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U-Turn's DHV 2 XC Machine

By Neil Cruickshank & Second Impressions by Pete Morris (added 24/8/06)

I had actually flown the Free Force before, last year (05) we got a size 24 demo and I flew a failed triangle on it from Stags Fell in the Dales. It thermalled beautifully but it was apparent that I was woefully underweight to get good glide performance. U-Turn's loading chart also confimed this.

So I was looking forward to having a shot on the 22 and yesterday saw the perfect opportunity as I was teaching CP students and the conditions were ideal - a steady breeze, overcast sky and very bouyant air. The first thing you notice is how tiny the glider is when packed away, and when youpick it up it also feels very light. U-Turn use a 40g/m² Porcher marine cloth for the Free Force.

At 22.5m² it isnt all that small, but it certainly looked it as I laid it out. I think the colour scheme really enhances this look making it look high aspect ratio. The design looks straight-forward with quite large cell openings for a DHV2, and this makes the glider so, so easy to inflate. Indeed, the Free Force is just dying to fly and even the lightest pull brings her overhead.

Over the course of the afternoon, me, brother Rob and Ian Brown all flew the Free Force several times. The more we flew it, the more we wanted to. Handling is impeccable, direct, light and incredibly precise (but then it is a development of the G-Force acro wing so this isnt surprising). You just need to think it and the glider goes there, give it some more brake and weight shift and the turns come easily and dynamically. It wasn't long before we were chucking it about more and Robs death spiral to land followed by a cheeky grin said it all.

The Free Force when loaded properly is an entirely different glider to the one I flew last year. It is very easy to handle on the ground, and in the air it is really a lovely glider. In the few light thermals coming through it was obvious that it can be made to fly efficiently, but the acro pedigree makes it irresistable not to do a few wing overs or spirals. I'm looking forward to flying it in better XC conditions, but so far it gets the big thumbs up from the three of us at least.

If you want a DHV2 XC glider that will do acro too, this must be the one to try. 

FOR... compactness, eagerness to fly, a delight in flight

AGAINST... nothing just yet! 

Second Impressions by Pete Morris... 

I jumped at the chance to test out u –turns dhv2 the Free Force, as U-turn have gained a solid reputation for their acro wings, I imagined that their dhv2 offering would be far from dull, a wing with sweet handling and incredible manoeuvrability?? Did it meet my expectations?

Firstly the weight range for the 22, as certified is 55kgs to 95kgs, a 40 kg range which is pretty wide. We would love to know how the wing reacts to being very lightly loaded say with a 40kg pilot under it? This is still to be checked out by us – any volunteers? I was flying in the middle of the weight range at around 73kg, perhaps towards the lighter end for the surface area.

The wing itself is made of lightweight porcher at only 5.2kg – pretty easy to carry up. The livery was that of Felix Rodriguez’ trade mark colour scheme, or German flag – black red and yellow, which I think actually looks the business.

Immediately I could recognise the U-turn launch characteristics – piece of cake – launches without holding the risers. I found it better to use As and Cs as the wing comes overhead very quickly, once there, the free force stays overhead incredibly well.

Looking up I was a little surprised as the wing looked quite stubby, and actually for this class of wing it has a lowish aspect ratio of 5.3, so how did it perform?

I immediately felt secure on this wing even in broken roughish conditions it was very well behaved, no yawing and felt extremely solid. The brake travel was shorter than some 1-2s I’ve been trying out, but a little longer than my preferred position. Once the brakes have bitten the pressure increases to quite a high level.

The U-turn gliders have AFS (auto flight stabilisation) - this cell shaping helps to keep the wing overhead in rough conditions and also is supposed to help improve its stall characteristics. I tested this out in level flight first by taking the brakes very low past the normal parachutal stall point, were I would normally expect to go negative – but this system really worked and kept the glider pressurised and flying – pretty reassuring and secure. Then I found that this gave a great benefit when thermalling tight cores, the wing could be slowed right down and turned around on itself, this was great for leaving the rest on the ridge, the downside was that the brake pressure became arm aching after a while.

As the wing is very dynamic with energetic roll characteristics, I found that it needed a lot of outside brake when thermalling to prevent the wing from entering spirals.

So how was the handling? – the wing went exactly where I wanted it to go – and fast, I found that I could really make it dance through the air with easy coordination. The main thing I found was its super smooth behaviour on exit from different manoeuvres. Fast neat exits from tight spiral dives were a breeze; over the top on wing-overs were a doddle, with the wing remaining pressurised throughout.

Ian described the wing as a dodgem car and he was pretty accurate, it has a trim speed of 39kph, but I felt that this wing needs to be more heavily loaded to take advantage of this, however in a strong breeze with speed bar the wing accelerated really smoothly and rapidly into wind. I felt that the wing lost out a bit on glide at higher speeds, however it would be hard to be beaten in its class for agility and smooth handling.

If acro is your bag, if you like to wind it up to base and throw down some radical moves then this wing would be hard to beat.

As Jocky once said the best pilots are those having the most fun, this is the wing to have fun on. 

Please get in touch if you want to demo a Free Force.