Know How

Parakite Review by Beni Kälin Updated Dec 2025

2025 is the year of the parakites. After most brands watched Flare launch the Moustache and thinking that’s crazy and a niche, they now have realised that it’s the future for soaring and won’t disappear anymore, so i think most of them are working on a parakite or are selling them already. I personally like that and I hope some other brands will bring some real innovation as well. Flare has now made a parakite for soaring, one for speedflying and one for paramotoring, where they even integrated wingtip steering into the kiteriser-control. Some pilots asked for a review, so here we go. I wasn’t able to fly them all yet and also not all the sizes. There can be big differences from one size to another, especially when they have different specs like aspect ratio and cell count. But also how used a parakite is, can make a huge difference, parakites tend to go out of trim very quickly. Here is why:

Why Parakites Go Out of Trim Quickly

  • Most of them can fly on the A-lines only. So when flying hands up all your weight is basically on the A-Lines, B and Cs are slack. They only have some tension when you are flying slow. Lines that have too little tension tend to shrink quicker. Paragliders normally have more tension on Bs and Cs as well. 
  • Because parakites are used on the beach, it can make sense using the strongest fibres, that’s dyneema. They are known to shrink more than Kevlar lines. Unsheated Kevler Lines are used an 99% of all C, D and CCC gliders, because they shrink less. But they hate UV so you are supposed the change your Lines on the competitions wings after some time.
  • High aspect ratio wings are much more trim sensitive. That has different reasons; First of all are the Line groups A, B and maybe Cs closer to each other. The closer thy are, the more change for example 10mm shrinkage makes. The higher the aspect ratio, the higher the span of the wing, so the longer the lines need be. 1% shrinkage on 3m Lines is 3cm. On 8m long lines thats 8cm…! Plus high aspect wings are more sensitive to all changes, wether thats rain, porosity, rod tension, wrinkles….it affects them always more. Thats why 99% of all C, D and CCC Wings use unsheathed Kevlar lines. 
  • Kiterisers use a dyneema cord which runs through 2 pulleys normally. That line can shrink up to 10% … Normally lines shrink 1% max…That’s the main reason why you lose some top speed and dive if you don’t retrim your parakite. Because this pulley-line shrinks a lot more than the brake line does, the stall gets worse as they get older. So you don’t get that hard point anymore before they stall, so no more warning. The ratio from the brake line (going to trailing edge) to the pulley-line is super important, you can feel 1cm change there easily.
  • The A-risers can stretch when putting some G-forces on. If you buy a new Moustache and make a deep spiral, your A-riser will be 1cm longer afterwards:-) If you don’t spiral it takes a few flights before they stretch 1cm but they will. Flare has already calculated that in… On the Razorblade you can stretch the black riser webbing 1cm when pulling on it, it’s quite a flexible webbing.
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So when you compare one parakite with another, it can make a huge difference when one is older because it’s out of trim. That difference can be huge and felt by every pilot! So make sure to retrim them a lot. If you can afford it, it might be worth doing this every 50 hrs.

Safety Advice

Good Parakites are very collapse stable even at full speed. But if the Cs are slightly too short or the Bs slightly too long that stability can be gone! Also when brake lines are only 2cm too short your wing can be collapsy and dangerous. Normally they don’t become unstable when they get older, only the stallpoint gets softer. But if you start to work on the trim yourself it’s easy to make them unstable! If you do anyway, here are some tips:

  • When you fly fully hands up, the Cs always need to be more slack than the Bs. If that’s not the case, stop flying that wing!
  • For the length of the brake line; Too short and your parakite is unstable and collapses easy when flying around the best glide position. Too long and you don’t get that hard point before they stall, but at least they are not collapsy. A good check might be to push your wing in front of you when kiting it on the ground and then pull the toggles when it’s in front. If it collapses brakes are likely too short. Probably that doesn’t work for all parakites, but it might give you an idea…If the brakes are too short, the parakite can feel unstable even with the best active flying pilot!
  • Another thing to watch out for are the C lines. The brakes should probably not be pulled while the C lines still have slack, then the brakes lines might be too short.
  • In other words; When your at best glide and you start going hands up then the line groups need to get slack from back to front: So first the Brakes lines go slack, the the C-Lines and the B-Lines. That order is super important.
  • If you are hands up and start pulling the toggles the line groupes must get tensioned from front to back; so first the B-lines get tensioned, the C-Lines and then the brake lines.

Any good and safe parakite should be able to hold your weight only on the A-Lines. If you can’t pull the A -riser on the ground hard to push the parakite forward in my opinion this is a paraglider and not a parakite! Be carefull with those wings, they will not be very collapse stable without any active flying.

What Makes a Good Parakite?

Here is what makes a good parakite in my opinion. I think for most pilots it’s important that the wing is well balanced. It shouldn’t be optimised in one parameter and all others are sacrificed. Same thing for a good XC glider. It’s about finding the right compromise that works for most pilots and most conditions well. Here is what I personally like on a parakite; 

