Wing movement

[DaveD]

My D3 fin has a few different places to mount the wing.  I was wondering what are the effects when moving the wing lower on the fin or moving it toward the tail.  That would be the only movement, same angle, no changes to the fin, not even flipping the wing.  Thanks, Dave

[mopowpow]

I was wondering the same when I got my new Nomad RC.  Also are people running the wing up or down?  I left mine up, but was running it down on my Monza.

[Old MS Accout]

DaveD,

That is a to each his own feel. That is one thing I have not played around with alot. I know that a few guys like to ride them down and away. Bruce B uses an old OB wing and runs it close to the bottom of his ski. That is somthing to do on a hot day at the lake when you have time. Move it around and take a spin at an easy line to see how it feels. move it frrom there and try it again.

 

 

[tsixam]

Ifound this on Nicholls, a Kris Lapoint article posted by ktm300:

Where you place the wing on the fin makes a big difference–no, make that a huge difference. Even on the same ski, you may position it differently than another skier would place it. It takes plenty of trial and error to find the optimum location, but it’s worth the effort. Here are some general guidelines for adjusting your wing position:

Moving the west wing toward the rear (putting the trailing edge of the wing about 0.5 in. From the rear of the fin blade) pushes the ski out in front of you in the turn and makes the ski finish the arc more quickly. This is especially good if your ski tends to finish behind you at the end of the turn.

Moving the wing forward, to about middle of the fin blade makes the ski stay in the turn longer and helps keep it underneath you while finishing the turn.

Moving the wing up the blade, toward the bottom of the ski, lets the ski roll up on edge easier in the pre-turn and may slow the ski slightly more than a lower placement.

Lowering the wing placement provides more stability. The ski feels more locked in and is also harder to roll up on edge during the pre-turn.

Wing angle is a totally separate issue. If you are using a wing, it has got to have some downward angle. The minimum is about 5 degrees and the maximum about 124 degrees. Common knowledge says the more angle, the better the ski slows down and the more drag the ski encounters while traveling across wakes. I don’t disagree with this, but wing angle plays another important role–it also affects how the ski turns. More wing angle promotes rounded constant-radius turns, while less angle yields a turn that’s slower to start with but very hard to finish. Most skiers like the characteristics of more angle on their off-side turns, and less angle on their on-side turns.

Like a lot of things, with fine tuning your ski you must find the best compromise. Spend a lot of time trying new locations and angles you think might not work. You may be surprised how much difference it will make.

I have tried different wing placements, but I can say that I feel any major differents.

 Tsixam 

[DaveD]

Great information.  I don't get enough time in the course to play with set-ups.  It's a better use of my skiing time to research fin changes before taking up course time trying a change.  One or two passes to see if I like the change then spend the rest of my course time trying to get off the tail so I can stop these "station wagon" turns.  22off shouldn't be causing me this much of a problem.

 By the way John, the X5 rocks!!/vanillaforum/js/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-smile.gif