From Hang Gliding magazine, January 2003
Copyright © 2002 by Dennis Pagen
All photos courtesy Wills Wing
All flying for this article courtesy Wallaby Ranch

See Also: The Development of the Talon by Steven Pearson, a sidebar to the Talon Review

We all have flying fantasies of one sort or another. Mine has always been to be a bird, specifically an osprey. The rest of you can be eagles, hawks, condors, vultures, swallows or even ostriches or dodos if you like*. I want to be an osprey. Such a raptor has one salient feature that separates it from the songbirds and yard birds and other less lethal avians: it has talons. Forget those wicked looking beaks on your birds of prey. They’re mostly harmless. It’s the talons that can pierce into flesh and produce the proverbial iron grip. So if you really want to more closely emulate the soaring birds, you need at least one talon.

Will Wing realized this natural fact when they named their latest high performance glider the Talon. Now, the only thing the Talon will hunt is lift. The only thing it will devour is distance. But strapped under the body of this virtual raptor you fairly feel like a powerful bird of prey, given the freedom to swoop and stoop, sail and soar with the real thing. At least, that was my impression when I got a chance to test tow the Talon(s) at the Wallaby Ranch last October. I flew two sizes, the 140 and the 150 for multiple flights and thermaled them both with an added dose of mini X-Cs and mild wing wringing maneuvers. What follows is my tale of the Talon.

A BIRD’S ANATOMY
Let’s get a general overview of this bird and compare it with what’s out there. Then we’ll check out the real details which will reveal some interesting evolutionary changes.

First we’ll simply note that the Talons are of the now familiar quasi-elliptical shape that most of the high performance gliders have adopted. Just as soaring birds have developed similar wing structures and shapes, so too have most flex-wing hang gliders designed primarily for performance become similar. That means they are topless, tapered, swept wings with curved tips. The Talon fits this description.

But the Talon has a few unique traits, as well. The most obvious (because it’s visible from outside) is the clean undersurface rear root (center section) area. Wills Wing has perhaps created the cleanest arrangement here with neoprene and zippers to hold the sail tight and faired while allowing ready access to the center area. It is such drag-be-gone engineering that gradually improves our gliders’ performance.

The real unique qualities appear inside the glider’s skin. There you find a cam VG system as opposed a swinging crossbar system (the only other top glider with a cam system is the Airborne Climax). The cam system consists of a lever at the outboard ends of the crossbar which is forced outward when the VG line is pulled, thereby spreading the nose angle and tightening the sail. There are several advantages to the cam system. The first is that the side cables always remain tight—there’s no slack in them with a loose VG on launch (that’s because the crossbar never changes position with respect to the keel and the control bar). Also, for the same reasons of geometry, the dihedral and thus spiral characteristics of the glider don’t change as you change VG setting

In earlier versions, cam systems typically had a lighter VG pull and less cord to pull than their swinging x-bar counterparts. However, for the Talon, Wills Wing has used larger levers to provide more VG range than on any glider they have previously produced. The Talon’s sail tightens like a snare drum to slide through the air effortlessly, and loosens like an intermediate sail to turn at the will and whim of the pilot. The expense of enhancing the range is more pull and a harder pull on the larger cam levers. I found the VG pull to now be about the same as other gliders in its class. But the payoff is greater performance and versatility.

The leading edge construction is also unique in the business. Wills Wing’s Steve Pearson pioneered the use of plastic eccentric inserts to step down tubing diameter along a leading edge. This neat trick allows a designer to select tubing diameters for strength and flex characteristics, rather than what fits with what. But Wills has dispensed with such tricks and gone to a simple one diameter (52mm or 2.05in.) leading edge. The benefit is lower weight and lower cost. The sprogs (standard probes optimizing glider stability) are also simplicity in itself: they are non-compensated carbon rods. They achieve light weight at the expense of in-air variation. Of course, they can be adjusted on the ground. Wills load tests each sprog with a 475 lb weight hung at the end. The approved rods may deflect up to 30 inches, but don’t break. Knowing these vital systems are super-strong instills confidence.

