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yorgunson

Squirrel Swift?

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Well the last two post before you say they think it's a good beginner suit.

DSE


Forget acro in this suit. [...] Forget flying in formations where everyone else is flying P2's, P3's, Rbirds, Tbirds, IBirds. Overall, the suit is way out of balance. [...] and the market could stand another beginner/intermediate suit, but this isn't it.



And other people say just the opposite. I guess I'll have to make my opinion by myself!

Anyone else tried to backfly the swift?

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DSE: I never said he didn't use a wide angle on first video :P

And, If u say something stand up for it.
If u can't dont say it.

From what I heard Your a Nice guy so just stop this nonsense and maybe just agree with some of what u said came out the wrong way ;)

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vitriol

Anyone else tried to backfly the swift?



I put a few jumps on one last weekend and did a couple of jumps chasing someone else in the same suit. All of my jumps were spent trying to fly on my back and no matter what I tried I couldn't get the tail wing to really inflate, it was stable and the arms were fine but the tail was just flapping. Everyone else that's flown this suit at our DZ had the same issue so maybe it's just the suit. But it might also be that we haven't figured out the correct way to back fly it yet. I'm not quite ready to give up with only a few jumps either.

For what it's worth I've only been wingsuiting for about a year but I've done about 300 jumps mostly focused on acro in a P3 and a Ghost. The vast majority of my jumps include a lot of backflying. I've also got a Colugo and I love the big squirrel suits. The swift seemed great on it's belly, very agile and I thought it had a lot of range.

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scottygofast


Your right, the Swift is NOT suitable for a Beginner. Nor was it ever intended to be.



"Although its primary purpose is to be a beginner suit for talented new wingsuit flyers in the skydive and BASE environment, its capabilities are not limited to beginner flying."

This is the second sentence in the first paragraph on the Squirrel Swift page.

http://squirrel.ws/swift

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Ok Boomer, I'll clarify for you... When I said beginner, I was referring to a ws student, or FFC. Im not going to argue over semantics with you. This suit is not a student suit. A beginner wingsuiter means someone who has already learned how to fly a wingsuit, so they have a few jumps already. If you are very talented and fly well quickly, you will fly well in this suit more quickly than someone with less talent/skill/ability. It's limits are not limited to the beginner flyer because it is a very high performance suit for its size, hence the need for more talent/skill for the beginner flyer to fly it properly. I hope that clears it up~

Steve here was back flying my swift today, on his 3rd back fly attempt, and he was one of my students late last year, and he didn't seem to have any problem. Steve Hubbard has around 150 ws jumps, and really steals my swift more often than I get to fly it these days! Its just something you have to go learn to fly, just like any other suit, just faster :)

Scotty
Z Flock #11; Muff #1909; PFI #15, USPA Lifer
Commercial Multi-Inst. Airplane/Rotory
www.flyteskool.ws Aerial Photography

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This isnt a really good backflying position...
You can backfly every wingsuit. I achieve it at my first try with my V4 and i m not a good flyer and this suit don t like this. But we expect to this kind of little suit to do it easily and nicely. With the pics and video, the swift don t impress me for that point. But it s not his number 1 goal i presume.

But instead of compare Swift to P3 maybe we should compare it to suit like Ghost3 (and it s closer about the price)

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Quote

Ok Boomer, I'll clarify for you... When I said beginner, I was referring to a ws student, or FFC. Im not going to argue over semantics with you. This suit is not a student suit. A beginner wingsuiter means someone who has already learned how to fly a wingsuit,



So when you said beginner, you didn't mean beginner to mean what you think beginner means? Look, if you think beginner means two different things in the space of two different posts, then how is anyone else supposed to know what specific meaning of beginner you or Squirrel are choosing to use at that particular moment?

Bottom line, if Squirrel say that the Swift is a suit for beginners it is either stupid or deliberately disingenuous to say that it was not intended for first flight... especially since Squirrel also say "This is a suit that is simple enough to put your first jumps on,".

That's not semantics, that's plain english.
Do you want to have an ideagasm?

