Phantom 3 or R-Bird

[WickedWingsuits 0]

TheDoctor2608

Haha, seems like the Phantom got a big fan community ;-) maybe it's really not a bad choice at all

I had a P2 and switched to an R-Bird...just saying. Doesn't hurt to beg, borrow or rent to try a few suits. Would you buy a canopy without trying one?

Summer Rental special, 5 weeks for the price of 4! That is $160 a month.

Try before You Buy with Wicked Wingsuits - WingsuitRental.com

[FreeFallFiend 0]

SkymonkeyONE

You just can't go wrong with a Phantom, bro. I've got a ton of suits, but my Phantom 2 is sewn up to my wingsuit rig 90 percent of the time. A P3 is a solid, no-brainer purchase. Even if you do later upsize, you should NEVER sell a Phantom.

Chuck

+1

I have a Phantom2 and a Squirrel Colugo. I'm heading to Switzerland to WS BASE in 2 weeks and I'm taking both suits. Even when I was shopping for a more advanced suit I never intended to get rid of the Phantom. It's a great suit, lots of range, very intuitive, and just a blast to fly. It's nice to have in my arsenal.

Fiend

I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark. - Thomas Hobbes.

[DSE 3]

TheDoctor2608

Haha, seems like the Phantom got a big fan community ;-) maybe it's really not a bad choice at all

It has a big fan community because it is the standard for most instructors.
The thing about a Phantom series suit is that if you can't fly your body, it stays stable and won't take you for a ride.
Once you learn to fly your body, it allows you to push some serious limits. We saw more than a couple guys in Phantoms at the Performance Cup, outperform much more experienced jumpers in SBirds and in one case, an Apache.

The Phantom series allows for very impressive (although not world record-setting performance) flight, but also allows for docking and RW work. Look at all the past Artistic competitions. _All_ the winning teams have been on a Phantom-based suit (Shadow, Phantom, Havok).
Once you learn to fly your body properly in a smaller suit, it's quite easy to transition to a large/draggy suit. Learning on an unbalanced suit makes it harder to unlearn bad habits once you move to a more tuned suit.
It's actually pretty obvious when you watch various training videos in different suits. We only have a few thousand coaching videos here though.

[uberchris 0]

spot you dont have a link to any online training videos by chance do you? it would be good to see different body positions from a 3rd person perspective.

gravity brings me down.........

[DSE 3]

I don't have uploads of people in different suits. If we uploaded all our coaching jumps, we'd be uploading all day.
When I find a few free mins, perhaps I can get some comparisons up.

The one thing that is very clear, is that transiting from a Tonysuit to a PF, FYB, Intrudair is harder than going the other way...is a statement that someone with little experience on various suits would make.
The one comment everyone makes about the Squirrel, for example, is how balanced it is (and it is a very well balanced suit).

Starting with any properly balanced, smaller suit will provide useful body knowledge/muscle memory when transiting to a larger cell, less balanced suit. Starting on the less balanced suit often teaches people to fly in near-stall position, making it *much* harder to transition to an acro suit (or fly acro at all).

http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2011/04/15/3891194/MG0742.jpg Check out this body position vs

http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/wingsuit-flying-2.jpg This one (neither is a great sideview example).
The balance of the suit makes a big difference in how one learns to fly, and is a large component of why we frequently see reasonably experienced flyers in small suits flying circles around lesser experienced people in large soft mattresses.

[bakerjan 0]

DSE

I don't have uploads of people in different suits. If we uploaded all our coaching jumps, we'd be uploading all day.
When I find a few free mins, perhaps I can get some comparisons up.

The one thing that is very clear, is that transiting from a Tonysuit to a PF, FYB, Intrudair is harder than going the other way...is a statement that someone with little experience on various suits would make.
The one comment everyone makes about the Squirrel, for example, is how balanced it is (and it is a very well balanced suit).

Starting with any properly balanced, smaller suit will provide useful body knowledge/muscle memory when transiting to a larger cell, less balanced suit. Starting on the less balanced suit often teaches people to fly in near-stall position, making it *much* harder to transition to an acro suit (or fly acro at all).

http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2011/04/15/3891194/MG0742.jpg Check out this body position vs

http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/wingsuit-flying-2.jpg This one (neither is a great sideview example).
The balance of the suit makes a big difference in how one learns to fly, and is a large component of why we frequently see reasonably experienced flyers in small suits flying circles around lesser experienced people in large soft mattresses.

Could you please explain this a little more?

Jan

[sloow 0]

I've had my Phantom 2 since I started wingsuit flying. Tried a few others along the way, and they are OK, but my only regret is that I didn't start on something else, and then have the joy of upgrading to a Phantom. I've jumped the S-Bird, T-Bird, Alien, Venom, and Vampire.

Who knew.

[voilsb 1]

sloow

I've had my Phantom 2 since I started wingsuit flying. Tried a few others along the way, and they are OK, but my only regret is that I didn't start on something else, and then have the joy of upgrading to a Phantom. I've jumped the S-Bird, T-Bird, Alien, Venom, and Vampire.

Who knew.

I feel almost the same way, only I upgraded from a P2 to a P3 last year and LOVED it.

Brian