Dudek Synthesis

[mikemac17565]

Just had a three day flyin/demo weekend here in Pennsylvania. I had two wings from Aerothrust which were the Synthesis 29 and the Reaction TST 27. I finally got some good flying on the Synthesis 29 and will be comparing it to my Revolution 28 which I fly. There were many many flights on the Synthesis and the overall feeling is that it is a Great wing, user friendly as far as trimmers, and most definitely FAST. I have asked all who flew these wings to write their own reviews and post them so I do not speak for them.

Pilot, Mike MacPherson

56 years old. Not an athlete.

Current wing Paramania Revolutions 28

Dudek Synthesis 29

Fresh Breeze Simonini 122

Pilot weight 230-235 nekked.

All up weight 320-330- Me/Motor/Wing/Reserve/Clothes/Fuel/Instruments

My thoughts are this, it is incredibly easy to KITE..

The trim system is incredibly easy to USE.

It is very FAST, faster than my Revolution

Trims all the way in, it handles very well, and you can throw it around at will.

Trims out of course the handling gets stiffer BUT the TST ( tip steering toggles) REALLY turn this wing easily. Also, even with trims in, I found myself using the TST just because they were closer to me than the brake toggles and very effective for turning.

Side by side speed comparison with Action GT 28 piloted by Ryan Smith with

both of us at level flight, trims all the way out, I was about 1 mile and hour slower than Ryan. Of course all of this will vary with pilot weight, but it does indicate how fast the Synthesis is. Ryan and I are very close in all up weight.

I have had no problems launching it either reverse or forward, light winds, or cranking winds, which we flew on Saturday night

I laid the Synthesis out flat on the ground, and then laid my Revolution on top of it. The Synthesis was only slightly bigger. I will try and post a picture of this.

Now the question is would I buy this wing? YES. However for my flying style I would have to fly the size 31 when it comes out as I like to takeoff slow, land slow, and only let out the trims if the wind is strong. I am also most likely going to a size thirty Revolution as even my Revo is a bit fast on landing. Everyone has a different flying style, and two of the local Reflex pilots, Ryan Smith and Mike Bowen say that as soon as they are off the ground, they let their trims out the whole way. I personally do not as I like to float and boat, and again only tap the speed if needed. That’s just me. I also believe there is a trend where pilots may be happier flying a larger Reflex wing, as it will afford a bit slower launch and landing capability, but still allow a much larger window of conditions to fly in because of the Reflex tech. One of the pilots who flew both wings, and was on the light side for the Synthesis says he believes the Synthesis 29 was faster than the Reaction TST 27 that he also flew. This particular pilot normally flys a Sting 140 I believe.

Hopefully the other pilots who flew these wings will post their comments.

The only real negative comments I have about the wing is the fact it did require more power, all of the time. I can boat around on my Revolution at about 4300 to 4400 RPMs. verified by a vario that I am at zero sink. On the Synthesis, it was constantly at 4900 to 5100 RPMs. As I mentioned above, I like to float and boat, and I like the motor to be doing as little as possible, or in other words just enough power to keep me at level flight.

We all have to indentify our flying styles and buy our wings, motors accordingly. I surely would buy this wing. My next wing is either going to be a Revolution 30, or a Dudek Synthesis 31. The decision will be base solely on three things. Which one will use the least power, which one will fly the slowest with trims in. If the Dudek 31 still uses more power, BUT, flies slower for landing and taking off that will be the wing. If the Revolution 30 flies slower, that will be the wing. I remember when hang gliding wings, got better and better performance, they also got faster and faster and required more finess to land. Many times the landings were very high anxiety as whacking in was not uncommon. With ppg, the landings on the older wings, were a lot slower. With the Reflex tech from what I have seen, landing are surely faster and require a different technique. I do not want to go the same route as when I was in hang gliding where the landings became a high anxiety type of affair. So, because of my physical ability etc. I need to fly a wing that will offer that. I also do not want to fly anything but a Reflex tech wing.

[mikemac17565]

Reviews from Demo Weekend

Maury Primrose

Thanks again Mike.

