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| PARAMANIA ACTION GT by Greg Hamerton. Greg has been flying since 1992 and has flown over 100 wings. He prefers responsive handling and agility but rates passive stability highly as he enjoys taking photographs and snoozing whilst gliding. You might also like to read: Other paraglider reviews on this website. |
 Easy soaring |
 Elegant look |
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| Introduction Paramania began producing paramotor-specific wings in the mid-90's. I flew one of the first Reflex wings in 1997 and was impressed with the speed. Paramania have grown since then, and now that construction is done in the GIN factory you know you'll get quality and consistency. The Action GT is their high-performance motor wing. From Paramania's website : "The ACTION GT is the ultimate dual purpose all in one wing for both powered and gliding flight. Aimed at pilots who have a good knowledge base of Paramotoring or Paragliding looking for top performance (speed and sink) and that legendary Reflex stability. Paramotoring and Paragliding test pilots have nicknamed it the “The Bird” not just for its bird-like center section but more for it’s outstanding characteristics and the way it flies." I am not a paramotor pilot, but I was interested to see how this modern reflex wing performed as a FREE-FLYING wing. Does it live up to the hype? Construction Thick lines, lots of reinforcing, very strong. Launching Launching is a bit strange, sort of 'luffs' during pullup. The ridged-trim / broken reflex seems to cause a little burble on the trailing edge. I did not find it easy. I got some comments from my friend Rob de Villiers-Roux who is a motor pilot and highly experienced tandem pilot. Rob battled with ground handling as well, with trims closed. "Pullups are dodgy in gusty wind, it shoots around all over the place, so I wouldn't recommend it for beginners." Tony Gibson, our Paramania dealer, advised that for PG trim closed is best but for PPG (powered paragliding) and flat ground launch 1 inch out is better. Either way, inflation can be improved upon, and you may have to stay on the A's until actually flying off the hill because it doesn't automatically find the 'flying' notch. |
 Needs a bit of coaxing up  overhead |
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| Trimmers The trims are very long, and to change from full trim out to trim on requires a bit of clever fingerwork and buckle management, unless you are happy to leg go of the brakes at the same time. It's important to note that you must release the trims before touching the speedbar. I tested the speedbar to about 50% with slow trims and it was still stable, but more than that and you may get a nasty front tuck. Release the trims all the way out, and you get a totally different wing. It cruises like a battleship. You can stand on the speedbar all you want, it won't collapse. Handling "The centre keel and lines allow weight shift, without wing distortion whilst giving excellent directional stability and a stiff, controllable structure." It handles to that brief - stiff, controllable structure. That's with the trimmers in. You can thermal adequately, do wing-overs, spiral around. With the trimmers out (fast) it's like a truck. Then it's better to weight-shift (not much effect) or use tip-steering (not included in the model I flew but I've heard of a toggle on the stabiliser line which helps). It has slightly worse agility and deader feeling in thermals than a free-flying wing. Performance The hands-up glide was very similar to a Pro-Design Jazz (DHV1/2) I had beside me, so probably 8+. I don't think it's quite on the 9 that Paramania advertise. My minimum sink rate wasn't quite as good as normal solo wings with similar loading, but only slightly, probably 0.1m/s worse. That's trimmed slow, sort of scratching along ridge type sink rate. At trims off (ie. medium fast), glide and speed was matched with the Jazz who was at full speed bar. So it's not going to outglide the current DHV2/3's at this speed, but from trims off I still had another 10kmh acceleration and yes it's rock solid. Nice. Comments from the other pilots? Manic laughter - they couldn't believe how fast I was passing them (and going down too ;-). The Ozone Addict M (DHV2) is rated with a glide ratio of about 8.7 (for the same wing size at 26.3m2 flat). The Action GT lost height slowly in a long side-by-side comparison. So I'd estimate a glide ratio of 8.4. On full speed again the glide was slightly worse than the Addict, but the maximum speed was 2kmh faster, speedbar buckles touching and trims released. So there's a small loss of performance against top DHV2s on glide, marginally higher sink rate in ruff / scratchy lift conditions, a small advantage in speed. |
