Gracchio Mk3 PilotIntermediate
The Gracchio range is entering its third evolution!
Forgiving, Super Fun, incredibly performant for its aspect ratio, the Gracchio Mk3 is the direct Revolution of its predecessor.
An identical concept pushed to what the actual technologies allow us to!
A super Toy to progress with a lot of fun and safety!
Design: Unchaind your flying!
Designing an accessible glider, fun to fly, safe to progress and performant enough to keep up pilot motivation is a challenge!
The Gracchio Mk3 will be your best partner for an happy progression!
We kept the Aspect ratio identical to the previous version with 5.3 and the cell counts at 49 cells, for a perfect accessibility and compacity!
Thanks to its very original airfoil, the Gracchio Mk3 will provide an incredible glide feeling combined with very high stability: It cut through the air like no other B glider on the market!
Skin tensions have been rebalanced to offer a smoother ride!
Lines remain sheathed except on the uppers.
- Smart design- no unneeded features, simplicity at its finest!
- LC inflation: 100% control of the rise, the wing strictly follows the pilot's decision!
- New airfoil with very high stability, even accelerated, and incredible glide feeling!
- Mini-Ribs for full optimization of the glide.
- Special skin tension to limit collapse spreading and improving efficiency.
- New lines arrangement for a better load spreading on the canopy to increase stability and balance.
- Improved line consumption, lower than any 2.5 liner of the market.
- Top and Bottom in 20D- internal structure in Porcher 32gr fabric to ensure compacity and durability.
- Large number of sizes for a perfect weight range choice!
- Unparalleled energy self-management.
- Incredible balance of efficiency and safety
- Great peace of mind for a faster progression and a lot of fun, 100% HappyFlying!
As a progression wing, the Gracchio Mk3 should be supporting your evolution in the flying world!
We believe that a progression wing should be supporting your evolution with as less limits and as much fun as possible.
The Gracchio Mk3 remains simple to fly with no overreaction, progressivity, easy take off, easy management in windy conditions.
As a real LittleCloud glider, it’ll feature our unmatched pitch stability, direct/instant handling!
Instant reactions mean a very fast understanding of pilot actions!
Pitch stability makes all the ground handling easier, flying more simple and more peaceful!
We believe a talky glider is essential for the pilot and its safety to understand the environment he’s flying in!
The Gracchio Mk3 clearly indicates the air quality, to help you making good decision on your position and flying timing.
Target :
The Gracchio Mk3 is dedicated to pilot in progression.
Its multiple size range allows the pilots to choose the best wingload according to their experience, their site, their preference.
Within the low half, it’ll be more adapted to low experience pilots or pilots looking for a maximum float to fly in weak conditions.
On the superior half, the more experienced pilots will love its dynamic.
In both cases, no pilot will feel a lack of speed/wind penetration or handling, the “SuperGlide” feeling will remain incredible!
The MK3 will be the perfect upgrade for the Mk2 pilots who are searching for more performance without being ready or don’t want to move up category!
This would be “EN B pilots” in terms of piloting demandness (according to the EN B Class pilot requirement definition).
Kiterisers Compatibility :
Gracchio Mk3 is 100% compatible with our Kiterisers system for soaring.
Kiterisers bring new sensations, improve accelerated flying understanding, an easy retrofit that you can change anytime.LittleCloud risers :
LittleCloud risers :
Since 2012, we introduce a Y risers that can be connected to each other with a clip.
The purpose of this design was to simplify its handling, reduce the possibility of over pulling the “A” during inflation and being able to connect to your wing with the glider still unpacked for those windy days.
Thanks to their compacity, they are a piece of cake to prepare, untangled and connect to the harness.
They come with speed system, trimmers, both depending on the glider.
For the trimmers version, this Y shape allow an easier manipulation of the trims, as they are set up higher.
They are made of 12mm Kevlar webbing, light and ultra resistant!
The brake handles are held in place by raised magnets, making them easy to clean.
Q/A :
Our prices are lower than most of our competitors, does that mean the gliders are lower quality?
As you can see, our prices are lower than our competitors!
It’s definitely not a question of materials: fabric, lines, webbing, thread, maillons… all we use to produce our gliders are from the best suppliers on the market!
We don’t make any saving on that!
The factory we cooperate with have some of the highest quality standards!