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jakee

Quote

Ok Boomer, I'll clarify for you... When I said beginner, I was referring to a ws student, or FFC. Im not going to argue over semantics with you. This suit is not a student suit. A beginner wingsuiter means someone who has already learned how to fly a wingsuit,



So when you said beginner, you didn't mean beginner to mean what you think beginner means? Look, if you think beginner means two different things in the space of two different posts, then how is anyone else supposed to know what specific meaning of beginner you or Squirrel are choosing to use at that particular moment?

Bottom line, if Squirrel say that the Swift is a suit for beginners it is either stupid or deliberately disingenuous to say that it was not intended for first flight... especially since Squirrel also say "This is a suit that is simple enough to put your first jumps on,".

That's not semantics, that's plain english.


Fortunately, I remember hearing about this big book that tells people what words mean. It's called a dicto-something, I can't remember exactly. But I did look up the word that nobody seems to be able to agree on a meaning for.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beginner

be·gin·ner
noun
a person who is beginning something or doing something for the first time


Seems pretty straightforward to me, and it seems like it does include FFC's. :)
www.WingsuitPhotos.com

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I am a very new wingsuiter. Just started last weekend and got to fly my Swift today on my 10th WS jump. Did my FFC and next several jumps on a Tonysuit I-Bird. Had some stability problems at first but got it sorted out. Tried out a Birdman GTI as well which was lame. Flying the Swift was unreal though. Tons of forward speed, and felt more stable and easier to fly than the I-bird. Forward speed and "floatiness" was incredible. I jumped with a guy flying a X-Bird and he said he had no problems following me and he was impressed by it too. It does seem like an intense suit if it was used for a FFC though.

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The111

***i remember when p2's were considered borderline FFC suits...



I don't remember that at all. Even when the P1 first came out, every wingsuit instructor I knew agreed it was suitable for FFC's.

well we all have different experiences now dont we...

in lodi, i was able to do my FFC in my p2 because the gti/prodigy/whatever intro suits were too small for me. ffc-i tried to get me into those suits despite the other wingsuiters who would track or fall with me putting in good words.

for the record...i have no issue of p2/3/swift for ffc

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Scotty, I'm not trying to argue here either. If you look at my profile you will see that I am not yet able to fly any WS yet so I would defer to your experience. If you think the Swift should not be used in FFCs then you should try to convince Squirrel to change their product literature instead of arguing with everyone here as to what a "beginner" is or is not.

Again, not trying to start an argument here. Hell, I am sure I would enjoy discussing which WS would be best for me over a beer sometime.

Tim

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I do wish that those that are dealers/sponsored by the manufacturer would make their affiliations known. The majority of those loving on the Swift in this thread are sponsored by/dealers for, Squirrel.

Not being a dealer nor sponsored by any of the companies that manufacture wingsuits, I have no dog in this hunt.
Four different brands of wingsuit hang on our school rack. There is some bias here towards PF because PF paid the freight to develop the program we've had in place for four years (and it's incredibly successful). And, students are ridiculously successful in P1/2/3 and Tonysuit Intro's (although Intros are difficult to fly well when placed on a skinny/lightweight).

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Spot, I don't think the argument of who's sponsoring who is honestly relevant here...

The reality is that very qualified wingsuit/BASE pilots don't agree with your analysis of the Swift...including myself. Yes, I'm a test pilot for them, but so what...I've flown other suits, I don't find it much different in difficulty to learn or control...thats my opinion...like it or hate it.

Were not saying other suits are bad, were just saying that the Swift is a very good choice.

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ScottyBob

I don't think the argument of who's sponsoring who is honestly relevant here...



It depends on what you mean by 'here'.

Personally, I like to know when people might have a bias (in favor or against) a particular manufacturer when reading a review. I mean, would you trust a review of the new model Toyota if it was written by a Toyota dealer? Or a Honda dealer?
Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography

Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

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I think the fact that so many experienced terrain flyers have CHOSEN not been recruited to trust their lives to Squirrel Suits speaks volumes. These are pilots who have flown damn near everything out there and truly believe in the product through experiance. I have no problem hearing a review from them. There are VERY few people (if any) that are actually being sponsored monetarily by wingsuit manufacturers. Recently two very prominent pilots have released footage directly blaming safety and control-ability issues on the new suits they were flying. So I trust the opinions of people who trust their lives to this equipment. I also believe Squirrel philosophy of putting safety above all else in design to be an excellent example for the rest of the industry. How many suits with horrible pulls, inflation issues and flat spin stories have you heard about with other manufacturers suits (including current models)? How many have you heard of with Squirrel?

