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 In
1999, Moyes introduced the Moyes Litespeed designed by Gerolf Heinrichs. Since then
the Moyes Litespeed has been prominent at many competitions and has occupied more
top ten and podium places than any other glider in the market. The Litespeed is
well considered as a glider built by the best and available for everyone to fly.
Now with the latest Moyes innovation, the Litespeed just got a whole lot better
- the Moyes Litespeed "S".
The "S" refers to the latest sail cut design being applied to the Litespeed,
and you'll understand why when you look along the trailing edge. Sail area has been
removed from the chord or root of the sail and redistributed to the mid and outer
wing. This results in an "S" shape along the trailing edge - or in more technical
terms - a "super-elliptic" wing planform.
Why have we done this? Apart from looking really good it is always performance
and handling aspects that drive innovative design. The sail cut of the new Litespeed
S intends to counteract the typical mid-wing lift deficit of flexible hang gliders.
The creation of a super elliptic wing planform in other words just compensates chord
wise for the inevitable washout of flex wings - resulting in a better, more elliptic
lift distribution.
A wider mid wing and tip cord allows more of the outer wing to create lift along
the wing span - the glider's effective aspect ratio thus increases without additional
span.
The nominal gain in glide and climb is expected to be only about 1.5%, however
a major improvement of the new Litespeed S comes much more from a significant improvement
in slow speed manoeuvrability.
 The
new Moyes Litespeed S has even more forgiving stall behaviour than its predecessor.
It can be flown 2-3km/h slower with this enhanced manoeuvrability becoming more
apparent as more VG is engaged. Thermalling in light lift with up to 50-70% of VG,
and very efficient dolphin style flying are the key advantages that top pilots will
achieve with this new model. The regular Litespeed pilot will experience a more
relaxed flying, take off and landing due to the super friendly stall characteristics
of this new wing.
In addition to the new Moyes Litespeed S cut sail, Moyes have also introduced
a range of new high performance options. These include a carbon fibre outer leading
edge, carbon fibre dive struts and a lighter redesigned carbon cross bar. All these
options reduce the overall weight of the glider by about 2kg. More importantly,
with the weight reductions mostly towards the mid wing and tip, the wing's roll
inertia is reduced significantly. This leads to an amazing gain in handling, especially
at slower glide and thermalling speeds, especially at tighter VG settings. Since
overall measures of the wing frame have been kept unchanged, all these performance
options are fully modular and interchangeable with the standard aluminium components
so pilots can select the options that best suit their individual needs.
A new size has also been added to the Litespeed range. The new Moyes Litespeed
3.5 offers a smaller sail on a Litespeed 4 frame, offering the perfect glider to
pilots in the 70kg weight range.
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