Another unique item is the sail cloth that comes standard. It is known in the trade as Hydranet and consists of a Dacron substrate with a spectra open weave. It is a very handsome covering and the sail of suggestion for rec. pilots. For the racers, the popular PX10 is available for the price of $150. The glider also comes standard with faired aluminum uprights and a round belly bar base tube. You can add a faired aluminum base tube for $300 or a carbon one for only $40 more. The final matter worth mentioning is the lightweight bag that comes with the glider. It is much lighter than the old traditional Wills Wing bags. It is in my view, the best compromise between protection and convenience. (Here I get up on my stump and say that I, for one breathe a sigh of relief. I often seem to be flying Wills Wing gliders when I travel and have to borrow equipment. The old bags were like large lumps in my sleek Woody Valley harness and all the pads wouldn’t fit. Many pilots never flew with those bags, but used a very light weight XC bag, so the extra protection afforded by the heavy bag was lost.

AN EARLY MOLT
The Talon as it stands is not your last year’s model. It has undergone more changes than a bird in molt. This past summer the glider was overhauled after the first hatching and a coming out party at the Florida meets last spring. The changes were mostly in the sail, with the primary one being the addition of two inches additional chord at the tip area. This additional wedge tapers inboard until it melds into the original trailing edge by the fourth batten out from the root. The double (lower) surface was likewise broadened in the same area. What good does this do? The greater area at the tip means the sprogs are more effective (they support more area) so they can be lowered. This in turn allows you to go faster, or more properly, allows a better glide at the fast speeds when the sprogs kick in. The factory also claims that the glider is more spirally stable and more spin resistant due to this change (I could not judge this matter since I only flew the earlier Talon one time in smooth Point-of-the-Mountain soaring winds).

In all there have been some 25 sail changes (including the clean undersurface root treatment mentioned previously). They also started using S glass (fiberglass) tip wands instead of the previous carbon. The old wands were breaking when you looked at them crossly. In sum, the factory claims the new glider is coming out with better handling, better climb, better glide and better spiral neutrality then the earlier version. Normally I’d say that’s part reality, part factory hype and part statistical variance. But not in this case. I have seen the new gliders perform in the last few months, most notably at the pre-worlds in Brazil. There were only a few in the meet, but one placed second in the able hands of Nene Rotor, and Carlos Bessa flew his Talon impressively to 19th place. There is no doubt in my mind and should no longer be in yours that this glider competes with the best.

TAKING WING
Before we can fly away, we must set up the glider. I won’t dwell on this matter, for you can only read about setup so many times. Everything here is pretty conventional (isn’t it amazing how curved tips have become conventional?). I will note that the insertion of battens is made easier by the little insert tool for the spring ends that comes with every glider. Also, the new tip wands are more flexible and a bit longer, so they are easier to attach. The haul back of the crossbar is quite easy. Perhaps this factor is affected by the difference in the center section since it doesn’t have to move with the Vg.

When you go to move the glider, you will notice a bit of tail heaviness. It is the most tail heavy of all the current top performers. The drawback is the glider feels heavier than it really is when you carry it off the field. Also, you are less sensitive to pitch feel on launch. On the other hand, the benefit is that you have a free pass from the hand of God on landing. The glider really resists nosing in. Example from my personal log book: I flew the big Talon one time in Rob Kells’ personal Rotor harness to try it out. The harness was too small for me, but I managed to jam myself in and fly for an hour or so. The neat trick is that the harness has a butt lever that you bump against with your kiester to latch or unlatch the rope that limits the angle of your dangle. Upon landing, I was tilted down and found myself floundering with my butt in the air trying to de-latch the catch (or was that de-catch the latch?). The point is, I was scrambling when I should have been getting upright to prepare for flare. Finally I gave up and hauled myself upright at the expense of smooth pitch control, the glider ballooned up, got slow and settled. One wing was a bit down, and a group of spectators were anticipating a whack and a book rebate, when I aggressively leveled the wings and stopped with a flare and a couple steps. Could I have done that with another glider? I don’t know, but I do know that the Talon (both big and little version) was very forgiving in this instance and on all my landings I tiptoed in, in both calm and rowdy conditions. I think you’ll like that aspect of the glider.

