I've been flying a rented Moyes Litespeed RS 4 for the last week and Steve Moyes is going to be flying that very glider in the Forbes competition. He was test flying it today (the practice day at Forbes). Today I got back on my rented Airborne C4-13.5 and the gliders are very different. It's rare to be able for me to be able to fly two different high performance gliders one right after the other, so that I can "feel" the difference.

These two gliders are very different in sail area. The Airborne C4-13.5 is 146 square feet. The Moyes Litespeed RS 4 is 152 square feet. The Airborne C4-14 has a sail area of 154 square feet, so it is more comparable with the Litespeed RS 4. The Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5 has a 147 square foot sail area so it is the comparable glider to compare with the Airborne C4 13.5. But the C4 13.5 and the RS 4 are the gliders that the manufactures felt where "right" for me.

The optimal pilot weight for the Moyes Litespeed RS 4 is 172 pounds (I weigh 175). There is no "optimal pilot weight" given for the Airborne gliders. Really that value is only a user (pilot) friendly guideline as it is hook in weight that counts. I hook in at 210 pounds.

The Moyes Litespeed RS 4 (and RS 3.5) calls for a hook in weight of 150 to 240 pounds. The Airborne C4 13.5 154-220 pounds. The C4-14 has a hook in weight range of 187-265 pounds. Four seasons ago I flew the Airborne C2-14 and found it to be way too big for me. Two seasons ago I flew the Airborne C4-13 and it was a bit small.

As I reported earlier the Moyes Litespeed RS 4 "felt" bigger and "stiffer" in turns and when I flew the C4-13.5 today it felt lighter and smaller and much easier to initiate a turn and to control. It is pretty clear that sail area is the main differentiator. I'm happier with the easier to "handle" C4-13.5. Last season I flew the Moyes Litespeed RS 4 during my whole season in Oz and "felt" fine about it, and actually did well on it, coming in third in the New South Wales Titles.

I also reported a couple of days ago on how slow I was flying in the Moyes Litespeed RS 4. It seemed that perhaps there was something wrong with me (my harness wasn't fully closed due to zipper problems), my Flytec 6030 (the air speed calibration may have been off), or I was too light on the glider. Well I checked the 6030 against the car's speedometer and in fact it (the 6030) was reading too high. So I was in fact flying very slowly.

You can see just how slowly the Flytec 6030 thought I was flying (and I was actually flying 15% slower) here. Download the flight (IGC file) and bring it up in SeeYou.

I suspect that I was flying so slowly because of my relatively light wing loading. I'm used to the T2-144 and the C4-13.5 and the accompanying airspeeds were what I was used to. Perhaps I had additional drag due to my Moyes Matrix Race harness not being in the optimal configuration also.