amazing "flashback" technology revisited: the new Ozone Ultralite Paraglider: 19sqm and only 1.4 kg. it has an almost single skin surface - bottom surface was simply taken away. though it is nothing new in concept (its basically a nasawing style paraglider, almost similiar to the first paraglider ever, the david barish wing, it is has most properties of today's wings, with a glide ratio of > 7 and (hopefully) good safety.. Amazing stuff !

and for the kiting people: think about what might be possible in the realm of ultralightwind kites ! or ultraportable kites - just carry 1.5 kg instead of up to 5 kg of a normal tubekite to hidden beaches not accessible with car..

http://www.vimeo.com/29247558

youtube video (tough the vimeo video in the above link shows better the single skin nasawing style )

it looks like a vapor without the bottom skin

Cima K2 by sky paragliders.

the cima k2 weights 3 kg.

the most fascinating point about the almost single skin ozone proto is that you obviously do not need a double skin to achive good glide ratio !

you may say, that tubekites already proove this.. but one developer told me that tubekites have a rather bad glide ratio of around 5 - 5.5, while good foils (vapor, flysurfer speed3 etc.) have at least 7. modern paraglider have around 8.5 glide ratio. this single skin ozone paraglider also has around 7 glide, while the nasawing has 3 - 4 in glide...

another great advantage: no cells -> no sand / water in cells.. nice for groundhandling / dune flying etc.

And only having half the material, they should cost a lot less.......

hang gliders actually have a glide ratio on average around 15-17 to 1. Advanced high performance hang gliders can be up over 20-1.

High performance paragliders are around 8-1.

Cool. From the first video it looks like the wing carries quite a bit of reflex at the trailing edge, at least near the center sections. Don't recall that as a feature of Ozone's snowkites or FB foils. 7:1 with a single skin foil. Goes to show how important aspect ratio is to raising L/D.

krumly

yeah, hang-gliders are very fascinating! even more the sailplanes with up to 70:1 :wow:

but the paragliders and kites have one huge advantage: they are ultra-portable !

hang-gliding is probably slightly safer in very difficult, turbulent conditions... but you are so limited regarding transportation ( a modern hangglider weights 30 kg and up) and launch places. while with the new ozone xxlite paraglider you can just stuff it in your backpack and walk up some hill and fly down if the conditions match. if not, just walk down with no more excess weight than the equivalent of two bottles of water..

@John Holgate: yes, the people over at paraglidingforum expect it to be clearly cheaper, because of reduced sewing work..

here, the thread over there:

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=41947&st...

(with interesting discussions about the importance (or the lack of) of the inside pressure of a double skin foil)