    • Collapse stability in turbulence Coastal soaring can be very turbulent, especially when flying close to the water! You will fly accelerated a lot close to the ground. Any collapse is one too much and hurts when close to the ground. There is a psychological hurdle that prevents many pilots pushing the speedbar when flying close to the ground. We all know the consequences of using the speedbar. With kite risers going hands up does the same to your wing but without having this hurdle of pushing that bar. So pilots just do it without thinking twice. That’s why kiterisers only belong on wings that are very collapse stable at full bar in my opinion.
    • Speed and Dive hands up – ideally it goes forward first and then starts diving (reducing glide ratio) when going more hands up. If i fly in nasty conditions, i want to stay as close to the ground as possible sometimes, so i don’t want to be picked up by gusts, specially when kiting with skis. If the parakite doesn’t dive enough you can’t stay down. I want to have a big glide angle range from best glide to max dive. If hand’s up feels like just pushing a speedbar, I might as well stay on a paraglider.
    • Slow Speed; For toplandings, for low wind soaring and for no wind take offs and landings the slow speed is important. The wing should be able to handle a lot of tension on the brake line. Pulling down the trailing edge adds camber, reduces the speed a lot and makes lift. The more brake tension a parakite can handle before it stalls, the better i think. You might not need that slow speed every day, but there will be moments when you are glad you can slow down your wing and make lift even at low speed. I think in the mountains with tailwind take offs this is very important.
    • When it converts speed into lift really well. I also want some lift reserve when flying slow. Aspect ratio helps for converting speed into lift, but there are other factors involved as well. 
    • Agile and responsive. If you need big inputs on the toggles to steer, you also make lift each time. It reduces fun. Ideally it’s responsive to toggles and weightshift inputs. Especially the response to weight shift is still missing a bit for me on all parkites i have flown. I’m still waiting for that parakite with the response of the Little Cloud mini Goose, i loved that wing.
    • Easy Ground handling. In 40+ km/h winds you want a forgiving wing, you will see why…Shooting, collapsing and getting cravats in strong winds can become dangerous quickly on certain spots. If your wing is well inflated and fully open you can kite easily in strong winds, but when trying to stall out a cravat or making some mistakes you will get dragged away quickly. A good parakite should inflate slow enough that it doesn’t plug you. 
    • Ergonomic brake geometry; If you wanna enjoy longer soaring sessions, you don’t want too much pressure on the handles and the position of the minimum sink shouldn’t be too low. The angle of your forearms while flying has a huge impact on how exhausting it is to hold on.
    • Precise; A parakite should deliver good precision also around the best glide position and make lift progressively. The lower you pull, the less it should sink.

Not so important to me is the performance, the absolute glide ratio. Of course it’s nice to have a good glide, but if the terrain is too flat it won’t be fun soaring anyways. I would rather prefer a better dive over a better glide ratio. Of course in low winds the glide ratio helps to stay up, but flying a 26m parakite is normally not as fun as a 15. Neither important to me is the weight. A wing to soar on the coast in strong wind should be durable, not light and fragile.

Review Reminder

Again; That’s my personal impression I gained flying those wings. Most of them I didn’t get to fly a ton and neither in all sizes…one might get a different experience. But what probably matters the most if you like a parakite or not, is what you are used to fly. I think there is no best wing. But there are wings that suit some pilots and don’t suit other pilots. Some pilots just want the fastest. Some want the most responsive, some want the most performant, some want the most stable. Some like a lot of feedback, some like it more dampened. Same thing on paragliders…i find many pilots that have flown a lot on one brand only, don’t like any other wing unless they put a lot of hours on it and learn to trust and handle it. Pilots that have flown many different wings and brands in their career, normally get used to a new wing much quicker. I hope this little review helps some pilots to better choose the right parakite for themself. 

Dudek Touch 18

It inflates noticeably faster than a Moustache and rises up quicker. That’s probably why it overshoots more as well. It’s easy to stop the overshooting unless you get plugged in strong winds….if it does overshoot it can float back like a parakite but it can also collapse on you like a paraglider. That happens each time when it overshoots too far. That was quite surprising to me. You can do the classic „parakite-trick“ and pull down the A-Lines when standing on the ground and have the wing shoot way in front of you and watch it floating back. But when it goes too far forward it collapses every time. Don’t ask me why. Dudek Paramotor wings are known to be very collapse stable, I hope that’s also the case for the Touch, I don’t have enough experience to judge this. I personally trust a wing more that doesn’t wanna collapse on the ground. The touch has very very nice handling, you feel well connected with it and quickly at home. It’s the most gokart Feeling i had so far. It’s agile and reactive without rolling too much and being nervous. It has surprisingly good response to weight shift and toggles. The Stallpoint is hard and predictable, slow speed is also very good. It handles quite some brake tension before it stalls. One of the easiest parakites to fly, you get used to it very quickly and will have a smile when flying it. The one I flew didn’t dive as much as a Moustache and was also quite a bit slower. But it had trim knots on the B lines…no idea why, but that clearly slowed it down. Risers felt also quite short so it was easy to reach all the way up. I would prefer going a few centimeters higher with my hands and getting that missing extra speed.

Flow Mullet

That is already 2-3 years old now and was the first parakite released after the Moustache. It has Split-A lines like 2-liners have. That should give it extra stability i guess but it also reduces the topspeed and the dive. The first version with the standard risers were quite a bit less fast and steep then the Moustaches, with the pro risers it keeps up better, since you give it much more „speedbartravel“. The pro risers don’t have the lower pulley, so you increase the force to hold on and you change the amount of brake line that gets pulled before the wing stalls. It’s great for deepstall landings, but bad to slow then wing down. You also get little to no warning before it stalls with this pulley-ratio. For flying in strong winds not a big deal, but when it’s weak it can be exhausting and toplandings more difficult. The Mullet has a strong reflex airfoil which makes it  collapse stable. It also comes with Shark nose and mini ribs. Also the black perlon rods are well tensioned and give it a clean good looking leading edge, which should in theory allow it to fly quite slow. But in reality the slow speed isn’t that great, i assume that’s because of the airfoil that has so much reflex, which is also a good thing. I think all the flow parakites are fairly collapse stable.

