Jan 31, 2013, 8:04 AM
Post #1 of 16
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Tony SuperMach One
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Buying a new wingsuit, and found a good deal on with a SuperMach One, and was wondering if anyone here had any flight experience with it and could possibly compare it to other wingsuits currently in production?
E.G is it a super high forward speed suit? Comparable to a modern PF Ghost or a S-Bird?
Thanks for the input! Blue skies
DSE (D 29060)
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Jan 31, 2013, 8:44 AM
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It's a very good suit. It's not quite as smooth as the newer series suits, but it's also a little less twitchy, too. I have one and fly it from time to time. The SM1 is similar to a Ghost. Not all SM1 are the same, there was a period where they seemed to be constantly being adjusted. Can fly quite fast if you know how to use your body. I've never flown one of the EG suits, but they do appear to be well-made.
I've owned both. They're both great suits, but you'll get better performance off an S-bird, for sure. It's not a huge difference, but it's noticeable.
One thing to think about is the "-bird" modification. For a while, Tony was retrofitting old Machs, Super Machs, etc. with replacement arm wings that have the scalloped wing shape found in the various "-bird" wings (e.g., it would turn a Super Mach into - more or less - an S-bird). I don't know if he's still doing that, but at the time it was $400 for a significant suit improvement. It's something to consider and talk to Tony about if you're serious about getting that suit.
How many wingsuit jumps have you done? Any suit in the Super Mach One class or larger are for experienced wingsuit pilots. These suit demand attention and are not meant for beginners. I only ask due to your profile jump # being 260
Thanks for all the feedback y'all, I appreciate. I'm leaning on the side of buying it and jumping it for a while (>year) as of now.
I'm still jumping a T-bird (and will be until I am close to a 100 WS jumps in it), I was just debating wherever or not it made sense to buy an older higher-performance suit, and progress more in said higher performance suit before moving to a top-range V4 or comparable, or buying a new V4 or comparable and jumping the T-bird until said suit arrives.
I personally figured that the price difference between buying a used older SM1 more than outweighed the price/performance difference between the SM1 and the V4. Unless I severely underestimated the performance and quality of the SM1.
In my experience, the idea of just buying it and holding on to it until a much later date goes right out the window once it is in your hands. At least that is exactly what happened when I did one of those kind of purchases.
I tried a supermach one when I only had 10 ws jumps, The way the wings are made my arms pin up due to the air pressure in freefall. I managed to scare myself and practice my flatspin recovery skills. I currently jump a pf havok, the wing size is about the same but the wing goes down to the knee resulting in a lot less pressure on the arms. The havok is very stable. I've managed to stabilze after a bad exit doing a ws rodio while keeping my passenger. Granted the supemach one was way above my skill level my arm streangth hasn't changed.
I'm still jumping a T-bird (and will be until I am close to a 100 WS jumps in it), I was just debating wherever or not it made sense to buy an older higher-performance suit, and progress more in said higher performance suit before moving to a top-range V4 or comparable, or buying a new V4 or comparable and jumping the T-bird until said suit arrives.
Why do you feel you need to jump from a T-Bird onto a high performance suit? Your text suggests you are considering getting a V4 next, or basicially an older top performance suit. Do the mid-range suits (e.g R-Bird) not offer anything of benefit to you , your flying requirements, or skills progression?
DSE (D 29060)
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Feb 1, 2013, 3:32 PM
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Thanks for all the feedback y'all, I appreciate. I'm leaning on the side of buying it and jumping it for a while (>year) as of now.
I'm still jumping a T-bird (and will be until I am close to a 100 WS jumps in it), I was just debating wherever or not it made sense to buy an older higher-performance suit, and progress more in said higher performance suit before moving to a top-range V4 or comparable, or buying a new V4 or comparable and jumping the T-bird until said suit arrives.
I personally figured that the price difference between buying a used older SM1 more than outweighed the price/performance difference between the SM1 and the V4. Unless I severely underestimated the performance and quality of the SM1.
SM1-V4 are apples/oranges. What do you want to achieve in WS flight? Are you a social/flocker flyer? An aerobatic flyer? Solo person looking for speed? Solo person looking for float/hang time? There are dragsters and there are Cadillacs, there are drift cars and there are muscle cars. None are suited for the same tracks/roads.
Hope noone minds if I highjack this for a minute lol so what would be a good road for someone that wants to do distance? I enjoy the social/flock thing but "my thing" is distance... I started on a BM Firebird and am currently enjoying my P2z which I plan on keeping in my gear bag till it tears off my back but somewhere down the road I want more distance and I think something like the Ghost/Havok seem slugish and better suited to float than to go far correct? So does that mean I need to go to Tony suits? I do plan on giving the R-Bird a good go in the upcoming season to transition to S-Bird or Vampire. I think that might be a good route for me but would be interested in hearing if there are other suggestions... Thanks!
You're right, and I should have thought about it more like that before...the car analogy is a great one.
Realistically what I am looking for is a speed suit, to go fast and far. I'm not much in acro, but do it occasionally. I love burning lines in the sky with 2-3 friends and blasting around, not too much into docks, more into a group track.
A long-term goal that I have set in mind for the next 5 odd years is to progress to wingsuit basing, and I want to make sure my path towards that end goal involves learning skills that will make me a safe, reasonable wingsuit flier at such a level, so I want to make sure the suits I fly correspond to the suits I'd fly in such an environment so I learn said skills and am an expert of my suit before I go into that type of jumping and perform solidly.
If you're looking for performance, whether it be speed, distance, or hang-time, I'd say take a look around http://www.paralog.net/ppc/. You can click on the challenges on the side-bar and see the top GPS recordings for that challenge and the suits they used to achieve that goal. You can also use the search bar at the top to search a specific wingsuit.
Hang tight though because PF looks like they are about to release the Viper(huge wingsuit) as well as the Vampire 5.
(This post was edited by Shredex on Feb 2, 2013, 4:13 PM)
Don't you think opening a new thread would be the same amout of work and would give you more attention? Next to keeping threads on topic and thus more readable ...
Because it was a direct response to DSE's "What do you want to do" comment and I was hoping both the OP and I could get in on it rather than making another thread about the exact same thing... If I was wrong I appoligize in the end I got what I was looking for in PMs so it was still worth it
I transitioned from a Prodigy 1 to a SuperMach at about 25 jumps (after entering ws with the bare minimum suggested # of jumps), and with absolutely no disresepct to Tony or his suits, I wished I hadn't.
My SuperMach is a wonderful suit but it absolutely demands that you are able to fly well before you ever strap it on. I wasn't a good flyer when I got the suit and being the only wingsuiter at a small dropzone, I didn't have anyone who could help me. Thus for the first 30 or so jumps I put on it, I would spend the first part of a jump flying in very tight circles as I fought with the suit over who was flying who. It was also unforgiving (when combined with my bad technique) at pull time and I had three chops from severe, irrecoverable linetwists in under 80 jumps on it.
That suit scared me so bad I almost got out of the sport and to put it in perspective, I entered this sport as someone who had 20/80 vision in one eye and 20/140 in the other eye so I don't scare easily in the sky.
Now that've I've got way more jumps on the suit, I love it. It's fast and, at my wingloading, wickedly agile. But I would never in a million years recommend it to someone with less than 80-100 ws jumps.
