Wills Wing Easy Flyer

General discussion about the sport of hang gliding
User avatar
Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: Wills Wing Easy Flyer

Post by Tad Eareckson »

Or The Davis Show - where its top dickhead usually mirrors more significant stuff from his public newsletter to his Dedicated Sycophants Only forum, or any other place I can find. (Note that the newsletter announcement is dated 9/11.) This issue is totally radioactive. Looks like they want it seen but not discussed. Oh well, that's where we come in.

Another newsletter appearance from early last week:

http://ozreport.com/21.201
David Aldrich, out sitting in his field
Davis Straub - 2017/10/09 15:50:21 UTC

The easy chair way to aerotow

Image

The photo is live.
Cowboy Up in Wharton, Texas.
The photo's live so I guess he's still out sitting in his field and staring and pointing his finger at the camera. (Gotta be a point at which the vultures are gonna get interested.)

So let's take another look at the promo video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFGueoCKsVk
Easy Flyer Promo
FLYWillsWing - 2017/09/07

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFGueoCKsVk


0:05 - Check out the new "EasyFlyer" from Wills Wing
0:17 - It's a fixed carriage with tricycle landing gear attached to a Wills Wing Falcon 4 or Alpha Hang Glider
0:24 - The Pilot is seated instead of prone
0:32 - This configuration reduces many of the physical demands associated with launching, landing and flying a hang glider
0:43 - The fixed carriage sets the angle of attack at an ideal attitude for take-off.
0:48 - It can be aero-towed
0:50 - or rolled down a hill to launch
1:02 - The fixed attitude also reduces the pilot skill requirements compared to a conventional trike carriage.
1:23 - It's an excellent "first experience" training glider
1:32 - The first pre-production models will ship to select schools in September
1:54 - Future versions will be quick-breakdown and easily transportable
3:09 - "Pretty hard to whack this thing!"
3:18 - "Too much fun!"
3:21 - Wills Wing
...with its random use of periods at ends of sentences.
0:24 - The Pilot is seated instead of prone
Kinda like the way they were at the dawn of the sport when gliders had four-to-one glide ratios and were towed to get airborne? What are the full implications of that in terms of speed, performance, control, safety?
0:32 - This configuration reduces many of the physical demands associated with launching, landing and flying a hang glider
And eliminates the ability of the pilot to pour on extra power during launch, clean up his profile if/when a shallow glide path becomes necessary, use the top half of the glider's certified speed range, safely and quickly recover from a severe dump, safely utilize crappy landing surfaces if he comes up short of the LZ.

And let's take a look at your Falcon 4 Owner's Manual with respect to launch:
Launching And Flying The Falcon

1. If the wind is more than 10 mph or gusty you should have an assistant on your nose wires on launch, and, if necessary, an assistant on one or both side wires. Make sure all signals are clearly understood. Do a hang check immediately prior to launch. The angle at which you hold the glider should depend on the wind speed and slope of the terrain at launch; you want to achieve a slight positive angle of attack at the start of your run.

2. Run aggressively on launch and ease the bar out for lift off.

3. The flying characteristics of the Falcon are typical of a medium performance flex wing. Make your first flights from a familiar site in mellow conditions to give you time to become accustomed to the glider.

4. We recommend that you hang as close as possible to the basetube in the glider - this will give you lighter control pressures and better control.
May wanna do a bit o' editing to make the glider more compatible with the carriage.
0:43 - The fixed carriage sets the angle of attack at an ideal attitude for take-off.
- See above.

- Interesting that you're using THIS:
still - in the AJX Happy Acres putting green; glider empty, stationary, pointed UPhill - to illustrate the way the fixed carriage sets the angle of attack at an ideal attitude for take-off.

So presumably the fixed carriage sets the angle of attack at an ideal attitude for take-off for an ideal launch slope with an ideal surface in ideal conditions.