 Simple risers with long trims and speedbar.  Look mum, no bum. |
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| Safety It's not the best thermalling wing - I think its stability is like a DHV2/3 wing when trimmed back, it can collapse and needs work to fly well. If you leave a big collapse when trimmed back, it turns and dives quite radically before banging out with an opposite (reactionary) collapse. It is very well-behaved around the stall point though, and is difficult to stall, doesn't spin easily, and recovers nicely from abuse. This was reassuring. I had a full frontal collapse whilst thermalling in rowdy lee-side conditions. It recovered without fuss. When it's flying reflexed it gets super solid. But pulling the brakes when the trims are open sometimes causes tip collapses. This is a problem because in rough air you are likely to pull the brakes to control the occasional pitch and to be an 'active' pilot. The secret is to do nothing and let the wing absorb everything. It is very good at this, it can take a hammering, but I just can't stop myself yanking on the brakes when I hit really bad air, because I've got to do something to control the movement. At some point the wing will fold, but it is quite surprising how far you can push it. So it's hard to classify. I'd say trims in, DHV2/3 or high DHV2. With trims out (reflexed) somewhere around DHV0.5 (if there was such a thing) with an occasional challenging moment thrown in. Speed Yes it goes fast, about 58kmh. The Addict I was comparing it to does about 56kmh at 1000m with 105kg load on the 80-100kg sized wing. Rob de Villiers-Roux added, "It's got nice speed but feels a bit scary in bumpy air, like it's going to collapse, but I couldn't get it to. It doesn't turn so lekker, roll's a bit. I think if you had to go into bad air, it would misbehave. It's good for paramotoring, but not so good for free-flying." I agree with Rob, somehow it feels unsettling. There are definitely big positives to it, and it feels solid most of the time. Landing was very fast for Rob, being near the top of the motor weight-range. I found landing speeds for solo flying reasonable. Summary I think the Action GT is the right move in development. If Paramania could refine it until it has the handling of a true free-flying wing they would have a winner. At present, I'd recommend at least 125 flights and an SIV course before free-flying this wing, due to the asymetric on trim which can bite. On motor it may be a different thing because of the loading, but I'd still recommend it for experienced guys not plonkers. It is ideal for motor flying in that you can fly fast without touching the brakes and still be safe. Great for getting around a course, or positioning yourself for aerial photography in strongish wind. Overall I am impressed, and will recommend it to pilots wanting to do motor flying. It's almost good enough for me to want one for xc flying. It's just the handling that needs to improve. I'll definitely watch out for the Action GTX (or whatever they call it). Stability at speed is the outright no-questions clean-up-the-field winner. Rob and I agreed that it feels like a Russian military automobile, functional, strong and tough, with very little finesse. It does the job, goes fast and solid, but it lacks the suspension and elasticity of a normal free-flying wing. Is it 'The Bird?' I don't think so, unless it's a gryphon made of metal plating and steel bolts. But if you wanna win the race, then this is the assault vehicle of choice. For a comparative review you can read Paul William's comments HERE. It's a bit of a simplistic comparison because he never did glide at speed against other wings at speed, he just said he passed them .. but, duh, they were just flying around not on speed bar. Also bear in mind that he is a Paramania dealer. References : Glide ratios : Jerome Daoust Gleitschirm Mag report Paramania website with more details. OJOVOLADOR interview with Designer Mike C-J. Para2000 for more detailed specs. South African distributor of the Action GT, Tony Gibson. |
 Trim tabs released - wing in reflex mode.  Trims tabs engaged - slow position  Spirals are easy |
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| Technical
specs : ACTION GT (26) Rating : unknown (to be confirmed soon)
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