How to fly miniwings

Thursday 27 March, 2014

Tom Bordeau interviewed in Cross Country 152

We interview Little Cloud miniwing designer Tom Bordeau in Cross Country issue 152 (March / April 2014) to find out about the micro-sized revolution that’s happened in wing design.

He talks us through the differences between a miniwing, a speed wing and a mini paraglider, and explains how a regular paraglider pilot should approach getting on a small wing.

He says:

Getting on a miniwing from a paraglider means you will have to change the way you fly a little bit. You have to adapt to the fact that you will receive a bit more information from the air and learn not to overreact to it. It will soon become normal.

You also have to get ready to have a lot of fun. It’s something very important to understand actually. You get quite euphoric really fast and you just want to pull on the handles because it’s really, really, really fun. But if you yank the handle you will lose quite a lot of altitude very fast. Stay in control of the fun.

You need to change your technique on launch:

Don’t expect too much feedback from the wing on the ground. It’s not as powerful as a paraglider so that is the first thing. Don’t pull the risers with the same power. Do it smoothly but don’t look for the same feedback.

As well as in the air:

For your first flight give yourself more space from the ground and go easy. Don’t pull too strongly too fast. Get used to the wing. You can make wingovers in two inputs if you really go for it and you can put yourself in -15 or -20m/s spiral in less than two turns. So yes, everything goes faster.

Miniwings by Little Cloud