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Maksimsf

Squirrel Funk

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SoberJason

Squirrel hands down wins the strangest add campaign award LOL:D



I am a huge TonySuit fanboy, no surprise there, but I have to agree that Squirrel has taking marketing to the next level as far as skydive gear goes.

Of course, performance is a different story. ;)
Summer Rental special, 5 weeks for the price of 4! That is $160 a month.

Try before You Buy with Wicked Wingsuits - WingsuitRental.com

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I think you boys should go and fuck each other. While wearing those Squirrels and the doc could simultaneously pull out some foreign objects out from your anal cavities. Even I have to say, that is a very powerful image indeed.
http://www.ufufreefly.com

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Damnit Markus, your hybrid Finnish/Swiss intellect trumps us again.
My head just exploded! ;)

Scotty ive only been taking one thing out of a butt lately, and it was your moms, but I made sure to keep putting it in, and then taking it out, and putting it in... but to be fair, as you said, I didnt "pull out".

And the wingsuit forum is back bitches!!!

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Ok time for an actual review.

Put my first couple of jumps on the funk today. Nothing to really comment on as far as construction, presentation, delivery. All amazing and from order to delivery (and this was a preorder) took about 4 weeks.

To be completely honest, I was a little afraid before taking this suit out. Its been more than a few years since I had done any significant backflying or acro, focusing on primarily big floaty suits and proximity flying for the last 3+ years. this was the first suit id owned that didnt have grippers, and it was a little weird to not have something to hold on to.

Pressurization was instant and I was shocked how much float the suit had. I transitioned to my back after about 20 seconds of just getting used to the controls. I assumed I would go my usual slightly head low and then stabilize out that I had been used to in my phantoms in the past. The suit was a little harder to transition then I anticipated due to the pressurization. I only flew it with the zippers completely closed, so ill have to play around with them as Im sure this will make a difference. When I flipped to my back, I was shocked how stable it was. I just sat there for about 45 seconds watching the other jumper I was with and carving back and forth. No weird body positions, just open up the suit and let it fly. Did a few barrel rolls and started to play with big rotations of slowly transitioning from back to front while carving (Jarno badass camera style) and started to just get the hang of this by the end of the second jump, but still with a long way to go.

I have a feeling this will be the suit that brings me back to skydiving and Im actually going out for my second day in a row for the first time in im not even sure how many years. Im not saying this is better worse or incredibly different than a havok carve, because ive never flown one, but this thing is sick.

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Flew my Funk today for first time.What an amazing suit this is.It has so much range and flares pretty decent for a suit of its size.This thing is a bad ass back flying suit, it does take a strong Imput to get back onto belly though, At least stronger than a havok.The boc access is so nice with this suit I have never had better openings!! I am not knocking PF products at all I love there stuff but the customer service is the best you can get with squirrel. If you have a question about anything Mike emails back within 5 min every time.I never had any problems with the fit but I'm sure it would be the same if so.I was getting 3 min 45sec flights with the first few jumps and I'm a 200lb guy.So thus far this is the best all around suit I have flown! I have flown in past.Havok. Ghost3. S-bird.R-bird. S fly verso.Phantom3. Raptor and shadow.And this Funk takes gold for me.But there is still the carve and Hawk to try.

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Maksimsf

Interesting...
http://squirrel.ws/funk

Placed my order for Havok already, so it's no go for me. I wish they would've announced it earlier.



yea, why get the original when you can buy the copy - plus, you get to support the vietnamese people, namely the 10 to 12yrs old childworkers the company employs..

:o
“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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virgin-burner

***Interesting...
http://squirrel.ws/funk

Placed my order for Havok already, so it's no go for me. I wish they would've announced it earlier.



yea, why get the original when you can buy the copy - plus, you get to support the vietnamese people, namely the 10 to 12yrs old childworkers the company employs..

