phronesis

There is some consensus now that speedflying refers to what sydivers call bladerunning and speedriding refers to skiing with small chutes where the intention is to be on the snow much of the time. I come from a background of cross country paragliding and have flown many of the PG style wings. The largest (like the bobcat) are small PG's that can be thermalled and flown XC in stronger winds than ordinary PG. They use very efficient airfoils with a narrow angle of attack range which is why if you pull a front riser they will tuck. Having said that wings such as the Nervures Swoop will roll and dive very steeply in a turn with no probems. The Ozone Bullet and to a lesser extent the Gin Nano were designed to be more roll stable and not dive in the turns or use riser inputs which makes them hard to fly close in except in the small sizes. The Ozone Bombe was an attempt by a PG manufacturer to replicate some of the skydive canopys advantages and uses a fat airfoil with large handles sewn onto the front risers. It is a lot more roll stable than the PG type wings and tends to fly more on pitch and yaw than roll. The fat airfoil is also much less efficient so glide angle is much reduced. It is I suspect the difference in roll stability and pitch control that leads to the different flight profiles mentioned above. I recently acquired a VX89 that I plan to experiment with when we get a bit more snow here in NZ. It looks like it may be hard to inflate. Anyone have any tips?