3x continuous Esfera without exiting, burning down almost 1000 meters with this routine!

Glider: 12.5 m2 Thriller from U-Turn
Locaction: Malcesine, Italy. April 2011

The first test flight of the Wing Load Research is successful done! Well, this was actually my second flight with the glider because I had to abort the first one when my helmet flew off (my mistake) and got entangled in the lines during the very first Rythmic SAT.

With my take-off weight of 93 kg the 12.5m2 has a trim speed of around 50 km/h under extremely high wing loading of 7,4 kg/m2!
The glider is super fast with extremely short and sensible brakes and violent reactions to any body movement. It works well dynamic moves, Rythmic SAT and Infinity but very difficult for the rest of the maneuvers, especially stalls and helicos. The G-Forces I measured during Infinity had maximum peaks of 7G which is actually the same what I am used to with 17m2.

The Wing Load Research is Pal Takats's upcoming investigation to find out the real limits of the Thriller 2k11 from U-Turn which is claimed to be the best acro glider on the market.

He is going to test out the different sizes one by one while flying them on extremely high and low wing loadings, between 3,6 kg/m2 and 7,6 kg/m2 !!! For competitions and shows Pal normally flies the 17m2 Thriller at a wing loading of around 5.4 kg/m2 with 94 kg take-off weight. U-Turn's chief-designer, Ernst Strobl says with this take-off weight it should be possible to perform Infinity Tumbling even with 26m2, but regarding his theory it might not be the case at all with the 12m2 version, so let's see what happens! Beside that the wing-loading with 12.5m2 will reach way into the "red danger zone" by Strobl's calculation (see file "Table of area loading").

The main goal is of course to perform -almost- all existing maneuvers on the smallest and biggest available sizes of the Thriller. For the safe execution of the project this week Pal is heading to the Garda Lake in Italy to be able to do the experimentations high over water. Videos to come later on, stay tuned!

Acro flying is simply in his blood. With only 21 years between his ears he already belongs to the best pilots in the world and is just about to become a pro paraglider. During last year he also turned to be the speaker of the German acro scene, to legalize paragliding acrobatics in his home country. Who already met Marvin will agree; he is not just the number one German acro pilot but a smart, calm, really friendly and open-minded guy.

Nationality: German

Date of birth 06.07.1989

Home: Chiemgau, Bavaria

Pal Takats: Despite your young age you already got a few thousand hours of air-time...Tell me about your childhood, how did you grow up and what interested you as a kid?

This year's competition calendar is starting to get filled up and luckily it seems like that the scene is having a growing tendency again!

Till now 3 World Cups, 5 FAI Category 2 events and 2 freestyle competitions are confirmed which is a lot better then in the previous years! Furthermore 5 other events are still under planning. Thanks to the CAT2 events and the upcoming changes in the FAI rules this year many more new pilots will have the opportunity to show their skills, gain points and to enter the World Cup Series in the future.

My name is Pál Takáts, the creator of this website. The idea came more then 6 years ago as I was struggling on the little Hungarian mountains to learn acro tricks by watching the very few videos available on the internet. Since then the acro scene has changed a lot, the sport is getting more and more popular. I am proud to see that today we have close to 4000 registered users and the site receives an average of daily 1000 visitors from more than 100 countries! When it was created in 2005 it was not prepared to serve such a fast growing scene like ours turned out to be.