:o

boom shots fired

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virgin-burner

***Interesting...
http://squirrel.ws/funk

Placed my order for Havok already, so it's no go for me. I wish they would've announced it earlier.



yea, why get the original when you can buy the copy - plus, you get to support the vietnamese people, namely the 10 to 12yrs old childworkers the company employs..

:o

They are able to keep the thread tension more consistent using their teeth. *ducks

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Maksimsf

That is exact reason "why". I like my wingsuit crafted by a Vietnamese 10 y.o. virgins :)



they probably have to sell their asses to tourists too, since they dont make enough money by sewing several hundred to thousands of dollars suits to earn a living, so i doubt the "virgin"-factor, but hey, at least matt gets a nice cut from it!
“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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Maksimsf

That is exact reason "why". I like my wingsuit crafted by a Vietnamese 10 y.o. virgins :)



in comparison, PF makes their suits in slovenia, paying more than double what the average worker there is earning; and delivers a top-notch product. in addition, robi doesnt copy existing designs, unlike others.
“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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Just got my Funk yesterday, fortunately our smalltime Iowa dz decided to open for the afternoon! I got 2 jumps on it and WOW. I had been jumping a Havoc for a couple months before hand, and the difference is immense. In just 2 jumps, the biggest thing I noticed was the difference in pressurization. Exiting the caravan, I would drop away instantly on my havoc while the wings pressurized. Same exit on the Funk and I was a bit worried I almost hit the tail horizontal stabilizer, it had that much power immediately. Incredibly different than how my Havoc felt. Transitioning from front to back and back to front definitely took more of an input than in a Havoc because of the stiff wing pressurization. Don't need to say it, but yes it rocks on its back. Deployment is easy, but I noticed it's more difficult than a Havoc. By more difficult- I just mean it takes more focus/strength to collapse the arm wings and get to your hackey. After a couple practice pulls, getting used to the movement, it came easy and the design makes it simple to find my BOC. Flying it is easy, but I can tell this suit has a ton of range that I certainly haven't explored in my 2 jumps. I'm also excited to experiment with the arm and leg wing zips to play with how the pressurization changes.

Definitely loving the suit, I couldn't stop smiling in freefall. Can't wait to really explore the depths of the suits performance!

Cheers!

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Got my Funk just before the weekend and managed to do 8 jumps on it.
I have to say it is an awesome suit. It took me couple of jumps to get used to grip less design. The suit pressurizes instantly both on belly and back. Even though it's rock solid, it flies very "lightly".

It is harder to get back on the belly than on Havoc Carve. The pull is SUPER easy, much easier than Havoc, mostly because of glide skin on the wrist.

The range is very wide. You can easily flock with Phantoms but also with solid input watch them drop down like rocks.

Flying the suit is pure pleasure, flat turns, banking turns, diving turns are all super smooth. Flying on the back is also super easy.

On the first attempt for long flight I managed to get 2 min 53 sec from 3800 m with pull at 1100 m (12 460 to 3 600 ft). _Maximum_ downward speed on my Viso showed 79 kph (49 mph) with my exit weight being slightly over 110 kilos (242 lbs). Don't know about GR because i don't have any flight sight or anything.

Of course the quality, customer service etc. etc. is great. It's my 3rd squirrel suit and I can't think of a single thing that could have been done better.

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I've got really mixed feelings about my Funk. I'm going to write up a full review when I have more time and more jumps on it (I've only done 5 so far), but here are the observations to date.

- The purchasing experience was great, like everyone else has said. Not much to add there other than it was nice to get delivery dates quote with specificity (and the dates met). I even got emails in response to questions and comments in the same day. I appreciate that.

- Build material is very good. Again, not a lot to add. I think would have made the leading edge with a stiffer material (or otherwise had a foam stiffener in it); I'm curious if they tried that before settling on the materials that were used.

- It's a heavy suit, and I expected to sweat insanely in it, although it turned out no worse than any other wingsuit in that regard.

