Macpara Pasha 6 review

Since I bought this wing I think I have put a good 18-20 hours on it having around 40 take-offs and landings. The flights were all in alpine environment, and exclusively in Romanian Carpathians mountains in various condition. From top bottom with various size passengers to strong and narrow thermals as they usually are around the city of Brasov in the spring. And so – how does this wing feels like?

The first thing that came to my mind after my first flights is that this is NOT a easy going wing. The tandems I flew before there were all either very dull, either extremely easy to handle, in other words would make you feel like in a flying sofa. But Macpara Pasha 6 did not, or at least not from the very first flights. Is a wings that require some time to get accustomed with, with a light pressure in the brakes (for a tandem of course) and quite lively movement of roll and pitch – again, compared with other tandems, not with a solo wing.

The take off is a non event, the wing comes superbly above our head, not much pressure on A’s is needed. This is for sure also an advantage of using light materials. So, this is a strong point for Pasha 6. Another strong point is definitely its ability to climb into thermals. She likes to center the core without much effort, and is effective even in weak lift.  In strong lift, one will need higher backing angle to maintain the wing into the core, and is not unusual for the external wingtip to flip around. As I have mentioned a light pressure on the controls, this is another advantage that can make a good pilot and a strong stomach passenger stay for as much as they wish.

After a nice climb with a good thermal, here we are on the cloud base with a big smile, in other words a Happy Cloud mood and the time to push for the next thermal. But what to push? The trimmers release, of course! I did so and the smile disappear. I realize that the 47 km/h max speed given in the wing manual is exactly this – a 47 km/h… It is basically the speed of an ENA wing and nothing more, and not much helpful for a quick transition. In my very personal opinion this would add as a minus for this otherwise beautiful Macpara Pasha 6 tandem.

And here it comes the landing. Well, you don’t need a lot of speed to flare this lightweight construction wing, in fact is quite easy to have always a successful landing with Pasha 6. Againg I found that learning its tricks on landing is not as intuitively as I initialy immagine, but once you understand the required speed and altitude for best flare, the wing will listen carefully pilot inputs.