2004 Summary News

12/10/04
Reminder – The 2004 Fall Hang Gliding Special Expires on December 15th!
See the Fall HG Special news item for details.

Notice – Hang Glider Prices To Increase In Early 2005
Due to increased costs related to the falling value of the US dollar, we expect to announce a modest increase in hang glider prices early in 2005. This is a great time to save yourself some money on a new glider for the coming season.

11/29/04
Wills Wing Fly-In at Wallaby Ranch in Orlando, Florida – April 5th – 10th, 2005
Please come fly with us at our eighth annual Wills Wing / Wallaby Demo Days, Fly-In and Party. Saturday night April 9th we’ll have a Dinner & Dance featuring good food and a great live band.

Update: Demos of the new T2 topless hang glider will be available!

All models and sizes of Wills Wing gliders will be available for you to fly. The demos are free – just pay for your tows. You can also arrange with your local dealer to order your new Wills Wing glider for pick-up at the event, fly it while you’re there, and then ship it home. Transportation of your new glider from the factory to Florida is free.
Hundreds of pilots from all over the world attend this fun season-starting event. Inexpensive hotels, lots of local tourist attractions and warm weather make this a super vacation opportunity for the whole family! All pilots (regardless of the glider brand you fly) are invited to share in the fun. We hope you will join us for some great flying with some wonderful people!
For more information on the Fly-In as the time of the event gets closer, please see www.WillsWing.com and www.Wallaby.com

11/17/04
2004 Fall Hang Gliding Special
Wills Wing is happy to announce our 2004 Fall Hang Gliding Special:

Hang Gliders: 

On any hang glider ordered between November 15th and December 15th 2004, you can have your choice of:

1) Free customer choice of colors, or
2) Free packing for shipment, including V-board protection.

That’s a retail value of either $150 for the custom color choice, or $112.50 for the glider packing with V-boards.

Option 1 not applicable to inventory hang gliders.
Orders must be received at Wills Wing from your dealer no later than December 15th.

Hang Gliding Harnesses:

You can also purchase any Z5 or Rotor Vulto hang glider harness – either custom or from inventory – and take an extra $100 retail discount from the listed retail price if ordered between November 15th and December 15th 2004. This offer also applies to any inventory harnesses that have already been specially discounted, like the discounted Vultos currently listed on the web site inventory list. We have an excellent selection of inventory harnesses available right now.

Now is a great time to save some money and upgrade your equipment for the coming season.

1/16/04
New Wills Wing Clothing and Accessories – Just In Time for the Holidays!
We have two sharp new clothing items bearing the ‘Wills Wing’ logo – a two-tone nylon shell jacket that packs away into a convenient pouch and a tropical patterned knit polo shirt (logo on sleeve). For something different, we have a fleece blanket, 50×60 inches (127×152 cm) with the ‘Wills Wing’ logo and nylon carry straps. Order now to have in time for holiday gift-giving!

08/10/04
Latest Custom HG Sails
Here are a couple of recent custom hang glider sails we had the pleasure of making.

Using our computer controlled sail cutting table we can reproduce just about any design you can come up with, so if you want to have that “one-of-a-kind” sail, let your imagination run wild.

08/02/04
Sport 2 135 Released
The Sport 2 135 is a high performance glider for lighter pilots that is easy to fly and land. All of the HGMA vehicle tests are completed, and we are releasing the glider for sale at this time. The Sport 2 comes standard with the Litestream control frame and aluminum faired base tube, giving the glider a great L/D.

The Sport 2 135 has 62 inch downtubes, (compared to the 65 inch downtubes on the 155 Sport 2) and it weighs just 54 pounds!

Delivery of the first customer gliders will begin in about four weeks. The MSRP is $4275.00.

A third size of the Sport 2 is under development for bigger pilots. It will be about 175 square feet. There is no projected release date available for the 175 at this time.

07/16/04
Order Online! – Paragliding: A Pilot’s Training Manual – New Edition
Order your copy of Paragliding: A Pilot’s Training Manual online now for fastest delivery.

