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yorgunson

Squirrel Swift?

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Tolimaz

The back inlets on the arm wings seems to be differently positioned on the different suits on the video (some more toward the leading edge and some more on the lower side of the wing)...probably it was shot at experimental stage !



The inflation in the arm and leg wings appeared poor when backflying. Hopefully they've made changes ...
"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

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Thomass3737

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqsSZhNlNuI

Here is an edit/review I made for the Squirrel Swift. Awesome suit to fly, but I have a lot to learn :) I am open to critique.



How many Ws jumps do you have? Did you back fly it yet? Never actually had a chance to ask you in person :)

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I've put nearly a dozen jumps on two different Swifts.
It's not the suit advertised. It's a very well-made suit, but the way it flies is not at all suitable for beginners, and isn't really appropriate for learning standard skills (forward motion/fall rate control/basic acro). Elevators don't work with this suit at all due to how the wing/tail are shaped and pressurize. Lighter people/women will struggle with flying it well. Heavy people will do better with it.
Watch the coach in this video as they fly a Swift.
https://vimeo.com/76720810

Coach in this video is also flying a Swift. The coach is in pixel-proximity to the student.
https://vimeo.com/76577431

One of my very experienced coaches flew the Swift with a Level 3 student and couldn't manage the up/down skill sets with the student.

If the coach sucks, if the student isn't trained well and will fly a boxman position, if a deep arch (common in poorly trained first-timers) is the body position, then it stays quite stable. All of the coaches at the Elsinore School have jumped it. None are impressed. It could be a great suit with a few modifications.
Wings and tail are too large for students. It's not nearly as high pressure as it might appear, so deployment isn't an issue.
Stick with Sfly Indy or Profly, Phoenix-Fly P1/2/3, Tony IBird for FFCs and learning to fly.

Forget acro in this suit.
Forget about quality backflying (you can backfly it, just as one can backfly a Vampire, but that's not where it is designed to be). Forget flying in formations where everyone else is flying P2's, P3's, Rbirds, Tbirds, IBirds. Overall, the suit is way out of balance. This seems to be the consensus of most experienced coaches.
The biggest selling point is it is made of quality material, has good customer support, and can be obtained in less than 6-8 weeks.
I'd really hoped to see this suit match the balance and quality of flight that the Colugo and Aura offer. Squirrel has done well with those two suits, and the market could stand another beginner/intermediate suit, but this isn't it.

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[:/] Not what I hoped...

DSE

Forget flying in formations where everyone else is flying P2's, P3's, Rbirds, Tbirds, IBirds. Overall, the suit is way out of balance. This seems to be the consensus of most experienced coaches.



This I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean the suit is so out of balance that flying in formation is difficult? What do you mean out of balance? Unstable?

And is it mostly that it's not good for beginners, or even more experienced people don't like it for them?

Thanks

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DSE

I've put nearly a dozen jumps on two different Swifts.
It's not the suit advertised. It's a very well-made suit, but the way it flies is not at all suitable for beginners, and isn't really appropriate for learning standard skills (forward motion/fall rate control/basic acro). Elevators don't work with this suit at all due to how the wing/tail are shaped and pressurize. Lighter people/women will struggle with flying it well. Heavy people will do better with it.
Watch the coach in this video as they fly a Swift.
https://vimeo.com/76720810

Coach in this video is also flying a Swift. The coach is in pixel-proximity to the student.
https://vimeo.com/76577431

One of my very experienced coaches flew the Swift with a Level 3 student and couldn't manage the up/down skill sets with the student.

If the coach sucks, if the student isn't trained well and will fly a boxman position, if a deep arch (common in poorly trained first-timers) is the body position, then it stays quite stable. All of the coaches at the Elsinore School have jumped it. None are impressed. It could be a great suit with a few modifications.
Wings and tail are too large for students. It's not nearly as high pressure as it might appear, so deployment isn't an issue.
Stick with Sfly Indy or Profly, Phoenix-Fly P1/2/3, Tony IBird for FFCs and learning to fly.

Forget acro in this suit.
Forget about quality backflying (you can backfly it, just as one can backfly a Vampire, but that's not where it is designed to be). Forget flying in formations where everyone else is flying P2's, P3's, Rbirds, Tbirds, IBirds. Overall, the suit is way out of balance. This seems to be the consensus of most experienced coaches.
The biggest selling point is it is made of quality material, has good customer support, and can be obtained in less than 6-8 weeks.
I'd really hoped to see this suit match the balance and quality of flight that the Colugo and Aura offer. Squirrel has done well with those two suits, and the market could stand another beginner/intermediate suit, but this isn't it.