Flow Mullet 2

I didn’t get to try this one yet….hit me up if you have one and you are close to Interlaken area:-)

Flow Mullet X

The Mullet X offers that missing Dive the Mullet didn’t have. It’s fast and steep, I assume comparable to a Flare Line. ( I never compared…) But it’s lacking performance for soaring and the point of minimum sink is quite low, so it gets quite physical for soaring. You need to fly it a size bigger, it needs more wind to stay up. But the top end is good because it goes so fast. Strong wind is no problem for it.  It also has an airfoil with lots of reflex. Because it inflates rather quickly, you better do a cobra lunch with it. The Mullet X can plug you and throw you on your back, you feel like a beginner again … .As soon as the brake lines get tension, the top sail builds a big hump in the back, which kills the performance immediately. So instead of getting less sink you get more. It makes it very unprecise flying around the best glide. This wing wants to be flown in strong winds with hands higher and not around best glide. I heard they sell a new line set now that should get rid of that problem. I would only recommend  the X for steeper coasts or stronger winds. On smaller dunes I would rather get something with more glide.

Flow Albatroxx

I only flew the 16 and the 22.  Again flow is using an airfoil with lots of reflex which keeps it stable despite the aspect ratio. However it doesn’t feel safe when you fly in turbulence….this glider gives a lot of feedback. You feel every little bump, like a road bicycle with very hard tyres and no suspension. One has to get used to this and learn to trust the wing, I can imagine this will put many pilots off. I felt safe on it, because I trust in the reflex and I flew in calm conditions. So far the wings that were solid on the ground were also solid in the air for me. And the Flows have all been very solid when doing the „parakite-trick“ on the ground. I really liked flying that Albatroxx, it was very responsive to weight shift and toggles and had a nice roll. It definitely offers some go kart feeling. And it’s fast. Really fast. It also gets noticeably harder before it stalls, it handles surprisingly a lot of brake before it stalls for such a high aspect ratio. When it starts to stall, the tipps come first, thats anyoing. I heard pilots had some asymmetric collapse on this one … .but it felt quite solid for me, i would like to fly that one more in turbulent air. It has a lot of aspect ratio, that makes the handling on the ground clearly more difficult. But it’s surprisingly easy to handle and fly with that aspect ratio. You can’t compare it to an EN-D Paraglider, they need much more experience to fly them in turbulence! I see no problem for a talented Parakite novice to fly it. For the amount of aspect ratio it has it doesn’t convert speed into lift that well was my first impression.
The 22 was rather heavy on the brakes, since it has a 1 to 5 ratio like the Flare Line has. The Albatroxx also uses unsheated Kevlar Lines like any high aspect paraglider. Wings with high aspect ratio must have longer lines, so it’s smart to use lines that don’t shrink as much. I would love to compare a Bandit once with an Albatroxx one day!

Dunerider Scraper 20

I was really looking forward to fly a Scraper, i know Bryan well, he was also in the Flare team before. So I was very curious to try one, it looks like the boys are having fun on those wings in Holland. The Scraper 20 has aspect ratio 7, which is like an EN-D wing. That’s a lot of aspect ratio! I love soaring on high aspect CCC gliders, so I was stoked to see that development finding its way into parakites as well. The Scraper has the smallest inlets from all parakites, it reminds me of the Triple Seven wings. Those small inlets really slow the inflation down, the Scraper takes time to fill up. I prefer that over shooting in strong wind. However it’s often not beneficial when you want to launch in no winds. The Scraper is super tricky to launch in no wind. It fills up super slow, there is now way the wing is full when its above you. You need to run a few more meters before it is fully inflated. But the worst is that it always wants to horseshoe as it comes up. I found the best trick to get it launched in no wind is to collapse the tips when lying it on the ground. Fold over one third of the span on each side, so only the middle is open. Then start running with holding A and Bs holding them up high and slowly add some brake once it’s up. If you don’t brake it won’t inflate, if you brake too much it will stall quickly. The Scraper felt very stable on the ground, specially when doing the „parakite-trick“. You can tell it has a lot of reflex, it doesn’t wanna collapse it always floats back nicely. Even when pulling the brakes-lines only while it’s in front it was very forgiving to my surprise. I think the collapse stability is the strongest point of the Scraper. The 20 is not very agile, it doesn’t react much to weight-shift and the lines are very long, longer than thy need to be. That makes it less fun to fly for me. Comparing it with a Bandit 19 the Scraper is clearly less reactive to toggle inputs and also weight-shift. Comparing with a Moustache 1 22 it is more reactive and more fun to fly for sure. The Scraper can go quite fast and dives well for such a high aspect ratio wing. If it’s brand new i think it is similiar to a Bandit going straight. But the Scraper goes out of trim quickly because the lines are very long and made of dyneema and then it looses a lot of speed and dive. It also has not only long and thick lines, but it also has a lot of lines. It has every 2nd cell a line, the Bandit only every 3rd cell. For an high aspect ratio wing it has way too much line drag in my opinion. I assume that is part of why it doesn’t glide well. Comparing it with a Bandit 19 it feels like it has a glide ratio less. After 1km i gained like 40m on the Scraper when comparing. I assume it compares more to a Moustache 2 in terms of glide ratio. Why is glide ratio important? It helps for the low-end, soaring in light winds and it also keeps your “energy” much longer on a Swoop. It also helps a lot when flying over a gap in the dunes to keep going and avoid landing. 
The launch in strong wind is quite easy with the Scraper, it has no tendency to shoot at all. It inflates very slow and predictable, i think thats easier than with a Bandit. The Scraper does have a sharknose which sure helps it with the slow speed, but somehow it doesn’t like flying slow and stalls rather early, not super bad like a Razorblade or a Wave, but a huge difference to a Bandit. But once the Scraper gets a little out of trim it becomes stally.Let me know when you have some comparisons from Scraper and Bandits!

