Wizard Wing- How to Cruise at 40-45kts?

On the Airborne Website it says the Wizard cruises at 40-45kts.

I have tried the front hole, Forward CG, and passenger and the best we seem to get is 39kts.

Is there something obvious that I'm not getting? or is there a standard deduction that should be made for advertised cruise speed.

I would appreciate suggestions.

Thanks.

Andrew

Have you looked at the tension of the bungies on the trailing edge? I'm not sure about wizards, but know that streaks can be tuned with the bungy tension and the vlecro hook and loop positions in the wings. Im also pretty sure that you might want to talk to WingTech (Airborne) if you arent sure of what you're doing. Ive never played with mine, other than to replace bungie cord that was perishing.

Andy

Every Wizard I have flown (Mk 1, Mk2 and Mk3, and I have over 800 hours on Wizards) flies in trim at 39-40knots only.

Yes, you can fly your Wizard at 45 knots. You'll need to pull the bar back as far as you can into your stomach and apply more power - enough to raise your fuel consumption per hour significantly. 45 knots is what I use for safety-speed on landing approaches - I always fly in trim at any other time, and that's 40Kts maximum on any Wizard you are likely to encounter.

Anyway, you can achieve 45 knots on your Wizard using the procedure outlined above. After ten minutes of this procedure your arms will be so tired you'll wish you'd bought a Streak.

Moral: Wizards cruise in trim at 39-40 knots.

Hello Dieselten,

Thanks for the reply.

I assume to get the 39kts you had to use the Front hole.

Do you find much difference in fuel consumption between the forward hole to the middle hole?

I have a Redback with 85hrs and ti is still purring beautifully, so every now and then I go thru this process of justifying why keep it as opposed to spending another $15-$20k just to get thru the air at another 8-12 kts faster!!.

As you have done so many hours in the Wizards, I take you are reasonably content with the wing.

I also have a Redback - purring beautifully at 65 hours TT. I enjoy the slowish cruise; gives plenty of time to look around and take neat photos...

Have you done any servicing on your 503 as yet? What plugs do you use?

Cheers,

Chris

Hello Chris,

I just use the normal NKG plugs from Supercheap or the local bike shop. I've done 2 services so far and even for the mechanically challenged such as myself they haven't been too daunting.

I'd love to drop in some time but it will take a while in the Redback.

Assuming the 503 uses the same plugs as the 582 (BR8ES), be extremely careful with oxidation of the plug head inside the plug cap if you're sourcing your plugs from the bike shop as they are the aluminium topped plugs and you need the steel topped plugs from Bert Floods to avoid that corrosion problem.

Rgds,

Glen

My Wizard was a Mk 1 with one hole only. Later Wizards are best flown on the middle hole. Solo my fuel-burn was 9.5L/hr, two-up it varied around about 12-12.5L/hr.

The Streak is not a good wing with the 503 Rotax. The engine will be working way too hard and the fuel-burn will be a real eye-opener.

Hello Dieselten,

I have given up on the idea of the Streak with the 503. Airborne said

Hi Andrew,

Must be too much red tape getting into trike certification these days if you cannot use a Cruze wing on an Edge X, as the Cruze wing is certified for a greater MTOW (Cruze 450kg verus Streak-2B 401kg).

Also, from what I've seen from earlier visits to the Airborne factory this year Airborne are moving towards unifying their Microlight wing air-frames. ie, All Airborne trike wings will have the same frame and only the sails and battens will be different. This is to save on manufacturing costs and improve logistics.

There might still be some minor differences in the wing frames I don't recall but that's the gist of it.

Rgds,

Glen

I hope you are right. It seems to make sense to me. Afterall Aircreation, DTA, P&M Pegasus have much greater flexibilty in the wing combinations.

Perhaps the Cruze is not a good fit for the 503, anyway.

As a separate matter, do you what is the reasonable lifespan of a wing. Assuming it is reasonably well looked after that is. I ask this as I may start looking at 2nd hand streaks and would like a rule of thumb of how long before I need to get a replacement wing. Thanks Andrew

I wouldn't say that P&M have a great deal of flexability - you can't put a Quik or GT450 wing on a Quantum or a Blade trike. Quantum & Blade wings aren't interchangable and none of these wings can be fitted to the earlier trikes. Its partially a consequence of having to get each combination approved but theres probably a commercial factor too - its more lucrative to sell an entire plane when somebody wants to upgrade.

Air Creation wings and trikes are much more interchangable - it used to be case that you could have any combination but they don't have to go through the same approvals process in France as the UK or Australia.