- Ever hear of a crosswind launch situation in which it's advisable to start with a low wing? Just kidding.
0:48 - It can be aero-towed
So can a kitchen sink. And the kitchen sink can be LEGALLY and SAFELY aerotowed. How 'bout the Easy Flyer? Got any videos of emergency situation simulations? Lockout drills, inconvenience stall recoveries?
0:50 - or rolled down a hill to launch
Or up a hill and without a pilot - as you illustrate above.
1:02 - The fixed attitude also reduces the pilot skill requirements compared to a conventional trike carriage.
- Yeah.
http://www.willswing.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/1000x667_easy_flyer_news_8.jpg
Image
Ken Howells demonstrates no-hands while test flying the Easy Flyer
No shit. See, people of varying ages? You don't need to do anything beyond just sitting there to pilot these things. And if you ever need to release in an aerotow emergency situation (which no one but a total moron would allow himself to get into in the first place) you can make the easy release with one hand while still holding another one in reserve.

That is deceptive advertising and anybody doing it oughta get a felony conviction. How would we feel about automobile advertisements which featured college kids doing shit like that?
Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974

"Never take your hands off the bar." - Tom Peghiny
My my. Look how far we've advanced over the course of the past 43 years.

- Yeah? How?

How much skill is involved in pitch and roll control? The glider tends to trim itself pretty well in pitch and if one can't deal with roll control in the benign environments and conditions for which this configuration is suitable then how good an idea is it for one to be getting airborne in a situation in which pitch and roll inputs will be required?

And compare/contrast the pilot skill requirements involved in making the wing go forty in Easy Flyer and conventional configurations.
1:23 - It's an excellent "first experience" training glider
Yeah? How do you know?

- You're not shipping this thing to any schools till next month and the only people we've been able to identify flying it so far are Steve Pearson, Mike Meier, Ken Howells, David Aldrich, Malcolm Jones - and all of them are a helluva lot closer to their last than to their first experiences. If you'd have ever actually had anyone under a Five with quadruple digit airtime hours you'd have shown us him and/or her in this video. Not even any quotes from any advanced Ones or low Twos.

- You're emphasizing across the board reductions in skills requirements and promoting this heavily as a training tool. So obviously if less skill is being REquired less skill as being ACquired.

- Is a traditional training hill or scooter tow foot launch flight typically overloading new students with skills demands? And if you wanna talk about the...
Gil Dodgen - 1995/01

All of this reminds me of a comment Mike Meier made when he was learning to fly sailplanes. He mentioned how easy it was to land a sailplane (with spoilers for glide-path control and wheels), and then said, "If other aircraft were as difficult to land as hang gliders no one would fly them."
...landing then why aren't we just rolling them in on the wheels - they way a huge chunk of them end up doing, instinctively - anyway?

My own "first experience" was off a dune at Jockey's Ridge on a Sky Sports Eaglet 180. Proned out IMMEDIATELY, both hands on basetube, flew straight, adjusted pitch, rolled in on the wheels still proned out. Wouldn't trade it for an Easy Flyer "first experience" with a gun to my head and wolfed down as many skills challenges as my instructors would feed me and more. And when some fucking douchebag named Dave took us out in high winds and started giving us pony rides to be able to tick off the five flights of the lesson I pushed out until he had to make a choice between letting go of my sidewire and getting his fingers cut off. (He let go - much to my disappointment.)

And do ya really wanna be attracting people into the sport who aren't junkies for skills challenges and advancements? (Tom Lyon comes to immediate mind.)
1:32 - The first pre-production models will ship to select schools in September
At which point we might be able to start finding out something about how great a "first experience" this thing makes for. And a good way to do it would be to do an intro ground school, explain the options, give them the choice. Or just alternate them every other flight. See what people gravitate to, compare retention and progress rates. But I won't be holding my breath.

Now that I think about it... That claim HAS TO BE a LIE. If you fly the carriage as a "first experience" you can't then have a conventional foot launch as a "first experience" and make a valid comparison. And vice versa. And there's nobody yet out there who's flown this thing as a "first experience" anyway.
1:54 - Future versions will be quick-breakdown and easily transportable
Assuming the sport's still around.
3:09 - "Pretty hard to whack this thing!"
- "And totally physically impossible to get any speed on this thing!"