Dunerider Scraper 12

I don’t think there is another wing on the market with 12m and aspect ratio 6.2…so I was very curious to try this one. (Yes the Flow Albatroxx in 13 has even 6.8 and the Bandit 10 also has 6.5) I didn’t get to soar it, only a few sled rides down from Mürren. The Scrapers are not made to fly in no wind. You really need to know how to launch them. With some wind you can reverse launch, but forward launch is close to impossible for normal pilots. (read Scraper 20 to see how to launch)  The 12 needs speed to take off, mostly because it doesn’t warn you much before it stalls, so you can’t have your hands too low, otherwise it will stall. I felt safe under it while flying, also in slight turbulence. When you go hands up it goes fast and dives well. In turns it picks up a lot of speed and with the long lines you get some G-forces too…awesome! What surprised me the most is how easy and snappy barrel rolls are. You can do them even with weight shift only. It’s so much more responsive to weight shift than the 20 is. But also using toggles you can do barrel rolls easily. I would have thought with such long lines barrel rolls would suck, but no, they are fun! On landings you can do long swoops, it comes with a lot of speed and keeps the speed well. Even after some fast full turns with tons of speed it doesn’t want to level up too much when swooping, that’s quite surprising and nice! On landing you need to run fast, because it doesn’t use much tension on the brake line to stall it. 

When you stall it while flying, it only starts flying again properly when you release more than you think is needed. It tends to stay partially stalled and do something between deepstall and normal flying. No problem to exit, just release toggles more and it flies normally again. But it’s maybe good know…

When comparing with the Moustache 2 13 with the same take off weight, we found both wings fly very similar angles. Best glide is almost the same (the Scraper flies only slightly better) and going hands up they fly the same speed and angle. So the same dive. (Moustache 2 with the A-Lines set in front for max speed). I think the Scraper 12 can be a fun wing for soaring, I personally like high aspect ratio for soaring as well. But if you want one for soaring and speedflying, you won’t get happy with the Scraper because of the launch.
The scraper has very long lines relative to the span it has. And because it has a lot of span, the lines are very long. So it has quite a lot of line drag i think, which is not a huge deal for a parakite, glide ratio is not the most important parameter i think. But since the lines are long and made of dyneema, it will get much slower over time and loose dive and speed. I flew a 12m scraper that was really slow, not much parakite feeling left.  Make sure to retrimm them a lot!

Little Cloud Mouette

I flew the 16 and the 22 Moutte on different days. LC is taking a completely different approach than all the other brands I have the feeling. Not only do they try to use as little reflex as possible, but also have a 1 to 9 reduction ratio on the risers. The Moustache has 1 to 6, most others also have that, apart from the Line that has 1 to 5 and the Pro Risers for the Mullet and the Level Wings Fuze has 1 to 4. The higher the reduction, the longer the brake travel gets and the slower you can fly before it stalls. And you get more warning as well before it stalls with a higher reduction ratio. We choose a 1 to 5 ratio on the Line because the brake travel would have become too long (yes even longer) because the Line has such a huge speedrange. The 1 to 9 ratio only works well on the LCs because their „speedbartravel“ is not very big, in other words they don’t go very fast nor steep. On the ground you also can’t do the „parakite-trick“ with the Mouette, it collapses rather quickly when overshooting. And it also collapses when pulling only on the A lines. Also when you are doing wingovers without supporting the outside it feels not stable. For me personally that’s not very confident inspiring and I don’t think that’s the future of parakites putting almost no reflex into it. Any other parakite with reflex has an almost straight topsail, no curve in the back of the topsail like the Mouette, very easy visible. LC makes very pitch stable wings and most of them have amazing gentle reactions to collapses, better than many other wings from big brands. They seem to invest a lot of time into safety and collapse recovery. But I personally think when it comes to flying close to the ground, stability is key and not collapse recovery. Anyway some pilots love the feel of the Mouette and it also starts soaring in less wind than other parakites, likely because it has more camber in the airfoil. The launch is also typical for LC with a slow inflation so it doesn’t shoot and plug you. Interesting is also the closed cells they started using again. It seems they disappeared for 15 years and are back now. I can imagine one day we might go back to completely closed cell parakites for soaring, just like the foil- kites are. The closed cell system keeps the air locked in the wing, so the airfoil holds its shape better, it can’t deflate in turbulence. That gives it extra collapse stability. But they can still collapse and then it sucks, I can tell you from personal experience!

Flare Moustache 1

After all the wings I have flown, the Moustache still offers one of the most complete packages I think. It’s easy and forgiving to launch, it’s fast, it dives, it’s stable and it can handle some brake before it stalls. It can even go much faster and steeper than the risers allow it and it’s still stable.
On launch It’s easy to inflate, it doesn’t shoot and when it does it does float back. The only thing that beginners struggle sometimes is that it does collapse on the ground when the wing is in front of you and then you pull the toggles. That pull triggers the collapse then. But that’s only really a problem for beginners. I think the Moustache 1 is missing a sharknose, the slow speed is ok, but not great, a well done Sharknose helps a lot with the slow speed. It would be nice if it was a little more stall resistant like the Line for example. Especially when it goes out of trim it tends to stall very quickly without much notice. It’s also very sensitive to rain. As soon as it’s wet, it stalls much quicker. Launching it from wet grass can make a difference already. I personally would prefer it more agile on the bigger sizes.

