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Review - Skywalk Chili PDF Print E-mail

Skywings Reviewer Ian Grayland took delivery of our Chili just before the recent spell of bad weather, so its taken a while for him to put the wing through its paces, but it was well worth waiting for...

 

The Strange Test of Dr. Chili and Mr. Chyll


skywalk_chili_spiral.jpg Although released in Germany over a year ago, the Chili has not really seen the light of day in the UK until very recently. Skywalk's promo puts the Chili at the top end of the DHV1-2 (EN B) category - the largest and most hotly contested market sector - clearly delineating the wing from their Tequila entry-level 1-2, destined for those with less experience or more sedate taste. Having just taken on the Skywalk UK dealership, importers Northern Paragliding were understandably keen to get some exposure in the pages of Skywings and shipped me a demo wing for review post haste.

After a quick look at the specifications I had opted for the 75-95 kg size, which, in typical German fashion, is referred to as a 'Small' wing. This would put me right at max weight - ideal for normal windy UK flying conditions and close to my usual 4+ kg/sq metre wing loading. So, following a good Mexican style breakfast with an extra dash of Habanero sauce, I headed for Devil's Dyke for a misty, overcast first day of testing...

Construction and Materials

As soon as I opened the snazzy lightweight rucksack the quality of materials became apparent. The inner bag is a nice soft nylon material with printed logo. There is a separate riser bag - handy if you disconnect between flights. The risers look and feel good. The lines have a reassuring heavy duty feel and are nicely terminated. The rucksack itself is very lightweight and German style, with an internal strap to keep the wing in place as a back-pad and shaped to take the bulkiest of harnesses either way up. The pack may be further lightened by removing the velcro'd waist strap for those with no hike to take-off. There is a small sandwich compartment at the top rear which I found very handy, though this will only take a couple of half-litre water bottles; bigger containers have to go inside the main sack. There is a separate access zipper to put your helmet and clothing on top without the main contents falling out. With all the compression straps tightened it makes quite a neat package and, once I had tweaked all the adjustments, was fairly comfortable for our local short hikes.
skywalk_chili_inflight.jpg
The wing is constructed of 51 cells using angled V tab bracing. There is quite a bit more work involved building a wing like this, since the V tabs have to be sewn on separately, unlike angled partial cell-walls which get sewn in together with the main seams. However, the end result is a cleaner wing, with no flattening of the centre cells, or bulging of the outers in their groups of three. Cells on the Chili are grouped mostly in triples, with some pairs used to even out the line loads. Porcher 9017 fabric is used for the bulk of the glider in 40 gram weight to keep things light. The front top-surface is constructed in heavier 45 gram 9092 to improve durability and longevity in the critical 'sand-blasted' region of the leading edge.

The line layout is fairly conventional using a mix of Kevlar cored mains and Dyneema cored uppers, with three main lines each side leading to single upper cascades in groups of three. Risers are 20 mm polyester, incorporating the usual twin pulley 3:1 speed system pulling the A risers down. Motion of the B's is geared 2:1 off the A's for the first inch of movement, before hitting the stop and decambering the wing for the rest of the travel. C's are on a small floating 2:1 off the B's. Split A's are fitted to facilitate big ears and to ensure an easy, clean inflation on launch by pulling main A's only, letting the tips inflate last.

Build Quality

Quality of construction is very good, from the soft edge-tape triple zig-zagged onto the scalloped, low drag ram vents, to the edge-reinforced V tabs on both A and B attachments, to the corner reinforcements on the C and D V tabs, right through to the triple zig-zagged trailing edge tape. The intended long term durability of the Chili is quite clear.

Unusually, the manual had arrived before the glider. Equally unusually, I read it before going flying. It's in slightly wooden translated German, but despite this, or maybe even because of it, reads well and conveys a good impression of the people and philosophy behind the wing. The drawings are clear and concise and I was pleasantly surprised to note that the two smaller size wings have shorter risers - a good indicator of attention to a classically overlooked detail.

