The Millennium entered production as of the end of December, 1997. As of November, 1999, there were close to 50 Millenniums (Millennia?) delivered; and as of April 5th, the backlog of orders has finally disappeared, allowing new buyers to have a glider with custom colours in about three weeks. There is also a Control Frame version under development.
From the BrightStar factory in early 1997: "The Millennium is like an entry-level version of the Swift that is targeted at flex wing pilots who want a safer, higher performing wing. We focused on improving handling qualities, transportability, lower weight, and lower cost in the design of the Millennium because we feel these are the most critical concerns for flex-wing pilots considering a rigid wing."
Millennium specifications, pictures, and company information are available from Steve Morris, a member of the design team. There are more pictures at: the same site.
Here is some information, including pictures, released in mid-1998 on the Millennium by the Sonoma Wings Hang Gliding Club, available at: http://metro.net/blacet/sw/mill.html
Here is the web page of the Western U.S. Distributor, Thin Air Designs.
Here are some impressions from a pilot, Rick Cavallaro , who visited the factory in mid-1997.
Here are some initial flight impressions from John Borton, then an independent pilot but now a distributor for the Millennium.
Here are some flight impressions from Mark 'Forger' Stucky, a NASA test pilot.
Here are some first soaring flight impressions from Deane Williams.
Here are some first flight impressions from Paul Gazis.
Here is a press release from Bright Star about an in-flight structural failure of the Millennium production prototype.
Press releases from Bright Star on a Millennium accident and preventative measure owners can take.
Note: These photos are © BrightStar Hang Gliders.
Here are some photos of Rick Cavallaro's new Millennium (serial. no. 7).
Stephen Bannasch's look at the Millennium.
World Rigid-wing record holder Ramy Yanetz' Millennium photo gallery. Ramy reports he flew a rudder-pedal equipped Millennium (John Borton's) and that it was easier to fly and coordinated well. He was told the pedals can be retrofitted to existing gliders by the factory and shouldn't cost much. He tried them on a 115-mile (185 km) flight on the Easter long weekend from the Tracy airport in the San Francisco Bay area, having released from a truck tow at under 300m AGL.
From: Stephen J Morris [SMTP:mlbco@sirius.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 1999 10:08
To : hang-gliding@lists.utah.edu
Cc : airHOG@thinairdesigns.com
Subj: Millennium flight envelope
Some people have asked me what the operating speeds for the Millennium are and how they were derived. We use the sailplane design guidelines listed in the Joint Airworthiness Requirements for sailplanes (JAR 22) for defining the flight envelope. The numbers listed below are for the Millennium without fairing. The dive speed (Vd) is a calculated number and need not be demonstrated in flight. Vdf is a flight demonstrated speed, flown at low g levels. Vne is 0.9 times Vdf.
Millennium @ sea level 180 lb pilot. All speeds are equivalent airspeeds:
We oversized the structure to handle a maximum maneuver load at 65 mph (with 1.5 safety factor) so that we would have extra margin against breaking the glider at the calculated Vne of 65 mph. Please bear in mind that the airloads increase with the square of the flight speed yielding the following results:
| Speed (mph) | 23.6 | 54.3 | 65 | 80 | 100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum g attainable | 1.0 | 5.3 | 7.6 | 11.5 | 18.0 |
Maximum g is achieved by stalling the glider at the specified speed, i.e. at 80 mph a full aft stick motion will produce 11.5 g assuming the wings don't break. These numbers show how easily one can over stress a low wing loading rigid wing aircraft simply by flying fast and pulling g's.
Steve Morris
Bright Star Gliders, Inc.
Subject: Winglets
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 12:10:26 -0700
From: "Vachss, Frederick"
To: rigid-wing@lists.utah.edu
It's been suggested here that the winglets on the Mill don't have much of a performance impact except in increasing high speed drag. This isn't really the case.
The tiny winglets that were popular on flex wings a few years back did little except improve yaw stability and maybe improve general handling a bit. The much larger winglets on the Mill do provide yaw stability (and a place to hang the rudders), but equally important they add effective span.
A rule of thumb is that the effective span of an aircraft with properly designed winglets is the actual span plus half the total winglet height. The actual span of the the Mill is only 37-38.5 feet (depending on whether you measure to the winglet attachment points or include the horizontal component of the tilted winglets). In addition to this, however, the two 3 foot tall winglets add a total of 3 feet to the effective span - or 2 feet with the new reduced height winglets.
This means that the span of the aircraft used in calculate sink rate, L/D and all the performance parameters we care about should be about 40-41 feet. This is why the Mill glides with the hot new hybrids like the ATOS and GB even at low speeds when you'd expect a 42 foot span wing to stomp all over a 37 footer.
As has been pointed out by others, however, a bigger wing is better only at lower speeds. This is why Bright Star felt they could chop a foot off the winglets (for the nominal purpose of reducing winglet flutter tendency) without hurting overall performance. The winglet size reduction cost a little bit on the low speed end but gave a commensurate benefit in high speed performance due to the reduced drag.
Admittedly, the original winglets on the Mill are bigger than they need to be since the newer reduced size versions seem to work just fine. Given my personal bias toward low speed performance, however, I'm in no hurry to replace my big ones with the shorties. In a race in strong conditions, however, the new shorties would be the way to go.
Fred Vachss
From Steven Morris: "We are playing around with a new version of the Millennium that has a bigger wingspan (39 ft) and a smaller hang cage. This version is optimized for max L/D with a fairing (soon to be fitted) and the flight testing has shown excellent results so far. The performance fully faired should be very close to a Swift's. We may offer it as a new product, but since we don't have jigs for all the parts of this new design, the price will be higher than a standard Millennium (probably in the range of $11.5k to $12k)." For more information, contact Steven Morris.
An additional detail: The cage is raised much closer to the wing for improved visibility and is also angled 8° downward. The frontal area of the cage is greatly reduced.