Flare Moustache 2

I might be a little biased on this one…but I do think it offers the most complete package of parakites out there at the moment. A Razorblade is faster, an Albatroxx and Dunerider have more glide, one might be more agile…but overall I think the Moustache2 offers the most complete package. Its inflation is still slow and easy, it glides well, it goes fast and dives a lot, the wingtip steering offers great agility and a new sensation while soaring. At low speed, where the old Moustache stalled, the new one will generate lift and pop you up another meter if you want. That is a really nice feature that comes in handy when not everything goes as planned … .I needed it a few times already! I think being able to slow it down more and generate lift down there really adds some safety to a parakite! It also allows you to make more lift on no wind take offs, you have to run less to get airborne when your hands are at the right spot and you won’t stall it by accident. 

When flying straight the new one is slightly faster and steeper, but when you make some steep turns, it picks up a lot more speed then the old one. And it keeps the speed longer as well, so you can make even longer swoops and Flare forever:-)The Moustache 2 is also more reactive to weight shift and toggles inputs, even without the wingtip steering activated. With the wingtip steering on the shortest setting, it becomes very agile. Especially on the 13 you wanna be gentle when pulling your first barrel rolls, otherwise you end up making 2…I personally would prefer it even more agile in the bigger sizes, but sadly an 18 will never feel like a 13…you can’t cheat physics. 

One thing you will notice as well with the new moustache is that you feel the air more. It absorbs less, it gives you more feedback. I guess some like that and some might not. And the wingtips are not as stable anymore, the tips can collapse every now and then when soaring in bumpy conditions. The middle is as solid, but the tips are softer.
We decided to leave 2 attachment points on the new Moustache for the A-Lines. They come attached in the back as standart. If you want to trade in some collapse stability for speed and dive, you can ask your Pro Partner to set them to the front for you. It makes a noticeable difference and it’s still stable enough for normal conditions I think. On the front setting the dive is also less delayed when you go hands up. You can also adjust the wingtip steering and have it shorter or longer. For soaring I prefer it short, I like it when the wing tip brake line starts getting tension at the Left/Right mark on the risers. Be careful, that wingtip brake line is very far out and exposed, it’s easy to get caught while flying close.

Tuning the Moustache is really easy. You can make them quit a bit faster without sacrificing collapse stability. You also get quite a bite more dive out of them. I really like flying them like this. If you wanna do this, here is how it works. Keep in mind; if you make a mistake (brakes or Cs too short, reflex is gone and they will collapse very badly in turbulence). So here is what to do.

  1. Open up the larks head knot at the end of the C risers (make the C-risers 2cm longer)
  2. Add a larks head knot on the A-risers (shorten the A-risers 2cm)
  3. You made your wing now 4cm faster. That means you have to extend the brake lines by 12cm. (4cm x 3). Basically make the brake as long as possible. If you’re brake is too short, your wing is dangerous! (the wingtip brake can be shorter if you like it, thats not dangerous)

You can combine this riser tuning with moving the A-Lines forward. That’s how i like flying them the most:-) You get a really fast parakite that can still go very slow!

Flare Bandit

It’s not the first high aspect ratio parakite, but i fell like the first one with high performance. The Dunerider Scraper and Flow Albatroxx are amazing wings, but they miss some glide ratio and don’t convert speed into lift as you would expect with AR7. Plus they can’t fly slow. The Flare Bandit is different. It has a clear advantage in glide over the Scraper in the same size.  More glide means less sink, so you need less wind to soar. The windrange of the bandit is huge. It also has a higher topspeed than a Moustache 2 and it also still dives. A parakite should not only be fast but also go down when you fly fullspeed. Thats what seperates parakites from competition paragliders. They mostly go forward not down. The Bandit has enough dive that you can use it for speedflying in the smaller sizes. Anyone who tried speedflying with it had a huge smile after the first flight. Since the lines are longer than on a Line or Moustache, you can’t throw it left and right quickly, so you need a bit of space. But the speed is impressive. Since the wing is so efficient, your body position while speedflying has even more impact.

Where the Bandit really shines is converting speed into lift. Not only with max speed, but even at low speed it still generates lift. If you make a 360 hookturn and just slightly pull the brakes you will feel the G-force and you start rocketing towards the sky. Yes of course it does loopings. They are sick with it. You go up more than on a Moustache and you are higher over the wing since lines are longer. It’s awesome and f….scarry at the same time. It reminds me of doing wingovers on a CCC wing. The technique is the same, but the consequences are higher.

The Bandit also turns really nice! It has long brake travel and a very low hard clear stallpoint. But to steer you need very little input. You can fly wingovers with 5cm pull only, even on top of the brake range it works. It’s clearly more reactive than a Moustache, also to weightshift. Huge Wingovers are f..awsome with it, you really feel the energy the Bandit has! Compared to other parakites the slow speed is very impressive. When you think it’s gonna stall, it lifts you another meter when pulling down. With the 22 the stallspeed at 80kg tow is about 23km/h. EN-A certification requires less then 25km/h…:-) There is no other parakite that lets you fly that slow, Landings in no wind are super easy now. Even the 10m Bandit you can slow down well still.

Forward launching in zero wind conditions on mountains is easier than with any other parakite i have flown. If you put your hands low enough you will take off like a paraglider almost. You no longer need to look for a steep launch. It works best when not holding anything except the brake toggles to inflate it. As the Bandit rises, add a bit of brake tension so it inflates much nicer. Like this it’s fully inflated once it’s up, otherwise the ears are still collapsed and you have to push the brakes very low to open them up while running or later when flying. Most pilots don’t dare to have the hands low enough at the beginning when launching the Bandit. If the ears are still collapsed, the only way to open them is going down low with your hands. You can pump 100x at chest hight and it won’t help, but pulling down low once with your hands close to the body opens them instantly (while flying or when on the ground). Holding A and Bs for inflation works less well than on the M2. If you do so,  start running slowly. 