DSE, this is the second time I've seen you post this video and I failed to make the relevant connection to the thread. The Student in one of the videos is on their second wingsuit jump (assuming followed 200 jump rule) and 4th jump. All i see is a jumper with the minimums progressing with increasing awareness and skill, just as someone should when doing something for the 2nd and 4th time EVER. To me it shows nothing about the suit the instructor is in? Please help me to understand the relevance, it kinda makes me think you are trying to push a different agenda here...

You also mention in another post something about elevator, do you mean to say it's difficult to manage fall rate changes? I have not flown a Swift, but my experience in the other two Squirrel suits have taught me that the fall rate is VERY controllable in both, however the inputs are very different from my ghost and V4. With probably 1000+ jumps in the suits you are familiar with i would imagine it possible that you just haven't spent the time needed to adapt to a different suit?

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If that's all you see in the videos, I pray you don't coach. A coach that can't be nearer the student needs to learn their suit better, or quit "coaching."
Students shouldn't be pixel-distant. It's really that simple. The coach in those videos claims significantly more experience than most anyone posting in these fora, so why is it they're so far off in all their posted videos? The Swift would be the commonality (the COACH is flying a Swift, not the student).

Please visit our school, as we have Tony, Alien, PF all hanging on the rack, and we've had Birdman and Sfly in the school as well. I have no problem with PROPER fall rate control in any suit other than the Swift. All the coaches here are of the same opinion.
Re-read the post. The Swift isn't relevant to the Colugo or the Aura at all. Then again, if you're a beach-ball hugger, it's understandable that you might not understand the elevators I'm talking about.

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DSE no need to be rude with other ppl's post just because you not agree with them or they misunderstood your post.

About your video links. On the first video u post with student A I think you could have used a tracking suit and still struggle to get down to him. Student B seams to have much better body controll and flying his suit pritty good. Therefore its also easier to follow him as u can see on the others flying with him as well.
In the secound video I dont think the coach is far from the student at all. As you can see on the horizon this coach uses a pritty big wide angle lens. That makes the impression that your much futher apart than you actually are and its easy to see the body position of the student.

Just my opinion as a beginner wingsuiter ;)

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Tolimaz

excuse my ignorance (my first language is french) but what exactly does mean the term "elevators" in wingsuiting ??



This might help you understand what DSE is talking about.

Quote

Level Three (New exit/two tasks)

This jump teaches the Running/Pivot Exit (Otter only) and Up/Down fall rate skills. The Running/Pivot exit is valuable for rapidly clearing an Otter or other large-door aircraft. The student's objective is to maneuver upward and downward with control.

Key training points for this exit:

•The right foot must be on the edge of the door frame for proper launch.
•The student should look at the prop/door of the aircraft on exit while keeping wings closed for 2 seconds.

Key training points for this jump:

•These two maneuvers are accomplished exclusively with the hips.
•Squeeze glutes (butt cheeks) to lose altitude/increase vertical fall rate.
•“Open” glutes (butt cheeks) to ‘gain’ altitude/decrease vertical fall rate.
•Proper kinesthetic (against the wall) training is critical for dive success.




Reference:http://www.dropzone.com/safety/Disciplines/Wingsuiting/Wingsuit_Flight_-_A_Reference_Guide_779.html
Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

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I have a bunch of jumps on a Swift (an early prototype Swift, at that) - maybe 30 total - and I have not experienced much of what has been discussed in this thread.

1. It (and the other Squirrel suits) are incredibly well made, and from what I hear, the customer service is indeed second to none.

2. Performance is quite impressive for what most would call a small suit. I have done all sorts of things in the Swift - flocking, docking, diving, barrel rolls, video for coach jumps and I have had no problems putting the suit exactly where I want it.

3. I would agree, to some extent, that sticking a FFC student in a Swift may not be the ideal situation - but as with anything related to skydiving, everyone learns differently.

Personally, I love the Swift - I have found that it is all the suit I need for my flying. It's the best suit I've flown to date - including I-Bird, T-Bird, R-Bird, S-Bird, X-Bird, Phantom2, Phantom3, Colugo, and an Aliensuit G7.

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Ladies, Gentlemen, Boys, Girls, and Others... I HATE DZ.com, but for this Ive got to throw my 2 cents in.

Spot~

There are a few things that you are 100% Correct about in your post, however the general direction of it leads to a few things I'd like to address. First, let's talk about the things that you hit the nail right on the head on.

