On 4 March 2022, Nova Team Pilot Toni Brügger flew a 213.97km FAI triangle in Ticino, Switzerland on an EN-A Nova Aonic.
Nova are calling the flight an “unofficial EN-A World Record”. The flight took nine hours and 10 minutes, at an average speed of 23.68km/h. Toni regularly flies big distances on EN-A and B wings, using a race-style pod harness. He says he flies full-bar a lot, as the wings are so collapse-resistant, and are well behaved when they do collapse.
In an interview with Nova, Toni said: “I have really come to appreciate stress-free flying with simple gliders – especially in turbulent conditions, which is what you mostly have on epic days. This gives me more time to make the right decisions and still be fit and relaxed after ten hours. In addition, a large, well loaded low-end EN-B, and also the Aonic, flies very well with a top-class harness. I don’t need anything else”.
But is he not tempted to go up a wing class or two for potentially more distance? “I am not sure if that would mean I would really fly further. The performance differences between wing classifications are somewhat small. Only two-liners are significantly faster”.