When flying the Bandit in turbulence you get more feedback than from a Moustache. It feels like if it’s more turbulent. It moves more and snakes around a bit. It might feel less solid than a stach, but it’s just the tipps that collapse sometimes. You will get used to and learn to trust it. The middle is rock solid, even if you just stay passively hands up without any active flying it’s very collapse stable. Yes it has a lot of aspect ratio, but it also has more reflex than any other wing from Flare to compensate for it. We flew in really nasty conditions on December 24 (only close to the ground because it was so turbulent) and most pilots including myself felt safer on the Bandit than on the Moustache! If you ever should get a huge asymmetric collapse or a full frontal, of course chances you have a cravat and a problem are going to be higher, no doubt. But the Bandit is designed that the middle is much more collapse stable then the tips, so you get warnings from the tips and frontal collapses are much less likely to happen. 

B-Stall using the killer Mushrooms works well as always. But it always ends up doing a 360 horshoe, which is a bit anoying as it keeps turning sometimes until you grab it. Check it carefull for lineovers bevore you launch again. The Lines are so short that it pulls the tips in when having the wing spread out straight and you are clipped in. For soaring it on the coast you need very little skills once in the air, the Bandit is almost easier to fly than the Moustache because of its huge speedrange and glide ratio. Specially on smaller and flat dunes it might be easier to soar the the stach. For doing wingovers, barrel rolls, spirals etc. the bandit is more demanding and it generates a lot of energy and G-Forces! But it’s still a parakite and barrel rolls really well.

Reverse launching the Bandit is clearly more demanding than a Moustache. It can shoot and plug you or collapse when coming up and you have to “pump” it open again. But actually pumping works not as good, it’s better to just pull the brakes slowly lower and lower instead of pumping. Do this while standing forward, makes it much easier! In strong wind we recommend doing cobra launch with it, that works really well, specially when you apply some brake on the lower side also while coming up.

Construction of the bandit;

It uses the same fabrics as the Moustache but has more rods. It has longer rods at the bottoms skin, all Nitinol. But the leading edge is made with the transparent nylon rods that might remember when they get bent. So pack the leading edge nicely when storing it for longer. Between flights you can squeeze it into a fastpack, that doesn’t hurt it. The Lines are unsheathed Kevlar, same as every 99% of all C, D and CCC Wings have. They clearly need a bit more attention to knots and are easier to snap on sharp stuff. But we wanted to make a high aspect ratio parakite with high performance, so we don’t wont to make compromise there. Once you fly one you will understand why:-)

The Moustache 2 is still a great wing and pilots love it. Specially the 13 and 15 sizes offer really nice “Go-Kart” feeling with the short lines, which is clearly missing a little with AR 7 on the bandit. But it’s safe to say the Bandit can do everything better than a Moustache 2 in the air. It glides better, it flies faster, it’s more responsive, it’s has more energy, it converts speed into lift better and it can fly even slower without stalling. 

Don’t let that high AR scare you and give it a try, otherwise you won’t believe it!

I did measure the speed of them with my 82kg take off weight at about 1500m sea level at 5° airtemp. (With A-Lines moved forward) Here are some values;
Bandit 22; Stallspeed around 23km/h – topspeed around 59
Bandit 19; Stallspeed around 26km/h – topspeed around 64
Bandit 16; Stallspeed around 28 km/h -topspeed around 71
Bandit 13; Stallspeed around 33 km/h -topspeed around 78
Bandit 10; Stallspeed around 37km/h – topspeed around 88

Flare Prop

The Prop has been developed specifically for Paramotoring. It has a lighter fabric then a Moustache, it has much bigger cell openings to inflate faster and it has quite a lot of tension on the rods. It has many common features with the Moustache 2, but it was developed totally separately. The Prop can fly very slow, it can handle a lot of brake tension without stalling. The goal was to reduce take off and landing speed as much as possible. On launch you still need to run more than with a classic wing, but at landing you can slow it down amazingly well, about like a normal glider I guess. You can use the Prop for soaring, but it inflates very fast and shoots a lot in strong wind. You better do a cobra launch with it and I would recommend setting both brake lines on the longest setting. (tip steering and normal brake line) The Prop goes really fast, i haven’t compared it to the Moustache 2 yet, but it might be a little faster even. 

U-Turn Razorblade

I only got to fly the 18 and the 15, but I didn’t really get to soar them. For sure they are superfast when going hands up and dive a lot. And they are not rollinstable. So when you fly straight at bestglide, they do go straight without starting to do wingovers by themself like the Moustache and the Mullets do. But they also don’t turn as nice, they are not very agile. Neither on the toggles nor with weightshift. A Moustache 2 is more responsive. The Razorblade has a very heavy and durable fabric. In no wind it needs a firm pull to come up. Then it wants to shoot and you have to catch it. When doing this, it’s super easy to stall it, the 4 wings I have flown both could not handle much brake line tension. The 15 could only handle 5 cm brake line pull (real brake line at trailing edge) before it stalled abruptly. The 18 was better but also not great. You can’t slow them down … .So toplandings can be tricky and in no wind landings will be fast. While soaring in light wind I could imagine that one might spin them accidentally. It clearly has reflex and the wing in itself is quite tensioned and stiff, very different than a Moustache for example. When doing steep turns the Razorblade generates a lot of speed and keeps the speed quite well. I think Flare Loops could work quite well with this one also. I think it’s a rather advanced wing that won’t suit everybody but can bring a big smile to the right pilots. By the way U-Turn, Level Wings, Flow and Dunerider all come from the same Factory, Aquadynamics in Sri Lanka. Phi and some others are also made there. Little Cloud and Vril Wings are made on the other side of the airport in Sky Sport Lanka factory.

