WHOOSH TM * Airfoil Speedbar Wheel Hubs with wheels (Patent Pending)

Put six-inch wheels on your Aluminum Airfoil Speedbar Basetube!

Now available in both Moyes/Airborne and Wills Wing versions!

Hang Gliding manufacturers have brought some really great hardware to the hang gliding market over the years, and the current airfoil 'standard base tubes' on the Wills Wing Talon, Sport 2 and the U2, and on the Moyes Lightspeed and Litesport, are something that we would have only dreamed about a few years ago. Who would have thought that an airfoil speedbar basetube would trickle down to the recreational glider market so quickly?

Just one problem, that I see: There is no alternative round basetube option available, and there was no good way to mount wheels directly on the airfoil basetube until now. We've designed something really great to solve that problem.

Members of Team Raven collaborated on the WHOOSH TM * Airfoil Speedbar Wheel Hubs (Patent Pending) that you see here. The design criteria was simple, but the engineering was challenging: To fabricate a machined plastic hub that would be flexible enough to wrap around and close on the airfoil basetube like a clam shell, that wouldn't easily slide sideways, and that would accommodate either of the two most popular bolt-together wheel types in hang gliding use today. Oh, yeah, and it has to allow for the normal use of the VG line.

Since this part isn't injection-molded, each hub has to be machined out of a solid block of white nylon. We did everything that we could to simplify the machining of this part, so as to keep the production costs down. Still, like everything else in hang gliding that is built in batches of a few dozen at a time, and made in America, this wheel adapter will be fairly pricey. But, hey, this is hang gliding, need I say more?

* WHOOSH: Wheel Hubs, Out of the Ordinary, Streamlined Holes! (Patent Pending)

FAQs:

Is this a complete set?

Yes. This set includes two WHOOSH! Wheel hubs and two modified wheels.

What is the diameter of the wheels?

A bit over six inches (6") in diameter.

Wills Wing or Moyes/Airborne Airfoil Speedbar Basetube?

The airfoil speedbar basetubes on the market come in two sizes, and you'll find that other manufacturers are using one or the other of these same two basetubes on their gliders. The Wills Wing airfoil basetube is about one inch (1") thick with a blunt trailing edge, and the Moyes/Airborne airfoil basetube is about three-quarters of an inch (3/4") thick with a pointy trailing edge. They are both a little more than 1.75 inches in length (1.800 versus 1.880"), and only about 1/16" apart in this measurement, you're better off measuring the thickness of the basetube to determine which type you have.

A complete 'regular' set of wheels plus hubs is ready-to-use on Wills Wing's aluminum basetube, or ready-to-use on the Moyes/Airborne aluminum basetube.  (Buyer must specify!) You may have to move your VG cleat a bit, you may not.

Can I just buy the airfoil hubs, and use the black/red wheels that I already own?

FYI, the black and red bolt-together wheel that spins on our WHOOSH TM wheel hub has been modified for this application. It has had the center opening widened by approximately 2/10 inch or 5 mm (?) by our machinist. This was necessary to make the whole device large enough to fit around the airfoil basetube. So, to anticipate the question that some bidders will ask: No, your current black/red wheels won't fit on our hubs, you'd have to machine them. That's why we include modified wheels along with the hubs as a set.

Carbon fiber airfoil speedbar basetube?

Probably not compatible. We have no way of knowing whether these wheels will fit properly on any of the wide variety of carbon-fiber airfoil speedbar basetubes, so please don't hit the 'BUY' button unless you're sure that this is the product that you want.

Installation tips: