I've had the Wasp for around 8 months and I've covered hundreds of
XC miles in that time. Most of the flights were 25 miles or less but
a couple have been 50 miles and one was 72 in total (65 straight line
distance).
I'm flying it with an Airwave K4 which is about 155 sq ft and it handles
very well. Takeoff is easy even in nil-wind and landing
is also very easy. As long as you don't pop the nose up on takeoff there
are no problems and the glider will lift off in about a dozen steps.
The trick is to just let the wing float off your shoulders on the takeoff
run but don't let the nose up. Once the wing is flying you just hold
that bar position until the Wasp pushes you to takeoff speed and just
relax onto the base bar.
Landing is very easy. You must come in with speed and round-out just
above the grass. You feel the wheels touching down and at that point
you just give it a nice big flare and it stops. The thing that you have
to watch out for is the landing approach. You have to kill the
engine before you land and when you do, you will experience a much reduced
glide angle than you are used to on an un-powered wing. This means that
you could, if you're not careful, land short of your intended spot.
For this reason, a big landing area is preferred until you get used
to the difference. Turning with the engine off on approach is also potentialy
hazardous as it's easier to stall the wing. I always set up a straight
line approach and at about 100 ft, kill the engine on final. No low
turns!!!
The stall speed is increased too. The extra weight on the wing
makes it feel a bit strange at first and the bar position is about 5-6
inches further back. I got used to that very quickly though. The handling
is pretty much the same as normal unpowered flight and this makes thermalling
with the engine off very easy.
My first flight was with limit lines attached from the wasp to the
leading edges of the glider. This was absolutely horrible and made the
glider feel like it just wasn't flying properly. It felt like it could
drop out of the sky at any moment. I took them off and the wing flew
as normal, apart from the bar position. I never used them again after
that.
Noise. This is this main draw back with the wasp and any other
power assisted hang glider. It's not that bad though. The loudest part
of the flight is the takeoff and climb out. Once you level off and cut
the power back to cruise (around 6,300 revs) it quietens down a lot
and it's ok. After a while I don't even notice it. On the newer versions
the exhaust system is improved and it's said to be quieter and give
more power.
The Wasp is powered by the electric-start Radne 120 Aero engine. It's
a two stroke and gives around 45 kilograms of thrust at full power.
That's plenty of power and gets me off the ground quick. The prop is
twin bladed carbon fibre, although wood props are available too. I prefer
the carbon though having tried the wooden one.
Fueled by a 5 litre tank of unleaded mixed with 2 stroke oil, it gives
me ten miles to the litre. That's 50 miles to a tank. That's in still
air, no lift, no headwind or tailwind. With a tailwind you can increase
that distance a lot, and with thermal assistance, a hell of a lot. I've
got two tanks but have only used them on my 72 mile flight. I'm planning
some much longer flights in the future though.
Climb rate is said by the manufacturers to be up to 400 ft a minute
but personally I think this is just not feasable. I reckon on about
250-300 ft a minute maximum. It's a bit strange when you are flying
in strong sink and you are on full power and still going down. Not a
pleasant feeling. I've noticed that even in very light winds, 2 or 3
mph, if you fly in the lee of a hill, even a mile or so behind it, you
can encounter quite strong sink and it will take all the power of the
engine just to keep you from going down. In conventional hang gliding
I've never done that as all the focus is on finding lift so it came
as a surprise to find that even a very light breeze could have that
effect so far behind a hill.
The wasp itself has been, on the whole, reliable. In flight it has
never given me any trouble and the engine always feels strong and trustworthy.
I have had an issue with re-starting the engine after I'd run it for
a while. When I did my training day I was advised to use the choke to
kill the engine. This was supposed to leave it rich so as to make re-starting
easier. It had the opposite effect and drove me crazy for a while, even
leaving me stranded on one occasion. Riaan Oliver at Wasp Systems then
advised me to use the engine cut-out switch instead. I tried it and
it worked. The engine re-starts fine now and I've got a lot more confidence
in it now.
When I first got the Wasp I wasn't completely sure that I'd done the
right thing. I'd been flying unpowered hang gliders for 12 years and
I didn't know if I could get on with having an engine attached to me.
It felt pretty strange at first but now it's second nature. There is
more hassle involved than conventional hang gliding as there is more
equipment to carry around and you have to always make sure that you
have fresh fuel. Finding takeoff fields can also be a problem, especially
nowadays as everyone wants to sue you just for breathing. So far I've
just been using large areas of common land. On the premise that if you
ask for permission it's bound to be denied, I just use places that are
out of the way and little used. So far it's been fine.
Now that I've had the Wasp for a while and had plenty of time on it
I feel great about it and it has really extended my flying this year.
The weather has not been good for XC flight this year and if I hadn't
got the Wasp I would have had far fewer flights. It also allows me to
fly places and routes that I'd never have been able to go before. I
don't have to rely on lift and wind direction and this opens up amazing
opportunities for flights that I would never have made otherwise. I've
followed river valley's, followed coastlines, flown triangles etc that
just would not have been possible on a conventional glider.
I'm completely sold on the idea of powered hang gliding now. It's not
cheating, as some hang glider pilots seem to think. It can be looked
upon as a built in aerotow where you switch off the power at 2,000 ft
just as you would unhook from a tug. You can then fly unpowered as normal.
I look upon it as a whole new opportunity to fly to places that I never
would have been able to before. I sometimes fly over people who are
ridge soaring below and feel quite sorry for them as they fight for
every inch of lift off the hill. I've been there and done it and no
doubt I will do it again but I now know that I can fly just about anywhere
that I please and that is a big plus for me. You just have to treat it as a different kind of hang gliding and enjoy it for what it is. There isn't the challenge of finding lift and going off on an XC with only thermals to keep you up but there is the enjoyment of not having to fly on hills that are crowded out with paragliders. I fly in completely uncrowded skies with no worries about collisions with all the novice paraglider pilots who fill the skies these days.
PS. the photos show the legs hanging down but this is me on
takeoff and landing approach. The legs are drawn up onto the harness
in flight and the harness is then zipped up as normal giving a much
more streamlined profile with less drag.
Comparisons with other power units:
I usually fly with some other guys who also own powered harnesses and
recently flew in France with three other
power pilots. All of us had different harnesses, Booster, Wasp, Mosquito
and Doodlebug. It seemed to me that all of the units performed about
the same in terms of climb rate and fuel consumption although Alan Mortimer
who flies a '96 model Mosquito seems be able to get a lot higher than
anyone else. He went to 10,000 ft using a Rumour 1. I think the glider had more to do with the better climb rather than the Mosquito. Also, Alan only weighs about 140 lbs. The Booster pilot
seemed to suffer from lack of performance from his wing, a Discovery
195. It's a very slow flying wing and he had to pull on speed to keep up with the others. The main difference seems to be the glider that is used with the
unit. A higher performance wing will give you more speed and distance
than a lower performance wing. The climb rate will also be affected.
The only other real difference in the harnesses is in the little things
such as throttles, fuel tanks, harness materials and in the case of
the Doodlebug - the flying position is seated rather than prone. All
of them use the same Radne 120 engine. The Booster seems to be the lightest
unit and the wasp seems to be the heaviest, but that's just my impression
from picking them up. I didn't weigh them.
One day I'll try to organise a direct comparison of all of the harnesses
using the same glider so that I can compare climb rate and performance
for a more accurate view.