Jet Flaps

skywalk_chili_jetflaps.jpgLike the other wings in the Skywalk range, the Chili is fitted with jet flaps. These are a neat PG implementation of the classic slotted flap. Jets of relatively high velocity air are injected into the boundary layer just in front of the full span camber changing flaps (OK, brakes. Got carried away there), thus delaying local flow separation until a far higher section angle of attack and, hence, to a lower stall speed. Obviously, with one eye on the German market's proclivity for gimmicks and the other on the rather sparse spread of jets across the Chili's flap-span, I wondered how well do they work? Heh-heh, only one way to find out; gaffer tape 'em shut on one wing and try a few stalls... The bad-boy in me already had the roll of gaffer tape in the car boot before the glider had arrived. Then I heard that Vol Libre had already measured stall speeds on the Skywalk Tequila with and without the slots taped shut. Needless to say, my own gut-feel flight testing simply served to confirm VL's rigorous tests; they most definitely do appear to work, dropping the stall speed by several k's and softening the break. Anyway, enough techno-babble. Time to fly.

On the Ground

The small increase in weight due to the heavier 9092 top surface leading edge fabric presents a minor penalty in terms of speed and ease of inflation, and also inertia when the wing gets off-line. Conversely, of course, you get a bonus when you are trying to keep the wing on the ground in windier launch areas. However, whether the extra weight is justified in terms of long term wear and tear remains to be established. I should make it clear right now that I'm being pretty nit-picky here; 5.6 kg is not at all heavy and the Chili's ground handling is fundamentally faultless. Both reverse and forward inflations are best carried out the recommended way by pulling the main A's only. If the wing goes off-line you can either pull it back on-line again or run under it to taste. No tricks. No vices. (I discovered a few days later in the test that in a very strong wind (22 mph), reverse launches can even be carried out without touching the risers; simply allowing the glider to slowly rise by gradually easing off on the brakes as you walk calmly toward the wing. Cool.)

In Flight

skywalk_chili_gdhandling.jpg

On that critical first take-off at the Dyke the immediate impression was good. The Chili's glide lifted it easily clear of the shallow slope with little tendency to touch down again. It moved effortlessly forward into the strongish headwind at a healthy trim speed. I rolled it this way and that and pitched it a bit noting the powerful brakes and snappy response, before cruising over to the main face to play with some early rags of low orographic cloud. I was going to enjoy this...

As I hit the first scrappy punch of lift, the wing surged forward and I leant over hard burying one brake. Immediate response and a nice hook-turn, but there was less energy than I expected and I ended up overbanked and corkscrewing. Fun though. I tried a few more, this time with a bit of outside weight on the entry. Better, but still the same end result. Same both ways. After opening a whole case of bottles, I found the Chili needs quite a bit of outside brake in turns, especially if you want to keep them in any way flat and efficient. This, as it clearly states in the manual, is definitely not a novice glider.

A second day of flying in very weak thermals gave me a strangely different perspective on the wing. Boating around with about one-third brake revealed Dr. Chili the gentlemanly min-sinker. Lazy, but still tight, flat turns. Smooth, easy turn reversals and re-centreing. Superb climb rate. Excellent stall immunity and good spin immunity, even when abused. And no sign of the manic Mr. Chyll at all - until I let my hands up that is. Then, whoosh. Back to the fast trim, agile, sporty wing I had been flying earlier.

 On the third outing, a real treat. Our local small South facing hill is only about 5 k's inland. On a sunny Summer day it can get to be a real fairground ride in the strong, gusty sea breeze. This day was no exception. Strong lift and sink and tiny broken thermal cores. Eight up and eight down separated by only a couple of spans horizontally. Mr. Chyll proved a delight to thermal in this stuff, surging forward eagerly and biting in to the strongest cores with ease. My confidence in the wing advanced rapidly, minute by minute. I was surprised not to get pitched back by gusts - the Achilles Heel of most 1-2 gliders as they run out of speed range - and very impressed by the performance at around half bar. (I was incidentally, probably the only pilot using any speed bar in this air).

Flight Controls

Brake travel plus slack has my hands well below my seat for the stall, but, despite the very low hang-points on my harness and my shortish arms, I had no need of wraps or any other nonsense to stall the wing when needed. I checked this out in anger when aborting a launch fully two feet short of the barbed wire fence running right along the lip of another of our sites, when I hit the inevitable unexpected sink.

The brakes are biased pretty heavily outboard. For my personal taste I would shift this a little. The balance is in no sense 'faulty', but does lead to a higher skill level being required to get a smooth balanced tight turn entry without over-banking. As well as exceptional agility, this set-up also leads to wing-overs being remarkably safe and easy to perform. The wing's natural tendency to rotate nose-down with a big application of one brake overcomes the biggest problem encountered in SIV where many pilots get the 'wing' bit right but fail to get enough 'over'. They end up banked, with no airspeed and the nose still horizontal, fall toward the lower wing, which rolls in collapsing and enter a freak-out cascade or cravatted spiral - or both - into the sea. With the Chili, I would expect far less of this.

