The Kiss is an ultralight, small-packing wing for mountain adventures. Simple, safe and fun, its roots are in hike-and-fly but it’s an excellent soaring and thermalling wing for lighter pilots, or loaded up in the hands of more experienced pilots, it’s an agile, big-grin machine, perfect for strong-wind soaring.
PACK SIZE
The Kiss can be comfortably packed to the following dimensions:
16m: 30cm x 30cm x 13cm
18m: 35cm x 35cm x 15cm
Target
It’s 5:30am. The birds are singing and your sleeping bag is damp, speckled with droplets. The sun is just kissing the top of the cliffs above you; they are rimmed with gold. A few more minutes of snooze and it will start to warm your bivvy spot and dry the wet grass. Time for coffee. It’s a new day, the adventure continues!
The Kiss was made for pilots who love to wake up in the mountains with their paraglider; to hike hills or climb snowy peaks.
It’s mountain-hardy, made from light but durable materials with very wide weight ranges for maximum versatility. The smallest, 16m size can be flown by 50kg pilots with excellent passive safety; but it can also be flown at 90kg, where it will be fast and dynamic, the realm of experienced pilots.
Bruce's notes
The Kiss was initially conceived for a group of BGD Team pilots who needed a light but rugged mountain wing for a project in the Alps this summer. They needed something easy to carry and simple to use in wide-ranging conditions, that could handle tough mountain terrain and tricky launches.
The Kiss is a unique design, not based on any other BGD glider. We wanted a simple and elegant structure, to give it the uncomplicated launch and outstanding ease of use. For the project, 16m and 18m sizes were ideal – small to carry, light and versatile to cope with different wind strengths. The sub-70kg pilots in the team will fly the 16; 70kg+ will take the 18.
We opted for Porcher 27 cloth for the sail and ribs, with 32 for extra durability on the upper leading-edge, and designed the leading edge with minimal use of plastic reinforcements to achieve easy launch characteristics without compromising its packability.
The structure was optimised to save weight, with new Twin B-tabs, developed with help of our CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis software. Narrow webbing risers with a speed system and weight-saving low-friction rings, and unsheathed Kevlar top and middle lines complete the spec.
Note: As standard the Kiss will be delivered with steel maillons, but pilots can shave a further 80g by replacing these with softlinks (which can be ordered separately).