I flew the reaction tst, size 27. My weight is 175 and my normal wing is the Skywalk Hype. The Reaction inflated easily but needed more speed to get airborne than I’m used to. With trimmers in it had sportier handling than my wing at about the same speed. Trimmers out gave it a decent speed boost but handling suffered. The wing tip steering on this wing is sluggish and insufficient for anything but cruising. I found myself using the brakes instead and flying trimmers out the whole time. I never tried the speedbar but I’m sure that would have made this wing more interesting. All in all this is an awesome wing and I’ll probably buy one some time but in a smaller size.

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Name: Brian Stoltzfus

PPG experience: 9 years, 1200 flights, 310 hours.

pilot weight: 180 lbs,

motor: Fresh Breeze Sinonini 122

currently fly a Sting Powerplay small.

Location: Brogue PA, 6/10/07 afternoon and evening.

weather conditions, hazy 8 mile visibility, ceiling 2500 broken, light

SE winds.

Wings reviewed: Synthesis 29 and Reaction TST 27

Synthesis 29 review:

Risers are well constructed. I liked the markings on the riser trim. It

has the zero point and then shows the negative and positive trim in

different colors. Top of the line pulleys on the brake and speed bar

lines. The trim was nice and solid and didn't look like it would be easy

to slip like the Paramania Revolution. I like the wing tip steering much

better than the Revolution. The little toggles are easy to reach. I like

the magnetic toggle keepers. However, I found I had to make sure the

magnet was toward the outboard side so that the magnet on the main brake

toggle would not stick to the magnet on the wingtip steering toggle. It

is not a problem when using the wingtip steering because the main

toggles are stowed above. Launching in light wind was easy with trim set

at neutral. As expected, it took a couple hundred more RPM to maintain

level flight in full reflex trim. There is a lot of trim distance from

zero to full reflex. This translated into about 8 MPH faster speed

(measured a couple of times by GPS). I was very surprised to find that

the full trim out speed was slightly faster on the Synthesis 29 than on

the Reaction TST 27. I think the Synthesis may be appropriate for a

talented beginner. It launches easy. The brake pressure is moderately

stiff--good for a beginner. When pulling brake hard, it doesn't dive and

wind up real fast like higher performance wings. It lands easy-plenty of

energy to work with but not so much that it balloons up if you give it

too much brake.

Reaction TST 27 Review: Risers are similar to the Synthesis. Only

exception is that the trim didn't have any factory markings. I preferred

the Synthesis risers. Launched easy. steering was light and felt sporty.

wound up fast at moderate brake pressure. glide was more efficient than

the Synthesis. The full trim out speed was about 5 mph faster than zero

trim. It carrys a lot of energy on landing and I found myself ballooning

near the ground. I found it stalled with little warning compared to my

Powerplay. after I ballooned, I flared hard and at about 6 inches off

the ground, felt the wing go limp. I've stalled my Powerplay on landing

before but it takes some time and gives plenty of warning. On a second

try I nailed it by SLOWLY adding brake at 1 foot off the ground. In my

opinion, due to sporty handling and sharp stall characteristics, this

wing is not suitable for a beginner. BTW,I'm not an instructor.

Brian Stoltzfus

Reading, PA

stoltzfusb@asme.org

[mikemac17565]

David Kettering

Silex (L) with Fresh Breeze 110

Demo flight on Reaction TST -27 ??

Launch approximately 2 hrs before sunset. Winds were 6-9 mph with slightly higher gusts. Did a forward, trim out mark on stitching, wing came up straight with only slight brake input to keep from over shooting. Climb out was good requiring the same power as my Silex. Very turbulent up to 300 ft so let half of trim out which quickly dampend the bumps. With full trim out I was able to keep level flight with same amount of throttle as Silex. Trimmers are quite beefy and well laid out. The TST (Tip Steering Toggles) worked well but were limited by the amount of travel to make a turn more aggressive. Once releasing the TST, they went right back to thier resting spot with the pull from the magnet. As far as speed, with full trim out, the wing did not appear to be as fast as other reflex wings such as the Revolution or GT. Even the Synthesis seemed faster. The landing was in winds of 4-5 mph and the energy leveled out the wing nicely. Al in all a very nice wing.