Windy top landings gave me some excitement on the first day as I tried all the wrong things. First off, there is no point trying to kill this wing with the brakes. Like virtually all gliders in this class, the brake travel is so long and the stall immunity so good that you will simply go for a drag. So, with mild trepidation I tried a sharp pull on the D's. Whahay! I ballooned 15 feet in the air and surged backwards towards the busy car-park, much to the amusement of onlookers. After further experimentation, I settled on the C's. Yep, nice clean stall break and wing firmly on the ground. Only trouble is the tiny black floating C's are a bit hard to find in a hurry. It would be nice to see the bright yellow marker tape here rather than on the B risers.

Roll control through the harness is light and responsive enough to fly hands off for long periods when you are not looking for lift. But it is pilots who like to get most of their feedback through brake pressure who will really like the Chili. Virtually all of your directional thermal-sniffing sense comes down the brake lines, with very little roll feedback from the harness. It's as if your harness is hanging under a low-aspect floater, whilst your brakes are feeding off a much longer span wing. Very touchy-feely.

Big ears are easy to pull using the split A risers and effortless to hold in. There is a pleasant increase in trim speed as the sink rate roughly doubles. Weight shift control is perfectly adequate in this mode, but the split A's allow you to hold the ears in and steer with a bit of brake should you need to get more agressive. Speed and stability in this mode is good, the wing remaining calm overhead with no input. The ears pop back out again immediately on release.

Performance

skywalk_chili_withcayenne.jpgTrim speed at 37-38 k's is fast. I don't just mean fast for a 1-2. I mean literally. The Chili moves around the sky well, catching and passing many other wings. Half bar takes this up to around 46-47 with a very respectable glide angle. The wing is stable, easy to keep steady overhead and still surges forward eagerly into lift when encountered at this speed. Getting both boots in there on full bar produces a surprising whoosh before stabilising at 53 k's. Obviously at this sort of pace the glide is somewhat degraded, but these are true horizontal speeds I'm measuring here. The Chili is no slouch.

There is a slight dip in the glide polar at trim and just below. At a guess, this is the downside of the jet-flaps being permanently open and, in part, explains the real boost you get as you start using the speed bar; more reflex, less leakage through the jet-flaps. The result in any event is a double peak to the wings performance. One right down at min sink and the other after a few inches of bar. Anyway, technical speculation aside, the performance on bar is very impressive. Add a fully faired 'canoe' harness and it becomes spectacular; well into dhv2 territory.

Minimum control speed is slow. Very slow. Those jet flaps really do allow the Chili to crawl through the air. It is like flying a glider two sizes bigger, but without all the inertia and sluggish control response. In lighter wind conditions this allows some very tight flat circles to be held in small cores, producing uncatchable climb rates.

 

 

 

Stability

To have achieved this level of agility, you might expect stability to have been sacrificed. This is definitely not the case. The Chili sits comfortably within the latest DHV1-2 rating with no sense of being 'on the edge' in any respect. Even a malicious application of brake on one side when flying very slowly produced only a quarter turn of spin before the good Dr. Chili dropped into a gentle spiral. Spirals are easy to enter with progressive application of one brake. There is no sense of the wing running away from you and exiting is simply a matter of progressively releasing the brake. More brake, more spiral. Less brake, less spiral. Very reassuring - especially in a wing that is so responsive and so much fun to chuck about.

Summary

skywalk_fisheye.jpgThe Chili is intended for pilots who want the most they can get in terms of performance and sporty handling without leaving the relative safety of the 1-2 class. My guess is that it will appeal mostly to those wanting to move up and not yet ready for DHV 2. After a season or two on the Chili the transition onto typical sport class wings will be both easy and natural.

The Chili is well conceived and very well built. It is fun to fly and rather addictive in thermic conditions - you will find yourself always going for 'just one more'.

 


Equipment Details

UP Fast 2 harness plus carabiner stirrup. Front reserve. Instrumentation Brauniger and Garmin. Sundry lead sheet. All up weight 95kg.

Take a look at the full specifications by clicking here

If you want to test fly a Chili just let us know. You'd be daft not to! Send an email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

 
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