skydave89

Swoop it. It’s essentially just a reserve. I’m over the weight limit on my 120 reserve and it lands like shit if you fly it straight in so I grab the fronts on it. Build up some speed and I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about on a 190

6 hours ago, Johnkelley said:

What would you guys recommend about loading an OG Epicene above the listed "Max-Flight" weight? The largest Epicene I can fit into my container is a 190, which is also two sizes larger than what I have now (Sabre 1 150). I currently weigh 250lbs in flight (I need to lose weight), which puts me at a WL of 1.32. Though that's above the "max-flight" weight, that WL doesn't seem bad at all too me. Matter of fact, it's much better than the 1.66WL I'm at now.

Is this something you guys would recommend? Does a low-bulk WS canopy such as the Epicene handle "above max-weight" as well as typical 9 cell ZP canopies do?

*I realize now that this thread has strayed far off course from the original topic.

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I have about 350 jumps on my Strix and I’ve put 1 jump on a Freak 2. Flown my Strix with a lot of people that have ATCs.

The Freak2 is the most powerful of the 3. The Strix and ATC seem to be pretty equal in the hands of similarly skilled pilots. I’d say the Rafale and Freak2/3 are the ones to compare more fairly. The Strix does feel much more agile and acrobatic than the Freak 2, but then again the Strix is an acro suit with power while the Freak is a powerful suit with acro ability secondary. It’s up to what you wanna focus on. 

Lots of speed in a big suit + a head high angle of attack = flare. Pretty simple, really. The fine tuning comes from how you build up speed prior to the flare, how smoothly you transition from dive to flare, and your ability to maintain a flat and solid wing throughout the climb.

It’s easy to try to initiate the flare too quickly and you just plow air. Or once you begin the flare your body breaks into an arch shape. Take your max flight, fastest you can go position and then try to hold that same position with a head high attitude and you should be climbing.

mrmatson

I don't own one but the Rylo looks interesting. Been tempted to get one and try it out. If anyone has experience with this camera I'd be interested in hearing opinions on it.

https://www.rylo.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiAo8jgBRAVEiwAJUXKqFD73nDvx1joxUVQQO8Plzt7eCEm3aFY9AHwwejlwfqV6r6UGKAvPRoCYoEQAvD_BwE

On my last trip to the bridge, Miles D and another guy were using Rylos and they seemed to be easy to use and the footage was good. Also the Insta360 camera is quite user friendly and takes good video as well.

BryanCampau

You put 1100 jumps on a low bulk material in 18 months and haven’t noticed a change in performance? Did you convince someone to re line that canopy or is it on the original line set?

Manufacturer aside - i don’t see this being possible.

I’ve known others to have noticeable issues in less than 500 jumps on low bulk. It’s not a stab at any brand/design - it’s the nature of the material. Even the manufacturers don’t claim them to exceed 500 jumps.

I too am a little doubtful of this claim. I feel like the only way it could happen is a light wing loading and mostly landing in decent winds. There’s just no way that thing would still be flaring with the same power after than many jumps. Maybe a super oblivious canopy pilot? Haha

Hell my wingsuit with 500 jumps on it has noticeably less performance lol

Once you start flying big suits the wave off kinda becomes the entire deployment process. When I see someone start a bit of a dive or start their flare that’s as good as a wave off for me and the people I usually jump with.

With newer people, small suits, and large groups of randoms I think it’s still prudent to either wave the hands or do a few quick motions with the legs.

It’s not jump numbers, it’s about how you’re flying the smaller suit. I’ve seen someone make a very reasonable step up from a Phantom 3 to a Havok and cutaway first jump because they weren’t ready, because they weren’t flying their P3 all that well even though they had close to 100 jumps on it.

And then I had a tunnel instructor buddy who only had about 40 jumps on a Hatch that I recommend he go for a Hunter over a Havok because he was flying the Hatch like an absolute boss and wanted a suit that would have a slightly wider range than a Havok. .

Skipping the next step up isn’t a death sentence, but it shouldn’t be taken lightly and you should make sure you’re really making your current suit your bitch before considering upsizing at all, let alone a significant upsize.

The original Pilot is an amazing wingsuit canopy. And if you’re jumping giant canopies like a 170 it basically shouldn’t matter what you’ve got, any canopy should be ok at that size. If you’re having issues it’s definitely just your technique. The wingsuit-specific canopies are nice but you’re most likely going to be buying new and spending lots of money, and quite a few are F111 which I don’t think you should ever have in a skydiving main canopy. Spectres are nice but they snivel too much. Storms have a great short opening but are too prone to turns. Sabre2s and Safires are more fun to fly but also have long snivels and aren’t as stable on opening. Sabre 1s are decent but you have to accept the random slammer even with a modified slider

Bluhdow

Just wait until next year for the Epicene Pro Two.

👆 This 😂

dthames

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I would encourage any new bird to learn to fly with both hands on the bottom of your container for 10 seconds, stay stable and in control. You can steer with your shoulders. Practice that a few times and it will help your deployments, because you can better focus on your flying once you have a bit of practice at managing "level" attitude in that position.

I really try to hammer this into their heads when I’m doing an FFC. The most common problem I see on first deployments is instability that arises from rushing it and pulling unstable, whereas if they just learned to be stable with the suit collapsed you can pitch when you’re perfectly square and won’t have any issue.

As for my current deployment in my Strix - I honestly have better openings when I initiate the deployment from a backfly lol.