- Pretty hard to whack this thing:

1-2717
http://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2900/13998435883_a9b341927e_o.png
Image
2-3017
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5222/13952337472_43b71cf6a2_o.png
Image
5-4401
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5281/13975491923_4587b30d6d_o.png
Image
6-4518
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7151/13952329131_03e535bc8b_o.png
Image
7-5106
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5522/13952325072_2d15610fc2_o.png
Image

too.
- "Oh, that's so much more brainless than landing on your feet!"
- "That was beautiful!"
- "That was a GREAT landing, Rotor!"
- "Who cares if it's downwind!"
- "Ooh shit, that was awesome!"
So how come you've never once in your entire fucking corporate lifespan promoted or even acknowledged it? Can't afford to admit that hang gliders can...
Gil Dodgen - 1995/01

All of this reminds me of a comment Mike Meier made when he was learning to fly sailplanes. He mentioned how easy it was to land a sailplane (with spoilers for glide-path control and wheels), and then said, "If other aircraft were as difficult to land as hang gliders no one would fly them."
...and SHOULD be wheel landed? How is it possible to introduce this carriage and still endorse this foot land bullshit for the conventional configuration? Afraid you'd get dropped by all the stunt landing schools and/or your asses sued out of existence by stunt landing school victims?
3:18 - "Too much fun!"
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27415
Friday the 19th with Hawks & Friends!
NMERider - 2012/10/24 21:47:05 UTC

I have to say that landing on the wheels is so much fun it's not funny.
3:21 - Wills Wing
Note that the only things that look like active cumulus clouds anywhere in this video appear over the mountains on the horizon left of the Crestline launch in the opening sequence and all the Wallaby towing and sled sequences are under near or completely clear blue skies in glassy smooth air. And we don't see any gliders getting bumped around anywhere.

So what's this thing good for?

Virtually anyone can run a glider off the top of a training hill and the gliders fly themselves in straight enough lines until they run out of steam.

- Are there enough training hill bucket listers incapable of foot launching who wanna be able to say they soloed a hang glider once to justify this investment?

- If I've got a legitimate student I'm gearing up for ridge soaring and thermal mountain flying I'll need to be training him for launches and conditions it which a carriage is inappropriate, totally useless, not doable. Every carriage flight is a waste of valuable time and energy. Anybody who can foot launch a hang glider already has the skills to sit down and do nothing as gravity takes control.

- And note that nowhere in any of these promo videos do we see this thing going UP a training hill or dune. Guess they excluded those parts 'cause they didn't wanna totally overwhelm us with the fun factors.

It's gonna be more comfortable for a Three and up to boat around for a couple hours in mild soaring conditions. And good luck trying to blast to the next thermal after topping out in the last one.

No, wait! I've been looking at this issue mostly wrong!

The object of the Grebloville/Lockout flavor instructor is to teach the paying student as much nothing as possible in order to keep him as a paying dependent student as long as possible. Turn a two hour rating into a forty hour rating which still leaves the student unqualified to do anything. Come back for a clinic if you wanna learn how to fly prone and make turns below a thousand and above two hundred feet.

So now a student will be paying $150 for a five flight lesson to learn how to sit in a harness, lift his feet when he wants to start flying, put them back down after he stops. Brilliant.
---
P.S. - 2017/10/18 12:35:00 UTC

Just found us on Page 2 with a Google search for:
"Wills Wing Easy Flyer"
We're on the map.
User avatar
Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: Wills Wing Easy Flyer

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2771
Easy Flyer ... item by Wills Wing
Rick Masters - 2017/09/29 08:15:07 UTC

One of the tenets of safe weight-shift rogallo launching is pitch and roll control during the takeoff run.
- Yeah? Who the fuck says? If there were such a thing as safe weight-shift rogallo launching is pitch and roll control during the takeoff run why do we use wire crews at launch position (while we wait for lulls in which we figure we can control pitch and roll control during the takeoff run)?