Swing Wave

I got to fly the size 13 and 11 a few times on Kronplatz. It’s hard not to notice the similarity to the razorblade. The leading edge looks exactly the same, with no shark nose and the opening positioned far in front (good for max speed but bad for lowspeed). Very quickly you notice the Wave is built with much lighter fabric than the Razorblade, i think that helps a bit for launching it. But it needs a firm pull to rise up in no wind, if you try walking you will just drag it along the ground. Evan when reverse launching it feels like the A-lines don’t help it much coming off the ground. Ones it rises it comes up nice and it shoots less then the Razorblade, thanks to the RAST which delays the inflation of the back of the wing. For taking off you need speed, a lot of speed. And since it stalls very quickly without warning like the Razorblade, you don’t know how far you can pull the toggles to make lift. So you better don’t brake much and just run more. Flying is fun, its more reactive then a Razorblade since it has wingtip steering like the Moustache 2. It also has a different radius, the tipps are pulled down further to increase the roll. I felt the Wave was quite responsive to weightshift also. The canopy is quite stiff, it doesn’t move in itself much at all, i think that helps for responsiveness. The Speed and dive is good, it’s like a Razorblade. Since it has more aspect ratio than a Line, it’s clearly harder to keep it down on the terrain, you need to turn it more to stay down. When doing hookturns it also builts up a lot of speed, it gets really fast. But it doesn’t stay level after a steep turn, it starts to pitch up. So for swooping you have to carve it a lot to keep it down. Barrel rolls work well and are good fun with it! Also groundloops it does with ease. The stallspeed at landing is very high, you have to run a lot and it stalls without any warning just like the Razerblade. I played around with the length of the brake line. If you make it short, you get more warning before it stalls, but then you loose performance at best glide because you add brake to early. When making it long you have a better glide but no warning before the stall.

I almost crashed after doing a 540 hookturn landing uphill at Kronplatz on the 11 because the wing pitched up a few meters and then started diving again, which i know from the moustache. But because it stalls so early i barely could stop the dive without stalling it and i almost landed really bad….that was my last flight on a Wave!

Level Wings Fuze

I only got to try the Fuze 10, 12.5, 15 and 17.5 at home, so no soaring yet. The Fuze is the only parakite that doesn’t have the bottom pulley, so the ratio is 1 to 4 instead of 1 to 6. That obviously reduces the brake travel, so you need smaller inputs to turn or fly active and the stallpoint is also higher up. Because the brake line always goes directly to the trailing edge, you end up pulling less brake line before the wings stalls. That’s also noticeable on the Fuze, it gets noticeably harder before it stalls, but it still stalls easier then for example the Moustache 1. It is also missing a real sharknose, that would clearly help it a lot. The topspeed of the Fuze is good, it’s fast and dives well. Speed is similiar to a Moustache 2 in the same size. The Fuze reacts really well to toggle inputs, because it doesn’t have the lower pulley you don’t to pull down much to turn or shoot up. To weight-shift it doesn’t react as good as Moustache 2 does. It is also more delayed when you go hands up, it takes more time until it starts diving. 

But what pilots will like the most is the roll. It is rollstable and when you clip in the toggles to relax your arms it goes perfectly straight (at the least the 17.5) But once you start rolling or doing wingovers, you need very little input to keep going or to throw a barrel roll. That’s a lot of fun. You can do one after the other on the 15 with ease, they are even quite snappy when you come with enough energy. The wing feels smaller than it is when it comes to doing wingovers and barrel rolls. Even with weight shift only they work well on the 15 when you have the energy. I think that agility is the Fuze strongest point. That said it’s important to know that it spirals very stable. After one barrel roll it wants to go on and if you don’t stop it activly it will go into a crazy spiral and not stop unless you stop it, even when your hands up it stays in!
The Fuze is made out of rather heavy fabric, it has a lot of rods and feels rather heavy. It comes with some additional protection pads sewn over the leading edge rods on the last 10 rods or so at the wingtip. Very nice feature to protect your wing when doing stabi-touches in the sand. The Lines are the same as on a Moustache, sheeted dyneema which is good for the beach i think. The Fuze has long and stiff rods at the bottom sail on the cells that have line attachments. I think those rods in combination with the reflex airfoil give the wing a high rigidity and also a high collapse resistance i think. The A-lines are quite far back, that is also a good thing for stability. To get maximum dive and a better stall the Fuze has the B and C lines as long. When you are flying at max speed, the Bs seem to be almost as slack as the C and they are quite slack. So You are no longer connected to the wing when completely hands up. On most other parakites, the Bs are still slightly tensioned, so you still get some feedback on the toggles. Having some tension on the Bs also adds some reflex to the wing. Maybe the Fuze has so much reflex that it doesn’t need the tension on the Bs. I felt safe on it, it made a very collapse stable impression to me, but I haven’t flown it enough in turbulence to really tell. The 1 to 4 ratio sure helps with active flying, you need to pull less far down to support the wing when you feel it going slack, hence you react faster. What is special on the Fuze is the Angle of Attach distribution over the span. At Flare we always make the higher AoA in the middle and towards the tips the wings get faster with a lower AoA. That reduces the chances of frontals, you are more likely to get asymmetrics. The Fuze has more AoA towards the tips than in the middle, so there is a chance the middle collapses but the tips don’t. If that happens you will likely end up with a cravat in autorotation, which seems to have happend like this to a pilot while soaring on the coast. Since the Fuze is normally quite stable, chances are probably small for this to happen do. 