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First I want to thank Mike Macpherson for hosting the flyin and for

getting with Aerolight to arrange for us to try out their new

wares. I know we all appreciated it - those that tried them out.

It was a great time with enough flying to justify the 6 hour trip

from WNY.

I'm a relatively low hour pilot with over 50 flights but just

under 100, and have recently dropped the 'newbie' suffix from my

signatures (not that i'm not learning something new everytime I

fly). That being said, I tried both the Reaction and the Synthesis

from Dudek. My wing is an Eden2 -28m so all my references are to

that wing.

In 'non reflex' mode both handled really clean and responsive

with lighter break pressure than my Eden.

This was my first taste of the reflex and it was definitely a

different animal. After getting the transition down (clipping up

the brakes, letting out the trimmers, then grapping the TST) it was

very cool cruising in 'reflex' mode. Speed was the first thing i

noticed, and that i needed more motor to maintain altitude.

The Reaction 27m was the first one I flew. Because of this my

learning curve may prevent my memory from giving an edequate

comparison. After I flew the Synthesis and really got the hang of

it i should have went back and tried the Reaction again....anyway

the main thing i noticed from the Reaction was that the TST was not

as responsive as I was expecting. I was trying to do small

wingovers with it but it just wouldnt oscilate much at all. maybe

it was me...until i flew the Synthesis.

The Synthesis' TST was much more responsive and i was spiraling

fine with it - go figure becuase it was bigger than the Reaction.

Over all I liked both. I'd need to spend some more time on a Reflex

to decide if i want one for my own. The speed (penetration) is

defintely attractive and would allow me to actually 'Go' somewhere.

All in all I was impressed !

Thanks again Mike M.

and Aerolight

Matthew

WNYPPGer

[Guest]

Thanks very much for these last few posts, they really confirmed my thoughts on buying this wing. I picked mine up from Simon yesterday evening and must say how incredibly impressed I am with the quality of the entire package. I went up to one of the fields and practiced some ground handling and learnt an important lesson... I couldn't work out why for a period of time the wing kept coming up over head before diving off to the side. Closer inspection of the risers (much more going on compared to the simple riser set up on my previous simple paraglider rig) showed that the risers must have touched each other and one of the TST's had magnetically attached itself to the other riser (so both TST's were now on one riser). Can't wait to fly it now.

Ian

[admin (Simon W)]

Hi Ian,

I was watching from a far to be honest and I said to my misses, "I bet he has the trimmers set on the pi**."

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do when the time comes to fly it

[Guest]

Not wishing to find too many excuses but...

reading the manual through this morning I realised that I needed to adjust the brake handles (for my low hang points) so that they are just through the upper pulley only and re-tie to the upper dot position. I was wondering why my hands were down by my knees before anything happened! Only I could have difficulty kiting the easiest wing on the market!!! If it stops raining I'll pop back outside and have another go with the adjustments made.

[admin (Simon W)]

LOL

make sure the knot is a good one and tie off any excess. (dont cut it off)

You will get there in the end mate.

[Guest]

I have done the knot recommended in Jeff Goin's PPG Bible. As there was now considerably more excess brake line I did the same knot again at the end of the line onto the same brake handle.

Wing change still seems to be below the wife's radar! She hasn't noticed yet. A couple of weeks and I'll be in the clear. Fortunately the ruck sack is the same colour as the last one.

[mikemac17565]

When doing the article on my test flying the Synthesis, I said I was flying with my friend Ryan Smith both of us with trims out and I was just slightly slower then him on his Action GT 28. However, Ryans wing is an Action GT 26. We are close to all up weight, me being the heavier by about 20lbs. So this would mean the Synthesis is a pretty darn fast wing.

[admin (Simon W)]

This is a great example of a good clear thread.

Thanks very much for your time and effort to post it.

Cheers (as we say in the UK)