- This is essentially an aerotow launch dolly that stays with the glider. Can you cite any data, incidents from that environment to support your position?
It may not be a good idea to train novices on rogallos in the absence of that...
Since when did we start training novices - or anyone else - to fly hang gliders? How much pitch and roll control do these Industry victims have running off mountains in upright-only "training" harnesses?
Both the seated 3-axis Goat, with its center wheel, and the suprone weight-shift Fenson, and all prone hang gliders - have pitch and roll control during takeoff.
What? If the nose and/or a wing starts coming up we can't effect weight shift control to bring it/them back down? Same way we can't after coming off the slope?
It's a critical requirement.
Like the perfectly timed landing flare and the appropriate weak link with a finished length of 1.5 inches or less.
Maybe they'll build some limited pitch and roll into future prototypes of this atrocious thing.
They already have - douchebag.
If not, this ridiculous kludge might prove to be a disaster at gusty launch sites or even the mellowest of launch sites when a thermal rolls through.
Whereas conventionally configured gliders have totally unblemished safety records in these areas.
Landing in turbulence, gusts, cross or strong winds with locked pitch and roll at touch-down...
The pitch and roll control ISN'T *LOCKED* at touch-down. Or at any other time - asshole.
I don't even want to think about.
Since when did you start even thinking about ANYTHING?
Yeah, I know. It's not meant to fly in those conditions.
Funny I didn't hear you say anything about the Joe Julik snuffing at Whitewater.
But those conditions seem to happen from time to time, when you least expect it.
Like when we go upright to execute our perfectly timed flares. But I never hear you talking about that.
Watching people launch, fly and land this monstrosity makes me uncomfortable.
Good. Anything that makes you uncomfortable can't be all bad.
My feeling is...
...fuck anybody who flies anywhere but the Owens - 'specially flatlanders.
...if you want to put wheels on a wing to roll it off a hill, you should use 3-axis control.
And when they knick-name this thing, it's gonna be called the "Ankle Buster."
Why? They never KNICK-named the stunt landed hang glider the...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22176
Paragliding Collapses
Jim Rooney - 2011/06/12 13:57:58 UTC

Most common HG injury... spiral fracture of the humerus.
..."Arm Buster".
I won't even get into aerodynamics or FAR 103.
Good. We've already heard more than enough idiot drivel from you on this post.
But how about aesthetics? Image
It looks like it was hammered together in a garage overnight with spare parts from other projects that happened to be laying around.
What did you think about Bill Cummings' Skyting Bridle setup?
It just doesn't seem to be worthy of the Wills Wing name at this stage of "refinement."
- The way their fine towing equipment does. No wait. Wills Wing gliders have been designed for foot launched soaring flight and have not been designed to be motorized, tethered, or towed. So it would be totally insane for them to lift a finger - or adopt something from somebody who'd bothered to lift a finger - in that department.

- This is a stage of desperation. Get used to it.

Prequel video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0WVoXkvzEU


Update... This topic I found and previously reported as being on the second page (Position 7) of Google search results. Seems to have totally vanished now. Weird. Meanwhile this crap from Rick is appearing at the bottom of Page 1. Oh well...
User avatar
Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9149
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: Wills Wing Easy Flyer

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=55591
The Easy Flyer is Almost Ready!
Bill Finn - 2018/03/29 15:33:47 UTC

From the videos of the Easy Flier in the air I've seen, it appears that with the base tube locked in place onto the carriage "keel", negative pitch (AOA) control might be a bit of a struggle.
Ya think?
I wonder if WW has considered adding some kind of a pitchy or French Connection type of device to facilitate easier diving of the Easy Flier in rowdy air or when there is lift seemingly everywhere and pilots want to land ASAP?
It's not a certified glider - and even certified gliders can get tumbled in nasty enough air even when the pilot is doing everything mostly right. Enough monkeys and typewriters and somebody who would've been OK on a certified glider in certified configuration is gonna get killed on this thing.

You want certified glider control from just after foot launch through landing? Put wheels or skids on your certified glider control bar, skid plates on your harness, stay prone on the fuckin' control bar until you roll or skid to a stop in a sane landing zone.

P.S. Along the same lines... Any thoughts on THIS:

http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4174/34261733815_bfb41c49d8_o.jpg
Image

configuration?
Post Reply