Flying with the ALTO XM

I had a few reservations about buying the Alto XM as I wanted a canopy that will be good for XC flying but also stable enough be used as a paramotor canopy. Having spoken to the chaps at Skysystems, I was reassured that the XM is not the highly strung wing that it's competition category rating makes it out to be. I went down Skysystems for a test fly and hopefully trade in the Samba.

My first flight on the XM was interesting to say the least. When I got it, it had microlines fitted as standard. Fortunately Airwave had also supplied a full set of standard lines too, which I later had fun fitting. More about that later. I did a few popups and low level hops into the air just to get the feel of the wing and was amazed just how easily it was to launch. The control handles were really light and the wing responded quickly to any input. One thing that was very apparent,  was the fact that it was difficult to reverse launch whilst holding the complete A riser. I had read about the problems with high aspect ratio wings and that in order to prevent the wingtips coming in and clapping hands, it was necessary to use just the two inner A-lines of each riser.

I slogged up the hill and joined the students who were doing their first soaring flights and set myself out to launch. It was at this point that I discovered the downside of microlines. You name it, they got tangled with it. I pratted around for about 20 minutes trying to clear the lines of small twigs and bits of bush that were laying around and eventually got them all out. By this time most of the students had launched and were either in the air or had bottom landed. I popped the wing up ready to go, one last check of the lines, and I was unlucky enough to pick up yet another twig on the right wing tip which held the tip slightly closed. Before I could collapse the wing, my feet had slipped on the damp steep slope and was airborne. Bugger! Well I just went with it and tried to sort out the tucked wingtip in the air.

The last time I had a cravat type closure, which was on the Samba, I simply pulled big-ears on that side and then let it out again. I tried that this time with the XM. Mistake number 2. The ear came down easily enough but instead of it coming out again, the blasted twig caught hold of more lines further in from the wing tip. So now it was stuck in bigears on that side. By this time I had turned right a little and was now flying down wind across the face of the hill. I had a few more pulls at it and made it worse. Now was the time to find out about mistake number 3. I had got the left control handle caught round the d-lines in such a fashion that I couldn't apply left control handle. Consequence of this, was that I was still turning into the hill. At this point I thought about all the things that you have nightmares about, crashing,... and in front of a hill full of students,... and on someone else's canopy. I didn't panic though, I just leaned as far to the left as possible with my right leg as far over my left leg as possible. This stopped the turn and gave me enough time to sort out the left control handle. With that done I was relieved to be able to turn left, as a large bush etc etc was looming up. I had a few more goes at clearing the tuck and managed to get it back to just having the tip closed.

I lost loads of height mucking around doing all this and thought about my wife on the ground watching all this going on. She had the camera with a good telephoto on it and so I was looking forward to the pictures she took. I wasn't looking forward to the ear bashing I was going get concerning the crap flight and the fact that I nearly came a cropper. I landed about 20m away from her and gathered up the canopy and walked off in her direction. "How was it" she asked, "You mean you wasn't watching?" I replied, "No". "Just as well then, as you wouldn't have been impressed."

I was impressed with the canopy though. Even though the preflight checks were incomplete and I got airborne accidently, I thought that the canopy handled remarkably well with only about two thirds of it flying and weight shift steering only. My reasoning was that if it flew this well with the pilot totally screwing things up, then it should be even better when doing it properly.

I coughed up some money and left my Samba with Skysystems and headed off home with my new toy and looking forward to some good flying weather. The date was Saturday 15 February 1997 and it was a crystal clear sky with a cold notherly wind blowing. Sunday was forecast for lousy weather. I had to wait 3 weeks to fly again and then only managed 40 minutes before the wind went of the hill.