On tow, I felt right at home. I used a third VG and tracked true. This glider is not an intermediate model, so don’t expect it to be like flying a soft wing. But I think it is among the easier high-per models to tow. On one occasion I got ratted severely by a gnarly blast about 50 feet up. I was way out of whack, and thinking release, but was able to recover with the aid of the glider’s goods response and a few gyrations. That experience built confidence for the additional tosses that were scheduled in the afternoon vigorous conditions. I think you can tow this glider with confidence. Good response to inputs, good yaw stability and spiral stability are the three factors that make a glider easy to tow. Typically, high performance gliders are less inclined to exhibit these properties than lesser performing gliders, because performance comes at the expense of docility, in general. Yet the Talon is set up to handle well and still attain the summit.

Handling is so important, that we should be more specific. I tried all the usual reversing turns, tight 360s, flat and steep gyrations. I put the gliders in a bank of about 15º, 30º and 45º in  thermals (those are typical bank angles that you’ll use for 98.6% of the thermals you’ll encounter on this earth). What I found is that the glider was indeed set up to be spirally stable (it didn’t want to wind in or flatten out) at all bank angles. In fact, I could push full out with my high hand and ride the merry-go-round with little input other than to occasionally change placement in the billowing thermal. (Caution: Such a technique is unsafe in rowdy thermals. There is a risk of tumbling any glider flown on the edge in turbulence. At the time I was in one of the famous Florida marshmallows.) The Talons gave me confidence in thermals because I could put them where I wanted and I could easily offset the caprices of errant air.

My weight fell nicely in the range of both the 140 (143 ft² actual area) and the 150 (153 ft² actual area). The 140 handled a little snappier, but I believe for me the 150 was the ticket. With my weight (173 lbs cleaned, dried and buffed), I could slow the bigger size down to my liking and really climb. There was a motley crew of pilots in the air to compare to, so I could see as well as feel my performance. Note that it was the smaller size on which Nene and Carlos performed their magic. Both gliders will make you feel that you have the goods to excel. I’m sure anyone loaded correctly on a new Talon will not be disadvantaged in handling, climb or glide.

I also had a chance to go on some long glides and some screaming dives. I simulated racing to goal several times and went scary fast. Without gliders to compare, it was hard to do the numbers, but I was blowing by air molecules as fast as I have on anything else. On pure best glide, the only pilot or glider I had a chance to compare to was US team member and essential world record holder, Mike Barber. Unfortunately, Mike was flying another Talon, so I won’t be doing a glide performance exposé here. Suffice it to say that we both felt we were on comp quality gliders.

My performance and flying conclusions: I believe Wills Wing has created the best all-around glider they have had since the HPAT (second version). Once it gets into the hands of a greater number of pilots it’s bound to show up in the winners circle (that is, either on the podium or in a thermal). The handling is pleasant enough for all pilots who have cut their teeth on the topless gliders. Landing is a joy.

FINDING YOUR WINGS
Because of Wills’ extensive dealer network, you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding and flying a Talon, assuming you have the experience. Mind you, this is not an intermediate glider. It must be flown with awareness and skill like all high performance gliders. On the other hand, it resists wing walking (Dutch roll or roll oscillation, if you will), spinning, ground looping, whacking and other unpleasantries you don’t want your significant mother to know about. So go out and try it. That’s a procedure we recommend before you plunk down paper or plastic for any glider. It’s important to fall in love with the craft that will be your life and liberty in the seasons to come.

The winter is upon the North American dome as you read this, but be aware that spring approaches fast and all worthy avians are well prepared to exploit the thermals in the percolating spring skies. Don’t get caught short. By the time you figure in the selection process and the delivery time…better pick up the phone. The Talon won’t break you, for it lists for $6,000 with all options. Shop and compare.

If you’ve always dreamed of being a bird as I have, there is no better way to realize that dream than to start one element at a time. You might as well start with a Talon.