Sail life is basically proportional to u/v exposure. If you left one parked outside in Aus you'd probably be talking months rather than years. In Europe 10-15 years seems to be the norm but I think that would be the best case here. IIRC the Airborne LSA maint manuals mandate replacement after 1000 hours rather than simply on-condition.

Test with a bettsometer before buying 2nd hand !

Cheers

John

Hi Andrew. I am Kim Burge from Perth, W.A. i have an Airborne edge with a 503 rotax. started of with the HGFA, ex hangglider pilot. traded my Excect wing on a wizard to do aero towing. but 503 not powerful enough in this country for effective towing. have been flying trikes 10 yrs. from experience with my wizard in trim 38knots. am currentley haveing a Sapphire built. Sapphire Aircraft Australia cruze 80 knots on 503 rotax.

Assuming the 503 uses the same plugs as the 582 (BR8ES), be extremely careful with oxidation of the plug head inside the plug cap if you're sourcing your plugs from the bike shop as they are the aluminium topped plugs and you need the steel topped plugs from Bert Floods to avoid that corrosion problem.Rgds,

Glen

Cheers,

Chris

tightening of the bungies does'nt seem to alter the speed.

you will from time to time kneed to change your bungies (1) to replace deteriating bungies (2) to get tension back on trailing edges. I have noticed that after a while that the fabrick at the last 4 or 5 wing tip battens tends to stretch, causing the end of the wing fabrick to flutter, especially when you excellerate for 1.3 to 1.5 vs for landing. tensioning of the bungies may allieviate some of this flutter but not for long.

hi guys,my brother and myself fly with a wizard and 582 & made a slightly larger windscreen that goes up higher and deflects air over your passenger,cruise is now around 43-45 knots more 43 at 4800rpm,its made from 1.5mm polycarbonate plastic and held on by the 2 side screen retaining screws and double sided tape,maybe its just or imagination but this does seem to work with even the passengers saying its not as windy,but more time will tell as we use it more...like everybody else we would love a streak wing but at $8200 t gst that will take some time to save..

Hi Campslive, I hate to burst your windscreen bubble, but I'm sure that you will find that your indicated minimum straight & level speed has increased too. The reason being that the extended windscreens cause your airspeed indicator to read higher by lowering the air velocity inside the cockpit, therefore increasing the pressure differential between your static line and pitot tube, which is what your ASI reads.

It's just something to be aware of but the screen is definitely worth it on the longer or colder flights.

Re the ASI indicated speed thing: the ASI in a trike should have a proper static and dynamic air connection, and on most trikes there is absolutely no static port or plumbing from it to the instrument except the actual static-port input-hole on the back of the instrument itself, which reads pod air-pressure behind the panel. This is not necessarily static air pressure at all, and the dynamic pressure sampled by the port in the nose of the Edge-X pod isn't necessarily the correct dynamic pressure either. It is sampling air from the relatively stangant boundary layer at the nose instead of the moving air a few feet ahead of the aircraft before it is disturbed by aircraft structure.

Correct static and dynamic air pressures are measured with an air-data boom, which is usually situated several feet in front of the rest of the aircraft, and able to adjust itself to the angle-of-attack so as to correctly sample the air without errors induced by asymmetrical flow at the pickup-points. Trikes don't have such sophistication, so regard any changes in airspeed on your ASI after adding a windscreen different to that you were using previously with a good deal of suspicion.

The best place to read dynamic and static air pressure on your trike is about 20 feet in front of the nose of the pod. However, a 20-foot long pitot-static probe presents certain problems on the ground during rigging and de-rigging, as well as general ground-handling exercises. People tend to trip over it or bend it.

In an ideal world, we'd have a calibration chart for our trike ASI, compensated for "position-error". However, we fly trikes in a far from ideal world, and thus we should be thankful for what we have and that it works reasonably well at the relatively low level of sophistication necessary to keep price and complexity down to a level which is acceptable to the marketplace.

I'd also bet your Wizard is still actually cruising at 38-40Kts, irrespective of what your ASI reads.

from where i am sitting that slightly faster asi made us feel a little bit better,maybe we were not actually going any faster but after being aroung 35-40 and actaully reaching 45 with such a small change i guess only now we can try a gps and see what we are doing? who knows only the gods may answer this one??????ps it would be great if anybody knows if this does or does not work because i notice airborne are now selling them on there new xt912 s,does it work for them or just deflect air??????

I use extended touring screens on an Edge X 582 Streak-1 and XT-912 Streak-3. Both have GPS's fitted and neither register a higher speed on the GPS with the extended screens fitted, though both read higher on the ASI.

Hangar 19 at Yarrawonga have been selling the extended trike screens for some time already.