La Mouette (The Seagull)
$ 3,090.00
La Mouette - beginner pilot (or intermediate or advanced!)
LC USA’s thoughts: La Mouette - The super soaring machine! When you want the full range of speed at your fingertips and to play with the terrain, there’s nothing more fun! It’s easy to launch in strong wind and doesn’t pull!
The ultimate wing with Progressive Reflex Profile kiterisers developed by LittleCloud and semi-closed cell
technologyfor unrivaled fun,control and performance!
La Mouette (The Seagull) is LittleCloud 's Kiterisers specific wing and joins the parakite scene.
A soaring machine designed to be used with angle of attack control through the brakes - what we call Kiterisers , speed control at your fingertips.
It benefits from Tom's 25 years of experience in designing mini-wings and kites!
Extremely intuitive, easy to use, fun to ride, it will immediately knock your socks off!
Whether you are looking for a smooth aerial ride or a more aggressive flight, it will suit many styles thanks to its extremely precise and progressive control.
It is dedicated to pilots with a minimum of experience in paragliding or mini-gliding.
The range is divided into 2 groups:
Light Wind Wings – designed to let you enjoy the light breeze of air. With an aspect ratio of 5.9, we focused on efficiency and maneuverability.
Everything is optimized, from the shape of the plane to the combination of fabrics, to give you the best experiences in the air.
Wings for medium to strong winds, so you can play when the wind picks up. With an aspect ratio of 5.2, we have focused on extremely precise handling with very neutral and instantaneous reactions.
La Mouette will only be delivered in flashy colors!
As always, we've pushed the design boundaries...just creating a wing that works isn't enough for us!
The challenge was to maintain the LC feel, while adding more stability at low angles of attack, maintaining a very high level of efficiency with of course a very important level of safety (however, safety depends on both the wing but also the pilot).
Stability is a key point, but not only that.
La Mouette does not have an “auto-pilot” mode. Like any aircraft with humans on board, it requires a pilot who flies consciously.
Using a pronounced reflex profile is a solution to make the wings very stable, but this has three major disadvantages: a lack of sensation, low efficiency and very little progressive stall behavior.
Our research aimed to adjust the reflex effect by controlling the Cm curve (reflex effect for short) so that it is present when necessary!
Our progressive reflex profile sees its Cm increase when the angle of attack decreases.
In summary, the more you accelerate, the more stability you get from the profile .
With an optimized and therefore very efficient aerodynamic profile, we are able to maintain a moderate elongation:
greater accessibility, to use smaller sizes
that are easier to handle in strong winds – better handling = more fun.
Thanks to this profile, we have also managed to reduce order pressure!
Plus, with this magical profile, even at the top of the wind range, you can always stay in control!
Your wing will never take control over you again (well, unless you do something really stupid)!
This technology, taken from some of Tom's kite designs, is integrated into this wing to improve efficiency by improving airflow over the leading edge and pressure inside the canopy.
Extraneous movements are reduced, which increases efficiency!
The location of the open cells and their dimensions are calculated so as not to compromise the safety characteristics of the wing.
The total surface area of the air intakes is reduced by 33% compared to a conventional LC wing . This remains more than enough for the canopy to inflate correctly, or to re-inflate if it closes.
It regulates the inflation speed, making the climb much less powerful, much more comfortable and safe.
Plus, we think the look looks really cool.
As always, we focused on solving design problems at the source without adding “gimmicks” to compensate for them.
This results in a very simple wing, with just what is needed to operate efficiently, safely and very intuitively.
Lightweight and small , you can take them anywhere without taking up a lot of space!
No compromise on durability has been made, thanks to our enormous experience in designing dedicated soaring wings.
Kiterisers
The Kiterisers have been developed with the best materials on the market (Orbit Ronstan pulley, mix of dyneema/Kevlar straps).
You can control your angle of attack with your hands, instantly.
This means you can adjust your speed and wing power at any time.
The design mixes a very rigid part A in Kelvar webbing and soft dyneema halyard for the rest.
This provides ease of use and reduces tangling issues during preparation.
The Kiterisers have an adjustable limiter so that each pilot can adjust the possibility of “hands up” during their learning, thus limiting the maximum speed of their wing.
We also implemented a solution to get 3 positions for the T-bar to improve ergonomics for smaller riders.
The handles are bright red so you can spot them at a glance.
Reflex is a general term for a profile that defines a natural tendency to increase its angle of attack under certain conditions.
Just like cars, there is a wide variation in reflex profiles, determined by one factor: Cm.
The Cm is the moment of the profile.
This moment tends to naturally rotate the profile if you leave it free in a flow of air.
When it is positive, it tends to naturally increase its angle of attack; the higher the value, the stronger the reflex effect.
The stronger the Cm, the more stable the profile.
This Cm varies according to the angle of incidence and the speed of the air flow (generally it increases when the speed of the flow increases).
High stability means extreme damping of the air mass by not transmitting small variations in air flow (turbulence).
Generally, profiles with high Cm also have very bad behavior when closed.
Reduction in cell number: With an efficient profile, you can reduce the number of cells, making production easier and making the wing lighter.
Maintaining moderate aspect ratio: An effective profile maintains moderate aspect ratio, thus providing increased accessibility, better maneuverability and smoother progression in varying the angle of attack along the control travel.
Reduction of surface area: A more efficient profile also allows for a reduction in surface area , which results in better handling, more lightness and a wing that is much easier to control/manage in the upper part of the wind range.
Also, a lighter wing also improves comfort.
Finally, behavior at low speeds is much more forgiving.
It is important to feel the air mass when flying, especially for your safety.
Relying solely on a profile with a strong reflex effect is risky because you will not feel when the wing is going to close and like any inflated structure, this will happen at one time or another.
To fly actively and safely, you need to feel changes in air mass through your brakes and harness, just like you look at the road when you drive.
This allows you to react much more quickly and fly in more turbulent conditions if your active pilot skills are sufficient.
We tested the wings in different configurations , but we also pushed test flights with some of our internal test processes.
For this, we have equipped certain wings with classic elevators in order to check the behavior in the event of closure.
You will find some videos on this page.
Handling has been refined and thanks to our progressive reflex profile we have managed to reduce the pressure on the brakes when flying towards the "neutral" (hands down) position.
Additionally, La Mouette has been load tested .
A significant portion of the testing involved the parachute phases.
Due to the lighter pressure on the controls, it is “easier” to go too low with your hands and find the parachute phase (and then full stall if you continue).
We made sure that this point was clearly “announced” to the pilot and that the wing reacted instantly when the pilot raised his hand to resume flight.
For experienced pilots, this offers the possibility of playing with the parachute point for decoration rests among other things.
Be careful, the very high stability of the profile and the wing only postpones the moment when it can close.
We estimate after all our tests, our flight hours with the different machines, that La Mouette offers a very high level of passive safety, but only the awareness and behavior of the pilot is the real defense against incidents/accidents.