Quality controls occur all along the process to detect any defect as soon as possible.
Our service is at top level, we have a 24h email respond policy, our aftersales service take care of all the problems you guys are facing (easy as we have such little amount)…
The lack of certification is one reason, but not the main. The average cost of certification is less than 150€ per glider on its lifetime.
One of the most important saving happen with the design itself!
We do work very hard to keep designs simples, we don’t run for the easiest way by adding special features to solve problem as a patch! We deeply investigate and solve it at its root!
No gimmick means less production costs, more reliability, more precision.
We run the company very efficiently, focusing on the most important things!
We also don’t exaggerate our pricing and offer mega discount after, we believe this is very unfair and very disrespectful for our customers and our gliders!
Certification ?
The Gracchio Mk3 is not EN certified. Only the EN 926-1 load test has been achieved.
The Non certification in flight is a deliberate choice of LittleCloud.
We think this EN certification is not a guarantee of safety for the pilot. In no case does this certification protect the pilot from flying incidents/accidents.
These EN Tests are done in calm air with initiated manoeuvres which do not show the behaviours of gliders in real life: modern gliders are very collapse resistant and their behaviour after a flying incident in a rowdy air mass is very far from what EN tests are showing.
We test our gliders in real life for hours and hours in order to evaluate their real capabilities and behaviours.
We take full responsibility to offer impeccable glider’s behaviours and advise you as honestly as possible on the skills required for their use.
Flying remains an aeronautical activity, the gravity factor is the same as any aircraft.
Only the pilot, his decisions (weather, gear, flying routes), and his margins can guarantee a maximum safety.
Why not 2.5-liner?
2.5-liner is in our eyes the worse compromise of both world!
The reduction of line support on the tip increases risk of cravat, because of the larger gap between lines row.
On our tests, the homogeneity of the 2.5-liner configuration wasn’t at the level of our 3-liner one.
To finish with, our 3-line setup is actually consuming less meter of lines than our competitors 2.5-liner.
Why Nylon rods over Nitinol?
The use of nitinol is requiring a lot more attention to reinforcements at this is a very nervous material, which stresses restlessly the fabric!
This means the weight you save on one side will be lost on the other.
Packing volume isn’t an issue either with nylon rods, because we use a reduce amount of long ones.
Why no B to C bridging?
Marketing saying you need a B to C to pilot your 3 liners like a 2-liner is a marketing scam!
With or without, you always deform your airfoil (it’s a question of B/C riser legs travel VS B/C tabs position/distance-Pure geometry)!
This is not an issue if your airfoil is designed to work with these deformations!
The pressure you need to apply to move the B when you pull on the C is huge, this means you lose a lot of precision, a lot of reaction time and it’s tiring!
If you want a 2-liner feeling, fly a 2-liner!
So with direct control on the Cs only, you are faster to react, your inputs are more precise, it’s less tiring and the risers set up is “simpler”. On top, this allows you to play with C stalls to go down!
What about passive safety?
Passive safety is a very vague concept !
We can help the forgiveness of the glider in having a large tolerance to the stall (large brake travel, strong force required to stall the wing…), a strong pitch stability to prevent the glider to shoot too far (with a limit of course), a neutral glider that do instantly what the pilot is asking for.
But we can’t build/design gliders that will correct/avoid all the time pilot mistakes in inappropriate air masses.
Warning :
As a paragliding manufacturer, we are working hard to push our product development to maximize safety!
Over the years, research has brought significant improvements!
But this is only a benefit to the pilots if they are not using this extra gain to push the limits further!
Why? Simply because when they’ll be reached, the consequences will be stronger!
The past years, we clearly see a trivialization of flying stronger and stronger conditions, stronger and stronger winds.
As great improvements are made on the gliders, they won’t change the reality of the physics!
The best safety will remain your decisions! Improve your skills, improve your judgment on your capacities to understand where you are flying will help improve your decisions!
Accessibility
Passive safety
Performance
Robustness
Hike & Fly
Xc Capacity
Soaring
Fun
TISSU
top and bottom: Dominicotex 20D
CLOISONS
Porcher 32 et 27 Gr/m2 hard finish
SUSPENTES (LIGNES)
uppers: DC60 lyros
mids: 7850 edelrid
Lowers: 7343 edelrid
RISERS: SPEEDBAR
12cm