- The lack of cutaway in the arms (like PF) and the lack of a real safety sleeve (like TS) is a little unnerving. Even with thumb loops off, it's hard to reach up through the suit to above the bottom of my risers. Sharp emergency turns by grabbing the base of the riser are tricky for me to do in it. Given it's marketed to BASE types, I was sort of surprised at this aspect.

- Speaking of BASE, the innie-outie zipper system fits some skydiving rigs well, but not mine. Rigged up on the ground, it's fine. When I first put the suit/rig on, it's also fine. However if I sit down on the plane, holes appear. Then I stand up, and sometimes handles are covered, sometimes not. You need to then adjust the zipper or make sure you do the Picard Maneuver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2o77i74T48) right before exit to avoid having gaps that can potentially swallow handles. [My reserve handle was more prone to being gobbled up than the cutaway - to the point where a friend of mine said I should put googley eyes on each side of it and write "I hunger for handles!" around it. Lots of people kept telling how dangerous it looked, but from conversations with other people who have jumped innie-outie systems (Squirrel seems to use them on all suits; Tony on some suits), I'm not alone in this. I tried moving the bungie to opposite different sides of the main lift web, but that didn't change the situation.] Having written that, I let my friend jump the Funk once, and he experienced none of these issues. It simply works better with some rigs (and jumpers) than others, and Squirrel acknowledges that. Will it work for you and your rig? I have no idea how to check it. I wish they sold the innie-outie design as an option and made a skydiving only version of the suit; I would be a lot more comfortable with it.

- It inflates like it is on Cialis. On my first couple of flights, I jumped it with the vents (arm and leg) half open; on the last bunch, I jumped it with the vents fully open. Even fully open, I felt like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. More on inflation in a bit.

- It likes to go very fast forward (whether or not you want to). Filming flocks required a lot of dirty flying, even when the flocks were fairly "legs out". It has decent (but not super) "pop" to it. I was expecting it to be more of an agile suit than it turned out to be; I'd give it a B+ on agility.

- Like others have said, it sure does fly stable on its back. From what I'd read, I expected to fly it sort of "neutral" on its back (i.e., relax and don't strain the suit). Perhaps because I jump with a lot of heavy camera gear, when I did that I went head low. I then used the same approach to backflying as I do with my Ghost, and it gave an impressive performance in terms of both forward speed and fall rate. Maneuverability, on the other hand, wasn't quite as easy.

- Transitions from belly to back (and vice versa) aren't trivial. Unlike other suit designs, you really need to force it to flip over (or flip back), due to pressurization. I'd imagine carving in this suit would be more challenging, but I haven't tried that yet.

- Pull time wasn't a problem. I could get at my hackey just fine, but the extra pressurization does require additional effort if you deploy by closing your wings (as opposed to flying through deployment). Since the suit wants to inflate, you need to make sure you're really closing it down at pitch time (if you close your wings on deployment) to avoid a turn.

- Unzipping/maintenance is easy. Even though the bootie lanyard is much smaller than on a Tonysuit, it's enough to easily grab (and much easier than the PF tab).

As I mentioned before, I want to get more jumps on it. I also have a PF Carve on order that I'm going to compare it to (I'll probably sell the loser in that comparison). I've figured out a modification I can do to solve the innie-outie problem, although I've been told that nobody has done such a modification in the entire fleet of Squirrel suits. I'm not sure I want to have to modify the suit, however, and I'm thinking that the innie-outie concern will likely mean that I'll sell it, but we'll see.

Disclaimer/Background: I've got about 1875 jumps, about 1650 of which are in wingsuits. My "go to" suits are currently an S-bird and a Ghost3. I'm not sponsored by anybody, and I don't get free (or discounted) suits or anything else for anything I do. This was my first Squirrel product.
Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography

Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

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My review of the suit is verbatim what you just wrote. Same issues with agility, same issues with eating handles. I only have 5-10 jumps on the suit, all with people in mid-sized suits. I have had no issues flying with them, but when I went to go on a jump with a friend in his phantom this weekend, I had a really tough time staying down with him.

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