Nova Codex – First Impressions

We have flown it only a little bit in thermals yet. But after watching some tip collapses on B-gliders close by and never got one ourself while not flying very active, shows that this wing is truly collapse stable, even in the tips, like Nova is claiming it should be. Even while soaring in really strong winds for 2 hours on speedbar, the Codex never even blinked with a wingtip. The Codex is the easiest 2-Liner we have flown so far. It is very easy to fly. We believe there are high-B wings out there that need more attention! It seems to have some Mentor 7 genes; it feels very comfortable in turbulence. It makes you feel very safe. It seems very pitchstable, it doesn’t shoot much at all.

It is easy to turn, it comes around quickly and sometimes needs to be stopped with the outside brake so it won’t dive. The brake lines are set quite long. We shortened them about 7cm. If you want to do the same, just be aware that the wing will loose a lot of collapse stability if trailing edge is pulled a tiny bit while flying on bar…so make sure you don’t shorten it too much! But after shortening the brake lines, we really like the handling of the Codex. It’s a very agile glider and really nice to thermal.

We did some comparison with a Photon S and the XS Codex. We expected it to perform well but not beeing able to keep up with a Photon. We were really suprised that id can keep up with a Photon in Trim when it comes to glide, but it’s trimmed a little slower than a Photon. On fullbar, the Photon doesn’t go any faster, what really surprised us, but it has a slight advantage in glide. It also seems to climb well, we did not find a difference yet compared to a Photon which is known to climb really well.

What pilots love on the Photon is that it’s so roll and yaw stable when flying on Bar. This is not the case on the Codex, you can’t fly fullbar and let got the handles, if you do you will soon end up in another direction…you need to keep one hand on the B-handle at least and give tiny inputs to stop roll and to adjust direction sometimes.

We think it’s totally fine to step up to a Codex when your comfortable on your High-B glider. As a general rule of thumb we only ever suggest stepping up, if you can fly XC on strong days without getting frontals and big asymmetrics anymore.

What we like

• Very collapse stable in trim and on bar
• Amazing performance in trim and on bar
• Climbs well
• Very easy to fly in turbulence air
• Very little Aspect Ratio for a 2-Liner
• Agile, easy to turn in thermals
• Very pitch stable, not much shooting forward, very comofortable in turbulence
• Nitinol rods
• Semilight construction
• Amazing performance for such an easy wing

Good to know

• Pressure on B-handles is rather high
• Speedbar pressure is also rather high
• Starts to roll and yaw when flying on bar, you need to keep one hand at the handle to keep it straight
• The concertina bag that comes with it sucks
• Size XXS is planed, Nova is working on it

Technische Daten

https://www.nova.eu/de/gleitschirme/codex/