Magic FR Series

After 3 months of flying and testing the FR3 I though I would write something about what to expect from this wing.

Glide Performance.

There is a significant performance improvement over the FR2 in terms of sink rate as well as glide. As an example I can give you the precise figures from one of our test flights with an FR2-21.5 against an FR3-24 on the 6th November in Gourdon. At 12:02:22 the FR2 left on glide from the Cormettes to Gourdon village 100m ahead of the FR3 and at the same level. After the making the valley crossing at trim speed the FR arrived at the other side of the valley at 12:03:16, a glide of just one minute, but during that time the FR3 overtook the FR2 and was 30m ahead and had gained 4 meters of altitude, in just 50 seconds. 6meters of altitude gained in 1 minute represents one point in glide angle. This test is typical of the glide tests we have made with the FR3, and leads me to conclude that the FR3 glides at approximately 1 point of glide better than the FR2.
Since these tests were made in November we have improved the FR3 in several ways and have increased glide performance even more so that on glide the latest FR3’s outglide the proto we had in November by around 0.5 point in glide at trim speed. So we are expecting great things now.

Thermalling and Sink Rate.

This autumn we have had exceptionally good conditions for testing the thermalling performance of the FR3. We have had climbs of 6m/sec even in December as well as many very weak days.
The FR3 is a responsive glider with nicely coordinated handling. The wing likes to turn both flat as well as tightly, and is just as at home turning flat in very weak smooth lift as it is getting right up on a tip and coring a small bullet thermal. In strong conditions I have found that sometimes you can get about 10% of the outside tip collapsing in turbulence, and if you ignore it, it reinflates quickly on its own, without effecting the path of the glider in the thermal.
It is better to let the FR3 fly fast in thermals, and in weak thermals use the trimmers to slow the glider rather than the brakes. 95% of the time I thermal with the trimmers in the middle position, on the red line of stiching, ad only slow the wing on the trimmers if conditions are very weak indeed and the lift is large though weak.
The FR3 also always out climbs the FR2 in weak conditions and it is clear that the minimum sink rate as better as predicted by the glide performance calculator.

Safety.

The flat aspect ration is 8.0 on the FR3 which looks impressive and can be quite intimidating at first sight. However remember that the projected aspect ratio of the FR3 is 5.5 which is exactly the same as the FR2, so in terms of wing safety and wing inertia the aspect ratio is effectively the same. This is because of the high arc.
The trim speed asymmetric collapses I have done testing over the water in Monaco and Garda have all been very easy. With a 60% collapse the wing turns 45 degrees and dives gently before stabilising and maintaining its course. The collapsed wing needs to be gently helped with a little pump to reinflate it. Higher speed assymetrics result in the other side of the wing also collapsing and the wing ends up in big ears which is a nice safe situation.
Generally speaking I found the FR3 similar in safety to the FR2, with no additional pilot skills required.
The pullies on the risers of the FR3 are 24cm apart. This is much more than the 15cm on the FR2. We have made the risers like this at the request of several competition pilots who found the pully separation on the FR2 insufficient (though personally I found it just fine!). The speed stability of the FR3 is similar to the FR2 and so by increasing this pulley spacing we are not saying that the FR3 can be flown with more speed or safety than the FR2. We do not advise pilots to fly over the standard top speed of 15cm pulley separation of the FR2, this already gives a top speed of over 60km/h which I believe to be well fast enough.

Landing.

Every time I land the FR3 something strange happens. Absolutely every single time I overshoot the landing! I know the performance on the FR3 is a bit better than on every other glider I have ever flown, but on landing approach it is not a small difference we are looking at, it is a huge leap. Even thought I have now made probably 100 landing approaches with the FR3 every single time I have to say to myself….lower….lower ….lower or else I end up too high for my landing field and end up stalling it in from 3 meters up. There is something more going on here than just one point extra in glide.

Testflight