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Stealth vs. Super Mach 1

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Its seems these two are about equally matched as far as the type of suit that they are. Can anyone speak of their performance attributes? A friend of mine jumps the S.Mach 1 & speaks very highly of it. Apparently, its very easy to put compared to the Stealth.
I dont have any WS jumps yet and will start on a smaller suit but its never too early to start doing some research.

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By the time you're ready for a suit of that size, there will be 10 new suits on the market that blow away the biggest, baddest, coolest suit out there now.:P
I only have a few jumps on the Stealth. It was a TOUGH choice between it and the Mach1 for me. At the end of the day, it's wingloading, IMO. Do you *need* a suit as big as an SM1?
You won't know the answer to that until after you've got a bagfull of WS jumps.
Who knows what's next in the battle of the big suits...? But you can sure bet it's not over.

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I have jumped both and they are both good suits. But MY experience in the Super mach 1 is that it has More power than the Stealth. It is more surface area though. The Stealths legwing is more similar to the Mach one.

The Supermach 1 has the no cutaway sleeve, and quick legzip pulls. So getting your legs out and your steering toggles in hand is Very Quick. If you basejump or plan to, this is a nice feature.

Our lead time and Customer service are amazing also. But I have to say my experiences with Morpheus and Phoenix-fly have been nothing but great!

My advice to you is jump, jump alot, then jump some more. When your ready to wingsuit dont rush into the big suits. The learning curve is much higher. Alot harder to learn instability, acro, barrel rolls, backflying etc. All things I think are very important to be able to do before flying a more High performance Suit.

hope this helps

Justin
Wingsuit organizing, first flight courses and coaching
Flock University
Tonysuits

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Don't go big wing early (or at all depending on your wing loading).



What he said. If you're skinny, a big wing suit is not an advantage when flying with others.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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I think I might have to go with an intermediate suit even as a beginner. My fall rate is about 130 in a relaxed arch & a baggy suit. I think if I go too small it wont be much over a glorified track. I'll certainly start on something small until I get sharpen my skills..just thinkin down the line here.

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I think I might have to go with an intermediate suit even as a beginner.



You and everyone else...

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I think if I go too small it wont be much over a glorified track



Fallrate is linked to weight, glide-ratio isnt.
Being heavier, you wont be the world record holder for freefall time, but in terms of distance and forward speed, you'll give everyone a serious run for his money (assuming you're talking about being heavy)

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I'll certainly start on something small until I get sharpen my skills..just thinkin down the line here



The first couple of hundred jumps, experience is more important than performance. Put the focus on learning as much as you can, on the complete experience that is called skydiving.

And just be patient and take your time..
Its about the road...not the destination..B|
JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

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I think I might have to go with an intermediate suit even as a beginner. My fall rate is about 130 in a relaxed arch & a baggy suit. I think if I go too small it wont be much over a glorified track. I'll certainly start on something small until I get sharpen my skills..just thinkin down the line here.



I'm not really qualified to give advice so I wont. But I will say this. I had been jumping and purchased an Intro and I weight around 210. I managed to slow my fall rate on my belly from around 125-130 to about 100-115 (I think. I'm at school right now I'll check my alti-track when I get home) in the Intro.
...and that's with me flying it wrong. :P:D

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There are several people with exit weight of +130 kg that manage to fly their wingsuit at fallrates of around 50 mph, while hauling ass in terms of forward speed. Experience makes up for a heavy breakfast (up to a certain point). The less your body build is suitable for flight, the more you will need skill to compensate. And that skill isnt aquired in a wingsuit alone....

Not to jump onto the whole jump-numbers thing again, so Ill leave it at a single statment...but given the trackrecord on wingsuit incident/accidents and low-timers (regardless of make or model of wingsuit) having less than the recomended jump numbers and taking a wingsuit up, is not a clever thing to do...

People seem to focus on performance way to much, way too soon, and way to little on aquiring a decent amount of experience before they start flying..

As well ment as this topic and orginal posters interest is..always stick to the basic safety standards (and remember its a MINIMUM, so actually having more experience before doning a wingsuit doesnt hurt).
JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

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Don't worry Jarno:

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Sadly, it's already been put in the closet ([:/]), where it will remain for at least another 50-60 jumps while I work on tracking.



quoted from my thread about my new suit arriving. That number has since changed to 20-40 since this year will probably be slow. I don't think I can keep up with the ~200 jumps a year pace I started setting for myself. I'll be happy if I can put in ~100 jumps this year. :|

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I know, it wasnt ment as an attack, or teacher moment...Ive done my share of stupid stuff as well.

But the general trend/acceptance on wingsuits and low experience is worrying...and though it can be a bit overkill mentioning it every single time, I think its still a must to do so.
As you never know what thread an 80 jump wonder hits first, while looking for advice online..
JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

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I know, it wasnt ment as an attack, or teacher moment...Ive done my share of stupid stuff as well.

But the general trend/acceptance on wingsuits and low experience is worrying...and though it can be a bit overkill mentioning it every single time, I think its still a must to do so.
As you never know what thread an 80 jump wonder hits first, while looking for advice online..



