailing edge of the wing undeformed this means you have to go with your hands quite high. This wing is very sensible to brakes settings, the central top brake line top cascade is shorter and tend to deform the trailing edge of the wing, optimal performances at trim get deteriorated if the trailing edge is not perfectly flat, also the brake system of the zenith apply the first bunch of deformation on the side of the wing near the wing tips, only pushing forward the central part of the trailing edge get deformed and with it the final part of the wing tips. So to mantain a small amount of brake pressure is inefficient for this wing, it has to fly free.
Climb in thermal
Transition
Speed System
Descending methods
Overall performances
Unwanted wing configuration
Final comment
Windtech Zenith sizes S S\M and M\L EN B certification - EN Report Price including VAT and delivery £2199
Contact us: enquiries@parashop.co.uk for availability, delivery and payment details.
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