I’ve got ~1,000 WS jumps, most on PF with a bit of squirrel. Main suit is a Strix. I recently tested a Freak2 and the pull, while not crazy hard, is nowhere as easy as my Strix for being so similar in surface area.

If I owned one I wouldn’t really have any doubts about whether I could deploy safely, but I also don’t think it’s realistic to call the pull “easy”. Easy compared the Aura 1 I had, but it took a noticeably more determined effort than a Strix

AirglideWS

***but Russian skydiving/BASE equipment is best left to be used by Russians.

If you're not a Russian best stay away...

wow, that hurts! :D

O_o I'm just wondering why?

we had a lot of customers from all over the world during the last 2 years, and they're totally happy with their suits. Might be you should also try one :)

I think it’s mainly a joke. Kinda like people saying only the Frenchies should fly S-Fly suits. Mainly.

I dont see why anyone wouldn't just get the original Pilot. It has great openings and it has better glide than a 7-cell. Not to mention it's more fun to swoop.

[/url]https://vimeo.com/158125078[url]

File that under the "do not spiral down" tab.

I've been on an XRW jump in my Strix with another guy in a Hunter and we had similar float but he didn't have to kill off as much forward speed. This isn't rocket science, the arm wings are similar sized but one has a tail going past the feet and is going to be faster.

I bought a cheap one off eBay and it did the same shit so I placed a washer on the screw and it gave it enough tension against the mount that it stayed in place after I really tightened stuff down

skow

The term you're looking for is 'recovery arc'
In that case Sabre 2 might be a good choice. I don't have many jumps on it, but if I am not mistaken it has longer recovery arc than a Pilot (i.e. stays in dive longer after input)

Personally for me it opens too slow, but this is just my preference. Many people like it for wing suiting

Exactly. I'd rather fly a Sabre2 because they're a lot more fun to swoop. But, the openings are a little too slow and snively for wingsuiting. Lots of time for it to start spinning. My Pilot gets out there and gets open before it has a chance to go south, and doesn't break my back like my old Sabre1s did.

flite

What are the internal ribs made from on the Strix ? Thx

No idea, but I've gotta say I love my Strix. Feels powerful in dives and flares but also not too crazy that you don't want to flip around and Carve and stuff. Really is an excellent balance between power and acro. Haven't jumped a Freak or RBP so no comparisons, but it's an incredible piece of fabric.

Anachronist

The Pilot is a great WS wing, the Pilot7 as with the Horizon and the Epicene are completely pointless, just marketing shenanigans. I would call them "WS mains with training wheels."

I would tell anyone, if you can't comfortably WS a Pilot, you are doing something wrong. If you want something sportier for canopy flying fun then you have to accept that it won't be as forgiving during deployment.

Over ~600 wingsuit jumps I've tried: Sabres, Sabre2s, Storms, Spectres, Triathlons, Volts, Alphas, Safires, and Pilots and even though I think PD makes the best canopies, I have to agree that the WS-specific canopies and the Pilot7 are unnecessary and the good ole original 9cell Pilot is the ultimate WS canopy.

Squirrel is for douches, PF is for elitists, and Tony is for anyone stuck in 2013. Am I doing this right?

Joking aside: this shit makes me roll my eyes so hard I think I pulled a muscle in the sockets. Wingsuits don't need to turn into the American political system where people get on their side of the aisle and start blindly screaming at the other side. At this point every suit from any of the top guys will have similar performance to its counterpart from another brand. That said, I think everyone would agree there's a major difference in feel amongst the brands. Still, throw Jarno in a Freak and I'm sure he could flare it up like crazy, then put Andy in a Havok and I'm sure he'd be carving circles around people.

At least we can all agree Wingsuits > RW and Freeflying

Recently bought a Strix and took longer than expected because I went for a custom pattern and then it got lost in shipping for over a month due to the postal service screwing up. Outside of the delay from that I found the lead time to be quite reasonable. I'm a diehard fan, but I am willing to admit this is the one area in which I'd say they need some improvements. I'd still rather wait a little longer for one of their suits than to go with anyone else.

For me its almost solely dependent upon symmetry in the risers. If they're matched up I can have a barber pole at 1.8WL and it's as stable as can be, but if you're leaned one side when the twists set in and then the risers are stuck with an offset then you're fucked.

I've just ordered myself a large "acro" suit, after 100 jumps on a beginner suit and 400 jumps on an intermediate suit. Probably the biggest reason I waited as long as I did was that I had a coach that preached on being able to actually fly a small suit well before going any bigger.

I think it's up to instructors and coaches to hammer on this so that the aim isn't to fly bigger suits soon, but to understand the fundamentals of wingsuit flying. Last weekend I heard a kid say "yeah, I put like 2 jumps on a phantom and about 5 on this swift, so I just went ahead and got a Funk". That's insane to me. I've seen several people comment about wanting to keep up with their friends, so let's use that same principle to get everyone to stay on their small suits longer. If their friends haven't gone bigger then maybe they wont be in such a rush to upsize?

It would help if you add what type of wingsuit flying you mostly do. Skydive or BASE? Acro? Flocking? Performance comps? Proxy? Etc.

Was at Flock N Dock recently and one of the organizers was flying a JFX (99 I think). He chopped it within 4 jumps that I saw him do. Wingsuits and ellipticals are a ridiculously stupid idea. I'm currently on a Pilot 111 and was on a Spectre 107 before that. They both open geeat in a WS but are small enough you can still get a decent swoop. Don't be an idiot.