I love my 3 year old Piuma’s handling. I see from this video of that Piuma that has the same center section wrinkles as my sail too. ..hummmm? As I compare it to Falcon 4’s I’ve flown, it’s has a slight glide edge over the Falcon. I will note that for aero towing speeds, the Piuma’s air frame outer leading edges distorts inwards more causing trailing edge flutter then the Falcon because of lighter tubbing. Still a fine wing.
The harness makes all the difference (joking)! This was 2 years ago and I only flew it once... I gave a range of what I saw while flying in areas that are often more still. 12:1 probably had a little buoyancy pumping the number up, similarly the falcon would see about 10:1 with that same buoyancy. Obviously I didn't chart a polar curve in calm morning air, so this is the high end for both but the actual glide ratio probably sits in the middle of that range. The take away here is that the Piuma is certainly getting a few points better in glide than the falcon.
Just the Falcon 2 and 3, each version has small changes that make it slightly better than the one before it. The design of the Piuma is different than the Falcon that gives it different handling, and I think it is all around better. The Falcon is very popular though.
If I could justify spending the money and thought I could sell the Falcon fast enough I probably would. Its really nice, feels slow compared to the Gecko... but now I don't really want to fly the Falcon anymore, my plan was to practice different types of landings on the falcon and maybe beat it up. I don't really want to beat up the Piuma.
@@EridanTheEnchanter falcon is good for coastal and dunes, or short hikes, if you don't do any of that just sell it and use the gecko. I have a lazy-days Funfex and a T2. Alpha for teaching. Of course I could find ways to justify having 8 or 12 gliders, but 1 or 2 is enough for most