Firstly, If the coach sucks, than the coach sucks and the results are the proof in the pudding. Watching the videos, Which honestly have NOTHING to do with whatever suit they were wearing, has far more to do with the skill (or obvious lack thereof) of the pilot/coach and their ability to stay relative to their student in the air. I Cannot agree with you more, that the person in your video saying they were "Coaching" Should refund their students money, hang up the suit, and go find a corner of a room to curl up in a ball over, because I wouldn't let my pet snail be trained by them. They offer nothing to their student. However, blaming the coaches, and student's performance on the suit the coach was flying is a lot like blaming Henry Ford for your DUI, and is simply not true. The Coach Obviously SUCKED, and should give it up. Very curious as to who the self appointed "Coach" in the video was..

Secondly~

Your right, the Swift is NOT suitable for a Beginner. Nor was it ever intended to be. The Swift is an Advanced Intermediate level suit. I wouldn't take an FFC or new coaching student up in a Swift, even if they showed up with one in a bag. I train all my students on TS Intros, PF Prodigies, or an occasional T-Bird or Phantom if they are an odd shape and Kino drills go well on the ground. I would require them to show stability and navigation before letting them take their swift up on their maiden flight, because it simply is a higher performance, small wing design.

Like both the Colugo and Aura before it, it takes a little getting used to, and is a very different suit to fly than anything else out there. PF suits fly a certain way, Tony's fly another.. Aliens are very different, so why should a Squirrel not have its own "feel"? I've flown just about everything out there. Flew PF's for years, and Tony's for almost the length of my child's life, and have been flying Squirrels now for a year or so. It took me a while to get used to them, very different flying styles than I had been used to in the past, and am still learning. I now have around 15 or 20ish jumps on my Swift, and I will say that it took me 3 or 4 jumps to start to get the hang of it, and was immediately surprised by its range for it's size. It's a very comfortable suit and easy to fly once you relax in it. Very, Very fast. Flies very stably at slow speeds, flat spins great, backflies very easily, and is very agile. TONS of lift - once you figure out how. It does however, require a bit more Finesse than the other suits that you listed, from Ibirds to Rbirds, Phantoms and Ghosts, and with that finesse, you can leave those suits listed well below and behind you. This suit, in my humble opinion, is just a little bit cleaner and raises the bar for skill required and performance on a smaller wing platform. I've got a few Swifts around my dz these days, and these guys are loving them! They definitely take a bit more to figure out than the suits you listed, but I don't think anyone wants to buy their first suit and outgrow it in 20 jumps, I mean, thats why there's an entire wingsuit rental business, and why we have so many suits hanging up in our team rooms for our students to progress with. I honestly have a hard time flying my Swift because my former students keep Hi-Jacking it from me!

So lets sum up what we are in agreement about...

The un-named "Coach" in the video shown in your links SUCKED and should have their ass handed to them in a hat and they should pay someone else to re-train every student they've coached if that's the product they were offering.

The Swift is not a beginner/trainer suit. Nor should it be looked at as one.

Stick with an Into/Ibird/prodigy/phantom for your FFC, and if your coach suggests otherwise, seek instruction elsewhere.

The Swift is a VERY well made suit, and is not suitable for beginner wingsuiters.

Thats where we stop being in agreement.

The Swift is a very high performance intermediate level suit, which performs incredibly well in every position Ive put it in so far, actually quite impressively in my honest opinion. Everyone who flies one, loves it and says it's a little different, and they want to do more jumps to get used to it. Even at 230 before gear, in a Swift, I could climb on people in larger suits. No up/down issues here. Lighter people have a harder time DIVING down to the people in other suits because the Swift is Fast and Floaty, so put them out first and let them practice chasing it down.. The suit is actually very well balanced, and is a lot of fun to fly, ya just gotta figure it out. :)

The consensus My message is this~

To drag a specific companies suit into this conversation and blame a coaches performance on that suit, when it takes a pilot to fly the suit in the first place, is just wrong. It's one thing to bust the coaches balls, but quite another to go after a companies new product due to an individuals performance (or lack thereof). I can't say that Ive always been the most professional, however, to grab some random video clip that shows where this video should have wound up (on an example of a bad ws coach video), is mainly a demonstration of piss poor coaching, doesn't prove anything about the Swift itself, only that the coach sucked.


On that note, Id like to announce to you all out there in Wingsuit Land that there is now a new choice for Wingsuit Coach Training.

