Steven Pearson<<Steve>>
writes:

Gerolf Heinrichs writes: Wills is not exactly famous for being
innovative. They have copied everything Moyes and Icaro have developed in the
topless glider era, and currently they benefit from a low US dollar for their
selling success.

Gerolf should know better but maybe he's forgotten a few of the features that I
introduced and that he copied and applied to the Litespeed. In fairness, many of
these features were already part of his Laminar that was the basis of the
initial Litespeed so maybe Gerolf isn't aware of their origin. For anyone who
disputes that the following features are essential to "the topless glider era",
I challenge them to develop a glider without them or to list comparable
technologies aside from those by Thevanot. The three people who come to mind
when I think about the modern hang glider are Roy Haggard, Tom Price and Gerard
Thevanot. The innovations by those three and the following are 95% of a T2.

There are certainly a few non-essential features of the T2 that relied on
innovation from others. Two that come to mind are the curved tip configuration
developed by Bob Trampeneau and more recently the raked tips introduced by Icaro.
I was particularly impressed by the Icaro raked tips since I had almost given up
on solutions to improve the aerodynamic penalty associated with the pointed
planform of 'curved tips' which is the reason I was so reluctant to adopt them
initially. I honestly can't think of anything developed by Gerolf that's part of
the T2 or any other model that we produce.

The (inflight adjustable) VG system is certainly essential and I'm not sure who
to attribute that to. I think Bob Trampeneau released the first production
glider but others also had prototype systems on their gliders.

Enclosed keel from the Wills Wing HP, one of the most copied gliders in history.
Before that, all of our competitors had tall keel pockets. When Bill Moyes saw
the HP in 1984, all he could say to me was "it will never climb mate". Within a
few years and ever since, every high-performance glider has had the same
configuration.

7075 tubing in the 1986 Sport (Gerolf's first glider). The Sport was not the
first hang glider to use 7075 tubing but the first with now industry standard
42/44/50/52/60/62 mm tubing and the first by a major manufacturer. Without
question, it was the overwhelming success of the Sport and HP-AT that compelled
every else to adopt it with Moyes being last (pushed by Gerolf) by over 15
years.

Carbon airframes have a long history. UP was certainly the pioneer with their
carbon Spider in ~1978. The subsequent damage issues associated with that
prototype made us very caution. Nevertheless, we evaluated a carbon Raven in
1979 and abandoned that when a market survey didn't support the option price.
Much later, the restructured UP was again the first to offer a popular
production carbon airframe but carbon wasn't widely adopted until LaMouette
introduced the topless carbon crossbar followed by simultaneous following
releases by WW, Icaro and Moyes. I don't recall Gerolf having any part of these
products.

The kingpost hang system, prototyped on the Duck in 1983 and introduced on the
1986 Sport. Without a kingpost, this becomes a hang-T. Elevated hang systems are
essential for reducing pitch and roll pressures and everyone uses them. Before
the kingpost hang, others used "pitchys" and French connections.

Stepped leading edges with crescents using larger diameter 60/62 in front and
smaller 50/52 in the rear, introduced on the HP-AT and later copied by Moyes,
Icaro, Aeros and others. Oh, all our airframe plans have been published in our
owners manuals for others to copy since 1978. I haven't seen a frame plan in
anyone else's manual.

Sprogs. Gerolf freely admits that I designed this system, which is self-evident
since Moyes and everyone either buys the brackets from us or has made their own
copies.

Shear ribs. On gliders with over 50% double surface, you either need a lot of
straight battens to support bottom surface shape (as we all did in the past) or
the configuration that I designed where the top surface battens prevents the
bottom surface from blowing down at high speed. In addition to the weight
savings, shear ribs add many other aerodynamic and stability advantages that
cannot be replicated with battens. I shared many details of shear rib shaping
related to longitudinal stability with Gerolf over 10 years ago.

Carbon high-performance control bar. I'm a bit surprised that Gerolf forgot
about this since he personally (and other Moyes/Icaro pilots) bought one from
me. Many firsts with this structure including manufacturing technology (pre-preg
carbon, consolidated in a closed mold at 110C and 100 psi (7x vacuum pressure)),
the machined hardware junctions which were copied in castings by Aeros and Icaro
and much later a derivative by Moyes, the airfoil which was wind tunnel tested
at less than 1/4 of the drag other downtubes, and the toed-in, canted down
angles of the downtubes and basetube which I initially implemented in our early
welded-steel bars in 1983. Incidentally, our detailed wind-tunnel results were
posted on our website long before Moyes developed their derivative.

Technora sailcloth. Almost a first for Wills Wing except that Terry Reynolds
used them on the TR3 years before I reintroduced them after overcoming my
apprehension about the cost/performance ratio. I could write pages about this
alone. It's not 6oz. As Gerolf says. UVODL06 is less than 4 oz. (165 gms/m) and
UVODL04 is 3.2 oz, (135 gms/m). We haven't used inexpensive 'PX' in years
because UVODL06 is far stronger at a fraction of the weight. The carbon reins on
the UVODL04 sail are much stronger still. Why would I consider a heavier and
weaker laminate like PX15 for the trailing edge except to save money? The latest
Moyes Technora option, while certainly a major improvement over Code Zero, is
still a substandard option because of conventional Mylar film with half the
lifespan of UV film. We're still the only manufacturer with UV film which lasts
twice as long as any other film independent of the fiber type, polyester, PEN,
Kevlar, Technora or Carbon. Oh, and as far who was the first to use laminates in
hang gliding sail, it was Duck Boone followed by me in 1979.

WW was also the first to use spanwise sail cuts to optimize the orthotropic sail
material structural properties to the sail plan form. First with the WW XC in
1977 and subsequently in every WW glider since the Harrier in 1980 when I
figured out how to shape a spanwise sail with pre-cambered battens

The first CNC sail cutter (1993). While this isn't a glider innovation, it's an
essential tool in the development and production of modern hang glider sails and
we invested in this technology long before others.

Gerolf just pushes lie after lie. He says about Wills Wing "they benefit from a
low US dollar for their selling success." In fact, the producer of the Moyes
machined fittings in China contacted me and quoted me far lower prices than I
can produce them on our CNC in house at Wills Wing. I offer this because Gerolf
is fond of suggesting that Wills Wing gliders are produced in China when he
knows that to be untrue at the same time as he sources fabricated components
from there! His premium "Code Zero" costs less than half of the cost of the
standard no-extra-cost UVPT laminate on the T2C. If you compare the cost of
manufacturing in southern California to Australia, you won't find a difference.

Our gliders cost less because I'm at Lookout doing demos over the 4th of July
weekend instead of taking the summer off for flying tours in the alps. Check the
test fly sticker on the T2s around you--in the vast majority of cases it will
say 'SP' or 'MM', just one more indication of who cares most about the products
delivered to their customers.