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One day with the Swing / Mistral 2

by Oliver Teubert (E-mail), translation (German version) revised by Jérôme Daoust. Tested 2001/1/20, revised 2001/2/12.

In the afternoon, lowering cloud base and snowfall. This is the combination for the weather report for January 20th, 2001 for the south of Bavaria. Because I want to fly, I ask about the current weather situation anyway. Good visibility and high clouds was the result of a call with friends in the inner Alps. At the Wendelstein, North wind of 8 km/h. Because it is close by, I decide to go the Kampemwand. Also, Beyl Thomas is in Aschau and he has a Mistral 2/26 for testing. I leave the top station at 12.00 and a light wind from South greets me. Not the best conditions, but better than sitting at home.

Here are my impressions...

Ground Handling :

The wing seems to have a little more aspect ratio than the Arcus, the tips seem broader, similar to the Astral 2 . Construction with V tapes as we are accustomed from Swing. The carrying belts also are typical. The accelerator pulleys are provided with a protection. Those who practice much with the wing on the ground won't have fun for long. The fabric protection became defective with my Arcus after a year. The lines are easy to sort. This wing is one of the first from Swing without stabilizer brakes.

Launch :

Doing a forward launch with light tail wind, the wing behaves exemplary. Unfortunately, I cannot test other launch techniques because the conditions haven't changed at all for the three flights.

Flight :

The braking pressure occurs clearly and is average. With every tug at the brakes, the wing has a direct turn response. Also without weight shifting, the Mistral 2 can be controlled well. With body input the wing gets very agile. With a little speed it isn't a problem to begin 360s in about half a turn. It is easy to make high wing-overs. I have the feeling that the wing remains stable with all maneuvers. I can state that there is very little wing movement, similar to the Arcus in restless air. The same behavior when accelerated : The wing flies very stable in the air as if he would be of Styrofoam. I noticed that the last cell has a small fold at the front of the two stabilizers. Manfred Kistler from Swing says : "The small fold is a result of trim. The wing has very small cells and such small folds cant be avoided".

Big Ears :

The ears can be retracted easily with the split risers. For holding them, one needs very little strength, they tend to remain in. One must pump them out. On the other hand it is pleasant over longer distances not hanging with raised arms, like a monkey at the cage.

Manfred Kistler replies : "Ears don't stay tucked in, when the wing is flown in the upper half of the weight range. Some pilots still report this behavior, other don't".

Collapses :

I have provoked a couple of collapses at trim speed. After the collapse, the wing hardly turns away and simply stabilizes itself. This is rather harmless. The wing then needs a little extra encouragement to reopen, primarily to the stabilizers. I don't find this reopening "spontaneous, impulsive", as indicated by the DHV report.

Performance :

For a DHV 1-2 glider to have a good Lift/Drag, and a high maximum speed, was until now the territory of high performance wings. Wings have improved since. For many pilots and me, the performance is mainly important at high speed. Measuring in flight is difficult because of the inaccuracies. Perhaps comparison flights are a better performance measurement. During the last flight, I launched at the same time as an Octane to compare the high speed performance. I did Big Ears to adjust my altitude to the other pilot and we both accelerated. We just flew at maximum speed. After a kilometer, we were a few meters from each other. So there is not much difference between the two wings.

Conclusion :

Altogether, I very much liked the Mistral 2.26, primarily for its agile handling, as I like a wing to have. I look forward to flying the other new DHV 1-2 wings.