Over the last 6 months or so, I have been working with Rob Laidlaw and Skydive University (who basically created the USPA Coaching and AFF Programs), to create a new wingsuit training program from the ground up. From Wingsuit Flight Progression through Coaching & Coach Training, we can get you where you want to go here at Skydive Deland. Our progression program, to be honest, is incredible. Rob is Amazing, and having the opportunity to create this training program with him has been not only an honor, but very productive and something I'm very proud of. More info to come on that note in the near future as the website comes up etc. but you can contact me someplace other than DZ.com for more info. WS Coach minimum requirements are 200 wingsuit jumps and a USPA Coach rating, SDU preferred. Will also be offering a conversion course for manufacturer rated instructors to help get them up to speed.

Hell I bet we could even teach the coach in that video how to not suck as badly, I mean, more work is always good, and they need a lot of it. :)

At some point soon I'll post a nice little Swift Flock photo, just to show~ :)

Also~ Im not affiliated with any one Wingsuit Manufacturer. I have relationships with just about every manufacturer out there, and if I think a certain suit will work for you better than another, regardless of the manufacturer, I'll tell you that. I don't care what kind of suit you fly or want to buy, as long as your flying wingsuit I'm happy. My motivations in training as well as in suit choices for others come from a unilateral position. I just want my students to straighten up, and fly right.

It just so happens I like BadAss stuff.. That's why Im flying Squirrels these days~ :)

FYI~ I never come to DZ.com. I may or may not look at any responses left in this forum. I likely will not post on this again because I have far more important things to be focused on than this in life, and I'll be coaching for the next 5 days straight~

Blue Skies

Scotty Burns

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

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Oddern

On the first video u post with student A I think you could have used a tracking suit and still struggle to get down to him. Student B seams to have much better body controll and flying his suit pritty good. Therefore its also easier to follow him as u can see on the others flying with him as well.
In the secound video I dont think the coach is far from the student at all. As you can see on the horizon this coach uses a pritty big wide angle lens. That makes the impression that your much futher apart than you actually are and its easy to see the body position of the student.

Just my opinion as a beginner wingsuiter ;)



The lens FOV is identical in all four (there are actually a dozen like this) videos. Then again...what could I possibly know about lenses/FOV?:)

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I find the swift to be an awesome beginner suit. Its extremely docile, buthas incredible range. The fall rate control is not hard at all...dont know why your having such problems with the suit.

For the record, i have more jumps on a phantom than a swift...BASE and skydiving...id take a swift any day as a beginner suit.

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Despite the thread hijacking trying to turn this into a discussion about who sucks at WS coaching and lenses...

I was able to jump a Swift prototype in Elsinore and it performed very well for me. I agree with Scotty on the niche that the suit fits, probably not the easiest for an FFC student, but for someone that started on a borrowed P2/P3/T-bird its a great first suit. With a little practice the Swift has incredible range and acrobatic potential. It performs like a light race car, except that when you tumble it, it's easy to recover from. Build quality and safety factors are top notch, no other suits have easier access to risers/toggles. (i've been getting toggles before the slider comes down on base jumps in the Aura and don't worry about unzipping arms for that environment.) Because its not just made for skydiving the suit pressurizes very positively which is a progression that i've seen in big suits over the years as well. The smaller arm wings on the swift make it easier to modify the lift that you're developing from the arms.

I can disagree that the "arms back" approach is easier... maybe its more stable, but i always think skydivers that fly arms back are watching too many proximity flying videos. From a performance flying perspective, the only reason you would do that is to drop altitude and maintain speed, but to a certain extent you can do that with your body before you need to pull your arms back. As far as i can tell a straight leading edge is the best for performance and speed in all of the squirrel range.

oh, and DSE told me i couldn't land in the main landing area after wingsuiting (and i was the only person in the sky at the time)... then i watched him hypocritically land right where i had, later the same day.
"What kind of man would live a life without daring? Is life so sweet that we should criticize men that seek adventure?Is there a better way to die?" Charles Lindberg, August 26th, 1938

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Quote

oh, and DSE told me i couldn't land in the main landing area after wingsuiting (and i was the only person in the sky at the time)... then i watched him hypocritically land right where i had, later the same day.



If there are tandems on the load, we land in the area labeled "wingsuit landing area." If there aren't, you're welcome to land in the main landing area. It's a courtesy to the TI's, as visiting WS have caused problems in the main.
Sorry if that offended you.

Interesting that people all agree that it's not appropriate for an FFC, as that's my primary point, yet the marketing is ENTIRELY about it being a student/beginner suit.
Like I said, it's a very well made suit, but it's not an FFC or early training suit. Good to know everyone is in agreement on that topic.

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