When comparing with the Moustache 2 in the same size, we found the speed and dive is about the same. The 15 Moustache 2 was slightly faster than the Fuze 15. If you tune the M2 so the B lines are slack like they are on the Fuze, the Moustache 2 has big advantage in speed and dive over a Fuze. The Moustache 2 also has a better glider ratio than the Fuze, which sure helps in low wind soaring. The Fuze makes a lot of lift in the wingtips also, that makes it rolly and fun to fly for barrel rolls, but it doesn’t convert speed into lift that great like a Moustache 2. I tried flying a Flare loop on the Fuze 15 and i made, but i had to deflate the wing. I don’t think it’s a great wing to fly flare loops, i think it’s missing performance and some energy conversion. 

I think the Fuze is a really fun wing. But the missing shark nose and missing bottom pulley has its price and makes the wing clearly more demanding and more physic as well. I heard from a heavy pilot that he needed a break after flying it for 20min because it was to hard on his arms.

Ozone Vapor

I didn’t get to try it yet…

Niviuk Jester

I never soared it but made a few sled rides with it. As always with Niviuk the quality is really nice for the price you pay! The Jester comes with all Nitinol rods, folded up really nice. It’s not light nor small but doesn’t have to be. The risers are made of black webbing and only “ropes” for the pulley-lines. They use a black- rope which is square not round. I’m curious to see how that one ages, if it shrinks less than the grey Dyneema “rope” most brands use so far. The Risers have a 1to5 ratio, same as the Flare Line or the Flow Albatroxx. That’s part of why the Jester has short travels, you need little inputs to turn it. It has quite a nice intuitive handling pilots will like. It also has a sharknose which helps it with the low speed. It does get hard before it stalls, but not as hard as Moustache 2. Maybe more like the M1. 

I didn’t get to fly it in turbulence much, but it makes a solid impression. It clearly has reflex and it can fly on the A-Lines only. I was a little disappointed of the speed and dive when going hands up. It feels a bit like the Flow Mullet 1 with the Split As on top, this one also didn’t have much speed and dive. The Moustache 2 clearly was much was faster and steeper going hands up. But the glide ratio of the Jester is great, it was no difference to a Moustache 2 which glides quite well. 

The leading edge openings are quite big on the Jester, i was thinking oh this might fill up “too quick” and shoot, but it don’t think it does. It seems to inflate rather slow and the tipps have a tendency to come first and make a horseshoe. I think you wanna put this very round on the ground to launch it.

Vril Wings Raptor

After writing this parakite review Vril Wings sent me a 16m Raptor to try. Vril Wings is a very small Austrian company, i don’t even know who designs the wings. But Mike Küng was involved with testing the Raptor. This parakite looks different from others. It has long lines and the middle is rather flat. Sadly i never got a nice proxy -soaring session in, only 20min at our local mountain cliff. But the raptor surprised me positively. It has enough reflex to be stable, it’s fast and it’s precise. It’s quite easy to fly, there is no unwanted roll. Wingovers are fun with the long lines, but barrel rolls don’t work well with such long lines. I didn’t get to compare it with other parakites, but i assume it’s close to a Moustache one in terms of speed, dive and glide. Sadly it’s also missing a sharknose, so it stalls rather quick once the brakes get pulled. Going slow it’s not its strenght. Also here it might be comparable with a Moustache one. It’s clearly better than a Razorblade or Swing Wave does. 

The A-Riser is made of webbing like classic paragliders but is super long. The whole risers looks like a Little cloud riser but in XL…nothing wrong with it but it’s hard not to notice the similarity. When you buy a Raptor, you get a pair of normal paragliding risers with it. I have no idea why anyone would wanna put them on.
In case you never heard of Vril wings; https://vril-wings.com

Windtech Dune

I also never got to try this one. It’s a spanish brand in case you never heard about windtech: https://www.windtech.es

Infexion Kiterisers

Dutch kitesurfer Evan Kruger has a company making kitebars, lines and now also his universal kiterisers that can be mounted on any paraglider. You might have seen his videos flying Enzos and Icepeaks with these weird risers that have a metal bar…jup that’s him. I got myself 3 pairs of those, they work great and can be fitted on any wing if you know how to…it’s easy to get it wrong and end up with an unstable unsafe glider do… But to be fair, for low wind soaring nothing beats an Enzo or an Icepeak. All the parakites on the market can’t keep up with a CCC wing when it comes to low wind. Glider ratio reduces sink, which helps you to stay up. It’s simple physics. Even a Moustache 26 and a Scraper or Albatroxx can’t keep up with CCC gliders that are fully maxed out to performance. Very low wind parakites are still to be made…if there is a market? Time will tell.
If you think about flying a paraglider with kiterisers keep in mind: Hands up is full speedbar. If you mount them on a paraglider that is still fairly stable at fullbar, this works fine for nice coastal conditions. If you mount them on a wing that is known not to be stable at fullbar, then fly it close to the ground, maybe even without a protector…might not be the smartest thing to do. Definitely don’t go fly those home made parakites in thermals…or in the mountains. For those who know what they are doing, flying a Enzo or Icepeak on Evans kiterisers is the shit, you will love it. Evan has a chart on his website that shows some settings for some common wings that he has converted already. I found the EN-Ds to be quite a lot easier to fly than CCC wings, also with kiterisers. Maybe start with an EN-D and not with a CCC…

https://www.infexion.eu/

Ask us for an offer if you wanna get a parakite, we sell other brands as well, not only Flare. 

One last tip; Keep the hands as close as possible to your body for max lift. When flaring with your arms out like Jessus your parakite will stall at a much higher speed… Same for the take off with your hands way in the back, not ideal…

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