During these first (4) flights I was experimenting with the launching and landing characteristics of the wing. One thing I noticed was that it flew very quickly compared to the Samba. I kept coming in for a landing, but I couldn't slow the wing down enough. I was reluctant to use too much brake control so low down as I had no idea of the stall characteristics of the wing. The competition category certificate was still at the forefront of my mind and I was certainly not a competition grade pilot. I had stalled a canopy in the past and nearly spun it after going straight from a beginners canopy to a performance one. I wasn't about to make the same mistake again. The first three landings were fast but I am a good runner and have legs like an stork, so there was no problem. On the last flight I took a wrap of the control handle lines and slowed the canopy right down and landed ok. The wind then went off the hill and so I went home.

Having had a bit of a float around in fairly weak thermals, but mainly dynamic lift, I decided to try the motor with the canopy. Take off was easy, just like the Samba. But once in flight, there was a noticeable increase in speed. At this point it still had the microlines on it, and with the motor I was actually 10kg over the certified all-up weight. After I had landed I found that one of the microlines had come unravelled and had fallen off. The loops in the lines are spliced in and then a blob of glue added to stop the splice coming undone. There was no glue on this line. I tied it back on and went home as the light was going to fade before long. I vowed to change the microlines as soon as I got the chance.

The next weekend, Saturday was a flying day and I went off to Tan hill, Thames Valley site, and tried to fly there. I say tried, I spent an hour flighting with the microlines that were tangled up with twigs. I was furious with them. I eventually got the lines all clear and launched. This was just in time for the wind to pick up and everyone else landed. So I had the sky to myself and I experimented with the trimmers and the speed bar. I didn't actually need the speed bar. The wing was fast enough with the trimmers on fast to prevent me getting blown back. I was listening to a running commentary between to pilots who were obviously sat on opposite ends of the hill talking over the radio. I happened to be on "their" frequency. I was too busy to tell them that I wasn't trying to land and that I was playing around with the controls to get a good feel for them. Eventually I landed as the air was getting rough, as it does on Tan, and got a "well done" from the two commentators. I thanked them for their kind words and went home.

Next day was Sunday and I got up early and hung the XM up in the garage to change the lines over to standard ones. 10 hours later I had finished. What a job. A week later I was in Somerset flying off Bossington hill as a glider, and later in the week as paramotor from Withycombe hill. I clocked up 8 hours that week at the end of March.

I joined a tow club, XClent in Cheltenham. I already had a tow endorsement and so all I needed was a couple of launches to get back in the swing of things. I discussed with Alan Maguire "The Boss" the fact that I last tow launched over a year earlier on a Jive. Since this was a bit of a refresher, perhaps it would be sensible to go up on the line on a more stable canopy first. However, since I was familiar with the wing under power from the motor, we decided that I might just as well give it a go on the XM from the outset. I launched, and no problem.

At about this time all the photos were back from the Somerset holiday and I noticed that the canopy had two strange dips in the leading edge (see arrows on photo). I was convinced that I had put the correct lines in the correct place when re-rigging the wing but anyway took the canopy to work and measured all the lines. I spoke to Airwave and they faxed me the actual lengths the lines should be. 3 lines on each side, an A, B and a C line were wrong. Thats 6 in total. And they were the same both sides. When taking 10 hours to re-rig a canopy of your own, that you will then test fly, there is a certain motivation to get it right. I can not believe that I made the exact same mistake three times, and on each half of the wing. I did each side separately and the mistake did not show itself when doing the second half. My conclusion is that those lines were mis-labeled by Airwave when the complete set was being put together. Anyway, I changed them all around and have been flying it ever since. Photos now show that the wing is nice and curved as it should be.

Since buying the MAC Feeling 29 I have reduced the use of the XM to paramotoring only. The reasoning behind this is the fact it is a reasonably fast wing and if flown with care, will not give the grief that a competition wing is supposed to. The only draw back is the fact that the XM is a bastard to alpine launch in still air. I prefer a 5mph wind to reverse launch on a hill or the flat. You really have to run like stink to forward launch it. It has the habit of collapsing to one side and if you have no helper to sort the mess out, you then have to get out of the harness and re-position the wing in a nice crescent shape for the next attempt. 31kg lump on your back does not lend itself to many aborted take-offs before needing a rest.