Maybe thats part of the problem. There is so much contradictory advice in the DZ forums that its hard to know who to listen to. Not to mention the people giving the advice don't know the skills of the person it is going to. We try to tell people to talk to their instructor but it's just so much easier and you get a quicker response if you just hop online and get advice from people you quite possibly have never met face to face. Just my .02.

To clarify I'm not really talking about the wingsuit forum so much as in general. You guys do a good job staying unified on the 200+ jumps thing.

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Are you trying to say that having few skydives, and reading a lot on wingsuits online while being awesome at snowboarding maybe isnt the proper way to get into this:)
Dang....



No, that's not what I'm saying because that would be me giving advice which I am not qualified to do. ;)

...and returning this thread back to the owner in 3...2...1

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The Supermach 1 has the no cutaway sleeve, and quick legzip pulls. So getting your legs out and your steering toggles in hand is Very Quick. If you basejump or plan to, this is a nice feature.

Justin



Do you guys have an official stance on base jumping the SM1? I know PF has come out and said things to the effect of its not a very good idea to base jump the stealth. From my experience on the SMI, its a bad ass skydiving wingsuit, but I dont think I would ever base jump it.

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i own both and have a few 100 jumps on both. they fly exactly the same for me the only diff is the cut away systems.

the new TS sleave is awsome but some people might still prefer the physical cable cut away on the Stealth. Personally I dont have any preference on either. Both technologies work well.

I wouldnt base either.

~ time is ~ time was ~ times past ~

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Hi

Personally I don't think there isn't much difference between these two suits.

The big difference between then is a cutaway vs no cutaway, but this leaves me with a question for the peope who own Stealths. Has anybody cutaway the wings during freefall and if so what happened with airlocked wings you cutaway. Did they stay inflated, if so did they cause control problem and did they influence deployment.

Perhaps people flying other airlocked wingsuits with cutaways systems can also let give us an idea what there wingsuits did with cutaway wings during freefall.

Cheers
Riaan
_______________________________________
You are unique, just like everybody else ...

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Why would you cutaway the wings during freefall?



The classic example is flat-spin.



The classic example, though not the correct answer.

Flatspins are created by the legwing, and a heavy upperbody (people usually instinctive pull their arms in, when they encounter a spin).
This your body is a propellor. A heavy lump in the center, and a spinning blade (the legwing).

Cutting away the armwings will make a flatspin worse.
You're only creating less drag/counterforce on your upper body, giving the legwing (which is spinning you) more and more of a chance to put you in such a spin.

Taking the legwing out of the equation (closing it/arching/balling up) is the correct action to undertake, and this will stop the spin within a second or two.

Always use a standard 3 step recovery

- arch (banana/lazy delta position)
- ball up (when first one doesnt work)
- pull (when you're getting low, better under a canopy at 4000 ft with 20 linetwists, than wrapped in a reserve canopy at cypres altitude)

Cutting away wings is not really part of a succesfull recovery to stable freefall, besides for some people being a mental 'now Im free again'.

The cutaways/sleeve systems are there for canopy related situations, where the need to free ones arms up arrises quickly. Be it spins, evasive actions (base), jammed zippers or correctable canopy malfunctions.

In case of a cutaway, the yellow cables also shouldnt be used, and one can go directly for the cutaway.

The wingsuit cutaway cables are cheap, dont spend too much time or effort holding on to them, if a situation arrises where you need your hands free for other things..
JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

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And imagine you DID choose to cut away your wings in freefall, and accidently releasing one before the other (or not completely releasing the other).

You'd be in a whole heap of additional shizzle.
Not to mention a load of flapping fabric behind or in front of your main/reserve handles (depending on orientation).

There are other ways of coming out of a spin than balling up, but body-symetry is a LARGE factor in that, and many people tend to lean/watch with or against the direction of a spin.
So balling up is the old fashioned, but 99,9999% foolproof way of doing so if the other methods dont work.

But dont cut wings in freefall...its a whole heep of additional trouble you're getting yourself into otherwise...
JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

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I've only seen arm wing cutaways pulled once in freefall ... during a very nasty flat spin. It did work, he recovered from the spin, and the arm wings were not a control or pull time issue. This would be a similar situation to an emergency exit from the airpane. If we're low, I'm not taking time to zip up ... that's for sure.

You should certainly be able to recover from a flat spin without using the arm wing cutaways. After all, it's not the arm wings that are spinning you up, it's your leg wing. But, as a last resort, I'd like to have the option of pulling the cutaways ... and I don't see a problem if you do.

I've pulled the arm wing cutaways twice. Both times were when the damn plastic boogie bracelet got jammed in the arm zipper. GRRR.

Scott

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Plastic boogie bracelets are horror..Sometimes they want to put em on your rig, on the MLW, having a nice sharp plastic bit sliding past/cutting into your wingsuit on every jump...blech!

After 2 days at a boogie, you can usually recognise people by the blood-shot eyes, and permanent marker 'I sukz the c$ck!' written on ones fore-head after falling asleep in the bar..who needs a plastic bracelet..:P

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

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Agreed, wings should be cut away in freefall as a last resort.

They are primarily for use under canopy, when a zip gets jammed or blocked (tab blown under thumb loop). I've had to use mine on S3, Vs and Stealth. Especially useful in BASE environment where canopy time is precious.
BASEstore.it

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