Wills Wing has released a brand new edition of its very popular book, Paragliding: A Pilot’s Training Manual. The newly released edition of the manual includes a Bonus DVD with 80 minutes of narrated video footage covering topics ranging from canopy layout, inflation and launch techniques to soaring, advanced canopy control maneuvers and landing approach theory and practice.

 07/13/04
Talons Sweep Chelan Classic Flex Wing Class!
2004 Chelan Classic – Flex Wing Class

Great flying guys!

06/30/04
Custom U2 Sail for Airways Documentary Project
This custom U2 was delivered recently to Judy Leden, of Airways Airsports in England, for use in a documentary project involving Condors [the feathered kind, not our training model :)].

06/28/04
Paragliding: A Pilot’s Training Manual – New Edition
Wills Wing has released a brand new edition of its very popular book, Paragliding: A Pilot’s Training Manual. The newly released edition of the manual includes a Bonus DVD with 80 minutes of narrated video footage covering topics ranging from canopy layout, inflation and launch techniques to soaring, advanced canopy control maneuvers and landing approach theory and practice.

06/05/04
Talon Tops in Sweden!
Tomas Peterson Reports:
I’m happy to announce that Peter Isaksson, one of our top pilots in Sweden, flying a WW Talon, put the other pilots far behind in 2 comps here in Sweden.
We had a Swedish ranking comp on my home hill last weekend, where Peter won by big margins:
http://home.swipnet.se/drakberget/resultat/Total.htm
As you can see WW are now the wing with the most pilots in the comp.
Happy Landings!
Tomas – Sweden

05/20/04
Pacific Northwest to Texas Demo Tour
Longtime HG Instructor Jim Reynolds, of Far Up Hang Gliding in Washington State, will have a trailer-load of WW hang gliders for interested pilots in the Pacific Northwest to fly during June and early July, and in late July he’ll be offering demos in Texas and Oklahoma, with the final stop the National Fly-In at Leakey, TX, on July 23-27.
Jim will be at various Washington and Oregon sites on weekends, and will offer weekday demos by appointment at Dog Mt. during June. See the Calendar section for the specific schedule (and check back for changes that might come up). Contact Jim at Far Up or your local WW Dealer for more specific information and to guarantee your place in the demo line-up. A range of wings will be available as demo gliders: Talons, U2s, Eagles, Falcon 2s.
Also available for demos, of course, the exciting new Sport 2. The Sport 2 offers near U2 performance combined with flight characteristics that are easy enough for a new intermediate level pilot.

05/02/04
Talon 150 Wins in Japan
Toshiyuki Katsura, of Sports Opa Kite in Japan, has won the “2004 Sky Festival in Nanyo” flying his Talon 150. The 4-day contest, from April 29 to May 2 this year, is one of 8 Japanese hang gliding series competitions. Flying conditions weren’t optimal, with only two flyable days, but the 71 pilot field proved to be quite competitive.
Congratulations Toshi!

04/16/04
Help Re-Open Marshall Peak for HG and PG
Vehicular access to Marshall Peak, in the Crestline vicinity of Southern California, has been cut off since the October 2003 wildfires. This site is one of the most important HG and PG launches in SoCal, and the peak and other launches on that mountain are important to Wills Wing for test flying purposes. Crestline is open, but is often unflyable for PGs because of high winds, and to both HG and PG because of winds from over the back or when the clouds descend below launch. Please read more about the closure and, if you’ve ever flown at Marshall or plan to in the future, please send a letter to the officials listed on the Cresltline Soaring Society’s website. Sample letters are provided as a starting point. There are two pages on the CSS site on this topic:

1. Help Get Marshall Peak Opened! – A brief explanation and the addresses and letters.
2. A Soar Point – Article about the Marshall Peak closure and the CSS. From the San Bernardino Sun Newspaper, 4/16/04.

Thanks for helping out!

