Level Wings Flame

Level Wings Flame Review – Our Opinion

Level Wings have designed a pure speedflying wing with an outstanding glide performance. As they released it, it had a clear glide advantage over all other speedwings. Now the difference to a Mirage RS 2 or a Rapido 3 is pretty small in calm air. The Flame has an amazing pop; it does a great job of converting speed into lift, much more than a regular speedwing. It’s doesn’t have a real speedwing profile, it’s a mix of a miniwing profile and a speedwing. The Flame also has more aspect ratio than the other speedwings. A Flame has 4.4, while a Rapido and a Mirage have around 3.8. The Flame is equipped with trimmers, but they don’t make the wing go much steeper. The trims on a Mirage or Rapido are more effective. So the flame lacks a bit glide range. It glides really well for a speedwing, but misses the dive. It also doesn’t swoop horizontal when coming out of a turn, it always wants to level up, so you have to keep carving turns to keep in on the ground. The flame became popular for coastal soaring in strong winds, thx to its speed and collapse stability. It’s a very rolly wing that offers a lot of Go-Kart feeling when soaring.

Advantages

• good glide
• Great “go-cart” feeling (high roll and short lines, great for barrel rolls)
• Very reactive to toggle, back riser, and  weight-shift inputs.
• Surprisingly stable in turbulences with open trimmers.

Good to know

• High stall point with trims closed. Be careful while taking off and landing with trims fully closed, specially with the small sizes.
• Difficult to control in strong wind. It likes to shoot, but stalls quickly when too much brake is used. Learn to ground-handle it!
• What it offers in better glide, it’s missing in dive. It levels out quickly from a hookturn and doesn’t stick to the ground while swooping. To keep it on the ground you must do a turn in your swoop, even when highly loaded.
• When speedriding, lines can’t go slack, otherwise it collapses quickly and nastily. (it’s made for speedflying…)
• It’s not as bulletproof as other speedwings in turbulence, but surprisingly stable for a wing with this performance. Collapses can be more nasty than with regular speedwings, meaning with bigger asymmetric collapses it’s more likely to turn away.
• Compared to a Miniwing (small paraglider): The Flame doesn’t quit have the glide of a Miniwing, but it’s more collapse stable. Compared to a small paraglider there is 1.5-2 L/D missing.
• Compared to a Moustache; The Moustache has more speed and dive and can glide better. But it’s missing this Go-Kart feeling and it doesn’t barrel close as snappy and fast as a Flame.

Tech specs and marketing text

https://www.levelwings.com/flame