Moyes RX 3

In the photo, Steve Moyes, Gerolf and I sit under a new Moyes glider called RX 3. It is a topless competition glider with a small surface and a smaller a-frame. Compared to my Litespeed 3,5 s that I have been flying so far, it truely is a toy! When I testflew it at Stanwell for the first time in quite bumpy air, I smiled, because the handling makes me very confident. The first glider I can steer with full VG on! And also - it does not yaw at all but flies peacefully straight line if you pull the bar in. Up to 115 km/h without ballast. But before I talk about it, I first wanted to fly a comparison with the other guys out here in Forbes. Now that I had 28 hours on the glider, I think I can give you some details about this new wing.
I had been a bit anxious about the rough towing conditions in the pre worlds out here in Forbes, dust devils and all, but it was piece of cake. The first day, I realized that I had more bar pressure on tow than on the flight at Stanwell. Right, I did not see that the VG rope had opened and I had been towing all the way up completely without VG!!! The only glider ever I could do that without my arms falling off afterwards.
Then of course the flying in thermals is even better than with my Litespeed. I feel the air, it is like my fingers turn into feathers, and I can finetune the wing into the strongest climb, quickly moving it around the corner. On the second day, the German pilots came up to me and said they were impressed that I was leading out and finding the lift for them - on some days it just works right! I like very responsive gliders that are easy and fast to roll. If I want to squeeze the last centimeters out of the thermal, I might highside the glider a little bit, but normally it sits effortless and stable in the turn.
Yesterday was a slow gaggle day and it was important to get high fast and stay on top of the other pilots. Even Gerolf could not outclimb me in our last thermal. Well, he outglided me into goal after that ;) The glide is good, but I can see that Jörg and the boys clearly pull away from me. Gerolf recommended more ballast, and so far I did not try more than 3 kg of water/ Red Bull as a ballast. I will try and see, now that Im very confident with the landings as well. Groundhandling gets a lot easier with the shorter base bar.
I am very impressed that don´t get tired of being in the air, but I can fly more than 5 hours every day, always looking forward to the next flight. The sail looks very much like a bird wing to me, a very clean and promising 3D cut.
I hope I will be able to bring one of these new gliders to Germany so all the light pilots can testfly it and enter a new dimension of high performance flying. I have the full carbon version here in Forbes, and also Francoise, Zhenya, Monique Pavy (FR), Virpi and Kathryn are on this glider. We all agree that towing has never been easier on a high performance wing before. Francoise came 5th in the overall ranking two days ago with her RX3, and I got 23rd yesterday after a long, difficult flight, quite promising results.
Have a look at Zhenya´s and Jamie´s blogs for their personal impressions, as they are flying the little beauty as well.