03/17/04
Announcing the new Sport 2 Hang Glider
Wills Wing is proud to announce the release of a new hang glider model – the Wills Wing Sport 2. The Sport 2 offers near U2 performance combined with flight characteristics that are easy enough for a new intermediate level pilot. For more information, please see: Sport 2 page.

03/06/04
Wills Wing Talon Wins National Winter XC League in UK
Peter Coad, flying his new Wills Wing Talon 150, has won the National Winter XC League in the United Kingdom. Petes’ campaign got off to the best possible start – whilst on his first flight on his new Talon 150 he broke a personal height gain record and flew coast to coast in Cornwall. One of a growing number of Talon pilots in the UK, Pete is delighted with his new glider in all aspects and looks forward to the competition season getting fully underway. Third place in the same competition was also taken by a Talon, this time a 140 flown by Graham Phipps who finished fourth in the British Hang Gliding Series in 2003.

02/16/04
WW Gliders Continue to Rule the Colombian Hang Gliding Scene
Carlos Rizo writes:
Mauricio Cajiao, the youngest pilot in Colombia, won the Hang Gliding Nationals flying his Fusion 150. The annual competition, held in tropical Roldanillo during the second week of January, proved to be ferocious. With marginal conditions, the first time winner was able to beat Daniel Velez, our twice-in-a-row former National champion, by a mere point. Congratulations to the winners.

Congratulations Guys!

02/04/04
Wills Wing Announces World Record Contingency Awards

Wills Wing Announces The Following World Record Contingency Awards

Any pilot flying a Wills Wing hang glider can be eligible to win up to $7000 for setting an FAI Class 1 Open Distance World Record

For flights made during the period from April 1st, 2003, through December 31st, 2005, Wills Wing will pay the following amounts as contingency awards, to a pilot who meets all other elibibility requirements, based on the following performances:

1. $1000 for an official FAI World Open Distance record in Class 1 that is set with a flight that is also longer than the longest open distance flight in a Class 1 hang glider at the time the record flight is made.
2. $3000 (total – i.e. $2000 in addition to the $1000 awarded for case (a) above) for the first open distance flight in a hang glider of more than 500 miles great circle straight line distance that is subsequently verified as an FAI World Open Distance record in Class 1.
3. $2000 if, as of midnight, September 30th, 2004 – the record flight in a or b above is still at that time the longest open distance flight in a Class 1 hang glider.
4. $2000 if, as of midnight, September 30th, 2005 – the record flight in a or b above is still at that time the longest open distance flight in a Class 1 hang glide

(Some restrictions apply. For more information contact mike@www.willswing.com )

01/29/04
Wills Wing Announces Competition Contingency Awards
Wills Wing Announces The Following Competition Contingency Awards
Any pilot flying a Wills Wing Hang Glider can be eligible to win.

(Some restrictions apply. For more information contact mike@www.willswing.com )

01/21/04
U2 Price to Increase
The suggested retail price for the U2 will increase by $100 to $4675 on February 1st.

01/08/04
Wills Wing Annual Demo Days and Anniversary Party at Wallaby Ranch, plus First Ever ‘SurFLYvor’ Competition!
Once again this March, Wills Wing Owners, WW Dealers, and WW Pilots from across the USA and around the world will gather for this fun get together at Wallaby Ranch in Florida.

A range of gliders will be available as demo gliders at Wills Wing’s 31st Anniversary Celebration to be held at Wallaby Ranch, March 23rd through March 28th, 2004. Everyone is welcome to attend the celebration – there will be lots of demo gliders available to try out for free (you pay for tow) : Talons, U2s, Eagles, and Falcon 2s – as well as seminars, prizes, and a party or two (also free). Very reasonable accommodations are available at the Super 8 motel just 2.5 miles from the Ranch, (877)-233-9888, be sure to tell them you are with Wills Wing / Wallaby to get the lowest rate. Come and join us!

See our Calendar section for details on this and other Florida events around this time period, including Demos at Florida Ridge and the first ever SurFLYvor Competition(put on by Rob Jacobs, et. al.)