Ozone Viper XC Review:
If I could design my own wing, it would have been the Viper XC. It might be my personality type, but I'd rather fly a hot dynamic glider for hours than show up to a gorgeous waterfall not having the fuel to throw down and chase some fun around it. Dancing through the world with this glider feels like a perfect analogy, a perfectly elegant and nimble performance wing, but with so much more heading stability to let you soak in the sights, plan your fuel stops, or collect footage for your memories.
I've done enough long distance flying where I might be able to claim a repetitive stress injury on my shoulder. I've spent many hours flying a heading on my way to the next waypoint 10-100 miles away, reaching up every 20 seconds for the tip steer to quell a roll oscillation that just started due to a jerky throttle response or tuft of rotor off the hills. Many modern competition gliders prize lightning fast handling and roll rates, which might win them competitions in the short run, but leave almost no drag available to create damping forces that stabilize them without active control. One of the first things to notice on the Viper XC is the addition of winglets. I'm not an aerodynamics wizard, but these soft wingtip mounted strakes seem to do way more than you would expect from their small size, adding considerable roll stability to what is otherwise a very roll slippery wing planform.
Big questions are obviously going to pop up, how does this compare to the other Expert category wings in the Ozone line up. Luckily we can easily see that Ozone has expert solutions for every discipline.
The Freeride 2 is a different beast, catered to slalom competitions and raw dynamic fun. It's unclear which was the first priority. FR2 will be wherever you want it to be in the sky, handling seems to read your mind. Throw it down, make it sink, drive it sideways, it will do everything you can think of. That wing seems to be crafted with the idea that you can mate the power with a profile that allows extreme precision, while bringing as much efficiency to the table so that your power needs are not unrealistically high. At the same time, speed wins races so obviously that is high in the design criteria. On every other weekend, Freerides are just fun to throw around. While the FR2 is a good pick for a long distance flight, you'll have to keep a hand on a toggle to make sure you don't roll the entire way there, and your fuel burn might be a little higher than something like a Viper.
The Viper 5 has always felt overly slippery in every axis. It loves to keep rotating through a barrel roll, and just feels like it cuts through the air effortlessly. It climbs like a maniac compared to the Freeride, and that same lift doesn't go away when you turn sideways or invert. The wing feels like it makes the lift of a glider way bigger than what you see looking up. Altitude loss feels like a non existent concept when throwing a few wing overs around. Coming in for a landing reminds me of a sailplane in ground effect, retaining energy for way longer than feels realistic, and flare runs out at an amazingly low speed. This lift can be a little bit of a handful, sometimes ballooning to a place you don't expect, where as the Freeride will drop you exactly onto your target. All that extra lift comes with the responsibility of managing a roll happy glider. Taking a Viper 5 on a XC might mean really good fuel economy, but a more frantic time trying to aviate while managing a fuel bladder.
The XC is slightly tamer than the V5, but the roll stability is impressive. It's a cinematographers weapon, and a blessing for a hard to use gps. It climbs just as hard as the V5 and as such, balloons way more than the FR because it refuses to give up an inch of lift, but also means that you have more comfortable margin dropping in and out of tighter canyons.
A few small touches to top it off. If you've ever launched from volcanic rock, around thorn bushes, or gritty beaches, you know that sheathed lines can make life so much easier. Lucky day where you have smooth air and want to haul butt? Longer trim range lets you get to dinner faster.
Two small nags: One, I wish the new design had an extra color section. The new design is really cool, but from far away you can't tell who has the red glider with yellow instead of green on the tips. On a long trip, it's also a lot easier to keep tabs on each other when you can tell people apart. Two, brake pressure isn't the softest. This can be helped slightly by meticulously tuning 2d, which is left completely loose from the factory for pilot preference. Some brake pressure reduction would have been nice for those sore shoulders after a day of flying.
Overall, I'm looking forward to putting a lot of hours on this glider, who knows where in the world we are going to end up.
Music credit
[ Ссылка ]
