Alltrikes

So today I test flew my wing for the very first time. I was quite nervous to tell you the truth, partially because I haven't flown in a while and on top of that this was going to be a brand new wing with no flying experience in that particular wing. I loved it...absolutely loved it. I am low hours (about 150 hours) pilot so my first impressions should be taken with a grain of salt only.

Some of the other wings I have flown (and thus are my only reference) are Streak wing (I learned to fly trikes on a Streak wing and logged the most hours on it). Some of the other wings I flew were Wizard 2, Aeros Stream and Strutted Northwing 19 meter wing.

Of all the wings I flew, my top two pick (other than the Manta 17 meter wing) are Wizard 2 (Hands down the best recreational wing after this Manta 17 in my opinion) and Aero Stream (a 16 meter double surface that was very easy to land, it behaved somewhat like a single surface wing).

I am biased towards Single surface wings and I feel they are ideal to putt around and get some air time, probably not ideal cross country wings (but then I don't care much for cross country flying). I love to fly as slow as possible with some ability to handle turbulence.

What do I like about my Manta wing,

To begin with, I like the shorter width A frame, some people prefer wider A frames, I like shorter A frame because in flight if there is turbulence and I wanted to grab the A frame for leverage, it is much easier that way.

The wing construction is beefy and beautiful. At the wing tips there is I believe 5 layers of Dacron sewn on top of each other from different angles and that prevents flutter (not sure if Mark does it to prevent flutter in flight) but my wing doesn't flutter at all.

Third thing is Mark designs the wing with split rear wires now so if your trike is dual mast, the split wire can accommodate that.

Speaking of Mark Gibson, I had heard different opinions from different people, some tend to complain that his customer service was not good and I beg to differ there too...Quite frankly I found his service very good, he was good with answering questions and follow up as well. And he made me a wing exactly to my specs for about 2500 or 3000 less than what I would have with the competition wing.

Today I flew in absolutely no wind conditions at all (maybe 1 mile if that). Take of was eventless...I felt the take off distance was longer than my 19 meter Northwing. On all the take offs I pushed the bar out typically where my 19 meter took off. But I would still consider this a STOL capable wing, I will measure the exact distance later. In the air the wing was very easy to handle, very docile, it required gentle inputs.

Spot landing, now you will love this one, last time when Instructor Reb flew my trike with this wing, he informed me that I might need to get my carb cleaned and change the fuel filter because at full open throttle the rpms were dropping. He changed the fuel filter. Today before the flight, I did a lot of ground tests and everything seemed fine, so I took off, I must have crossed half of the runway and I felt some irregularity in rpms and it took me a few seconds to decide that I needed to land. For the amount of runway that was left in front of me, with a 19 meter Northwing, I would never have even attempted a landing at that point because my 19 meter even though a great wing (I use to call it a parachute) was a floater and took a little while coming down. I had heard that Manta wings are better at spot landings and don't have as much float so it was time to put it to test (mind you, even if I was not able to land within the runway length, it would not have hurt anything, because beyond the runway there is long flat dirt area so no biggie...but I had to land and even though I was high but not high enough to make a full u turn. Anyways I cut the throttle, bar all the way in my gut and wow...the wing obeyed my command and performed much better than my 19 meter or even my Wizard wing would have behaved). I was able to land way before the runway ended. I still feel that this 17 meter wing has some reasonable float. Besides I didn't want a wing with no float at all). and I kind of like it that way. This landing gave me a lot of confidence, I turned the trike around and took off again (there was no wind, so it didn't matter which end I was using) and landed at the end of the runway. Took off again and landed at the end of the runway, turned around took off and flew a circle and landed. Another circle and landed....there was some irregularity in the engine rpms so I decided to just hangar the trike and get the problem fixed. I found a mechanic and next weekend we will work on the carbs, pumps and even the throttle cable to find out why is there some irregularity.

Of course all of you want to know if there was a negative, to tell you the truth not really, but if I have to pick something I would say probably Gibbo could have a grip on the control bar. His control bar is just the tube. That is the only thing. It didn't bother me because I fly with gloves that have grips.

Once I have done more flights, I will share further views on this wing but I can say this for sure, if you are on budget and would like a wing that is great quality, flies great and is a good value for your dollar then this wing is the best choice.  If you are in Idaho and hold a sport pilot's license, I will even let you test fly mine, the reason I want to help out is that when I was looking to test fly a Gibbo wing, I couldn't find a single pilot in my area and I had to just take a leap of faith and buy the wing...thankfully, I don't regret my decision at all. And if you need help in making a decision, you are welcome to fly mine (with a Sport Pilot's License).