Back on the original topic:

I finally did get to fly the Swift and I was very impressed by how capable it is for a suit of such manageable size. I am not a coach, so I cannot speak to it's suitability for FFC, but I found it no more challenging then a Phantom and less so then a T-Bird to fly. I will say, without hesitation that it is an excellent choice for a first suit to own. With the availabilty of intro suits for FFC and rental, there is no reason most anyone should not buy a swift for their first suit to fly once they have a handful of flights. It will literately fly circles around a phantom, and give the Ghost/havok/rbird a serious run for their money. There is no reason why a competent pilot would not be able to fly a Swift in a flock with any of these suits (with the possible exception of very light pilots). Additionally there are habits you will learn in some suits that will not translate to the larger Squirrel suits if you plan to do so in the future, learn to fly the Swift well and you will be well prepared for the Colugo or Aura. Seat of the pants impression is that I could outfly myself in my Ghost3 after a few more flights (I have nearly 300 in the ghost). The suit I demoed did not have back vents, the only acro I attempted was a couple of barrel rolls, no drama. I had my risers in hand before the slider on my Sabre 1 came down on every jump, even better then on the Aura because the arm wing is not connected to the foot.

DSE... Beach ball hugging? Really? Are we belly falling or flying a wing here? I think we have reached the point aerodynamically where induced drag is no longer a valid way to manipulate a modern well designed wing-suit in most situations. I find it much easier to use forward speed and the available lift generated via AOA and surface area changes (arm sweep) to change glide ratio then it is to induce drag and slow fall rate by grabbing air with your hips, which also is detrimental to forward speed and further reduces available lift. In my opinion the Squirrel line (and some of the Tony line) represent the beginning of change from using inefficient and awkward body positions to actually flying a proper wing and manipulating it as such. Elevators are used to change the pitch or AOA of an aircraft there by causing the plane to increase or decrease glide ratio are they not? And AOA changes are very effective in doing so with the Swift. Not saying the hip thing does not work in other suits, i have in fact used it effectively with my Ghost but even in that suit there are much better and more efficient ways then inducing unneeded drag and entirely unnecessary in the swift. People just need to stop flying slow and relying on drag to keep them in the sky!!!

I truly believe we will soon be seeing medium size suits that can leave the flying mattresses of just a year or two ago far behind and below them. There is so much to be done in profile changes and increased aerodynamic efficiency, we've just barely scratched the surface. Thanks to the team at Squirrel for pulling the industry in new directions. I can't wait to see what comes next.

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DSE... Beach ball hugging? Really? Are we belly falling or flying a wing here? I think we have reached the point aerodynamically where induced drag is no longer a valid way to manipulate a modern well designed wing-suit in most situations. I find it much easier to use forward speed and the available lift generated via AOA and surface area changes (arm sweep) to change glide ratio then it is to induce drag and slow fall rate by grabbing air with your hips, which also is detrimental to forward speed and further reduces available lift. In my opinion the Squirrel line (and some of the Tony line) represent the beginning of change from using inefficient and awkward body positions to actually flying a proper wing and manipulating it as such. Elevators are used to change the pitch or AOA of an aircraft there by causing the plane to increase or decrease glide ratio are they not? And AOA changes are very effective in doing so with the Swift. Not saying the hip thing does not work in other suits, i have in fact used it effectively with my Ghost but even in that suit there are much better and more efficient ways then inducing unneeded drag and entirely unnecessary in the swift. People just need to stop flying slow and relying on drag to keep them in the sky!!!



Apparently, you didn't read my post, or you're responding to someone else. I'm not a proponent of "hugging the ball." That would be someone else.
The Swift did not respond nearly as efficiently as other wingsuits do, when elevators are applied. Not just my opinion, but body types, experience, and opinions do vary.

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It has been really informative and interesting to read this thread, along with other threads in this forum.

What I have learned during my relatively short experience with wingsuits is that there is not really a solid measure to test the capability of a wingsuit to a level of certainty. It largely depends on the skill, size, frame etc. of the pilot as well as what he/she wants to do with it in the air. Therefore I tend to be sceptic about any comment on any suit, if it suggests that every single aspect of the suit sucks.

I recently got my Swift and had a chance to put some jumps on it. I don't have enough skills and experience to be able to comment of finer details of how it flies. The things that I can confidently say about the suit is that it is fast, and I don't see any reason why it can’t be the suit for beginners. I did my FFC with a P3 and it was great, but I had the same ease of flight in Swift as a P3. As a side note, I found the T-bird much more difficult to fly than Swift, but again I am pretty sure it was related to how I flew it. So with proper instruction (preferably from someone who knows how Swift flies the best) Swift is a great beginner suit.

Looks like there are suits out there, which are specifically good for different ways to fly (i.e. backflying, acro etc.) and a suit that rocks in everything is sort of a holy grail. So I don’t mind the idea of flying other suits if needed, when I improve my skills and focus on different ways to fly. But I am pretty happy that I chose Swift as my first one, I enjoyed flying it and I have a feeling I won’t feel the need to fly other suits for a long time.

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Times are changing in the wingsuit world. There is a new generation of pilots who are not like the old generation. Suits have changed a great deal in the past few years, and as designs have advanced, so has pilot skill and awareness. Some newer suit designs are also safer than others – the Swift, for example, is designed without the need for cutaway arms and the BOC access is cleaner than just about anything out there, in our experience. Out with the old, in with the new!

“DSE” references certain “beginner” suits which I personally, as an experienced wingsuit pilot, would never jump because I would be scared to not access my toggles immediately after opening without unzipping or cutting away. There are tons of things about other wingsuits that I find to be very bad. That’s why I started a wingsuit company. But I am not going to go comment on the threads which cover other people’s products.

As “DSE” says, everyone has an opinion. I agree, and it’s amazing to me that he stated it without any apparent irony considering that his damning review of this suit is just his opinion, which is no more important than anyone else’s here. He is not a pilot of exceptional skill or experience, and there are other people who have commented in this thread already who are more qualified to review a suit. But, he is right, everyone is entitled to their opinion – the reason I am now commenting here is because I believe that if a person repeatedly diarrheas focused negativity, there is no benefit to anyone. Just a lot of stink.

A few years of wingsuit coaching does not give anyone the right to judge the Swift for anyone but their own students. “DSE” expresses his opinions as a person who has been a representative of Phoenix Fly for many years, and a person who has demonstrated hostility towards the owners and friends of Squirrel since before the company existed.

Your opinion is the only opinion that matters, to us and to you. You, the pilot, should choose your first wingsuit purchase based on your own research, and advice from your instructor and your experienced friends. I doubt that anyone’s mind has actually been swayed by the ranting in this thread, but I just wanted to make that obvious point.

When we released the Swift, we were well aware that it featured more surface area than other suits in the same category. The vast majority of beginner jumpers will do just fine with the Swift on their first flight, and the feedback from our customers so far has been overwhelmingly positive and stoked. We have no interest in selling tiny suits that any qualified pilot would grow out of in 3 jumps. It is much smarter to rent for a few jumps than it is to buy one. If, for whatever reason, you feel that the Swift is not right for your very first jump, then we fully support you in this decision!

“DSE” is correct when he says that not all coaches are qualified to teach either wearing or following the Swift. We didn’t think this needed to be pointed out, but we have now amended the text on our website. Also, we have heard that he has banned his students from using the Swift. This is a moot point, however, as we now strongly discourage anyone flying Squirrel wingsuits from seeking instruction from him. There are many other excellent wingsuit coaches in the US, and we will be happy to provide references to our customers.

When we get an email or phone call from our customers and friends telling us about their first flights, or the best flight of their life, or of some adventure that they completed with their new Squirrel suit, it makes it all worthwhile. Thanks to all of you who have written to us to tell us about your flights with the Swift and with our other suits. It is very motivating and we are so damn stoked to be a part of the community in this way.

Just my opinions. Sorry about the long post.
Have fun up there,

-Matt Gerdes
www.squirrel.ws

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