Chris-Ottawa

In order to give everyone the option of reading the lengthy post below, the paragraph directly below this sentence is a very condensed summary of the the rest of this post.

There's a lot of hype around Squirrel wingsuits right now. People are saying that they're the highest performing suit, the best built suit etc. The point is, if you're in the market for a new wingsuit, DO NOT exclude Squirrel from your choices. Their customer service is matched by no one (except maybe L&B). The entire process was very easy and I cannot begin to recommend them enough. Simply put...Squirrel should be at the top of your list if you're in the market.

Because the summary above does not fully complement the effort Mike/Matt and the rest of the Squirrel team put in, here's the detailed version.

First of all, I want to assure you that I am just some random guy that recently ordered a Squirrel suit. I have absolutely no affiliation with Squirrel, I am not being paid or getting a discount from them for posting this, and I am doing this of my own free will. This is simply me expressing my genuine satisfaction for a company that has earned the recognition.

Pre-Purchase/Exploratory Questions:
Prior to considering sending my money over to Squirrel, I had a bunch of questions. I used Facebook as a medium since I find companies are pretty responsive to Facebook. To my surprise, the responses were coming directly from Mike Steen & Matt Gerdes and this was nice to see. They were responding to my many questions very quickly.

Since they are a new company (publicly anyways), I wanted to know more about the suit's material and available (or hidden) options. I also asked about performance in specific disciplines of interest, why this, or why that etc. All of my questions were answered fully, quickly and to my complete satisfaction .

During the Order process
First of all, I wanted to say that their ordering process is quick and simple. Just a couple measurements, a couple clicks and your credit card company love you! Haha. During the measuring process, I once again had questions. Mike Steen was there again to respond. Simple questions like when measuring my crotch, do I lift my pants up to my dangly bits, do I push the dangly bits to the side, or do I measure it right from where my pants hang. It's these simple questions that can be the difference between getting a suit that fits, and having something that simply doesn't fit. So, the suit was now ordered and Christmas was fast approaching, along with new years...why do I mention this? Because it would delay my suit...or so I thought.

Shipping & Delivery
Suit was Ordered Dec 1, 2013
Suit was paid for Dec 2, 2013
Suit Arrived Jan 13, 2014, 1 week BEFORE the estimated date. That's 6 weeks...including Christmas and New Years.

I was a bit angry at FedEx for leaving my suit alone, unattended and in the cold on my door step for 5 hours while I was at work, but I was thrilled to get the suit. Thankfully I live out in the country and it's nowhere near as bad as the time another courier left a restricted handgun at the front door of my condo in the city... Anyways, I ducked out of work early to get home and try the suit on. Opening the box, the suit was packed nicely in a bag, and a little bag of trinkets was included. I gently pulled the suit out and instantly noticed the VERY HIGH quality of the suit. These suits are built in the same factory as Ozone paraglider wings, and you can tell. The stitches are laser precise and ultra clean. The suit is incredibly well made and feels very durable.

The little bag of trinkets included a couple stickers, some warranty/disclaimer type cards, a Squirrel club card (20% discount on follow up orders!) and a Squirrel pullup cord. Nice!

It didn't fit!!!
After trying on the suit with my rig all hooked up, I thought the arms were a bit long so I got in touch with Squirrel via Facebook again. Matt and Mike were both there again helping me out. They determined that the arms did look a little long after reviewing some pictures. The booties were also too small to fit around my feet. I'm fairly certain the arm length was my fault, and the shoe sizing was a simple mix up. Matt assured me it was no big deal to fix and asked me to send the suit back. I thought...damn...it's gonna cost me $100 to send this back insured; when I got an email from Mike. It was a pre-paid shipping label. This simple thing is what completely won me over. You simply don't see companies doing adjustments/repairs out of their pocket, along with paying return shipping. Just WOW! The suit was sent back on a Monday, and I had it was returned the following Tuesday. I though "Damn...FedEx messed up and returned the suit to me".

Nope...it was adjusted and returned in under a week. Once again...I was stunned. The willingness to complete the repairs, along with the shipping is the type of customer service only paralleled by L&B. This is fantastic.

The suit performance
I'm not going to bother talking about the performance of the suit because you can't explain that to someone and I prefer to avoid the DZ.com banter if I did. The fact is, you've seen the videos...it's an incredible suit. From me...the suit flies great, has wicked pressurization, feels much more stable than an Apache, and a little less stable than a Vampire 4 (due to it being a much different suit). Fact is, I love it even though I only have 4 jumps on it now. I'm looking forward to many, many jumps in this suit.

A huge thank you to Mike and Matt for all their help and putting up with my questions. You guys went way beyond the minimums and this has earned you the best review I could write up. Keep doing what you're doing and you'll dominate the industry (more than you already are). I've seen a HUGE spike in wingsuit interest and new wingsuiters up here in Canada. I've been wingsuiting for 5 or 6 years and I've never seen more than 3 jumpers in one place here in Canada. Now, I show up at the DZ and there's no less than 8 or 9 people with suits on any given day and new students graduating from the new wingsuit school at the DZ this year. There is no doubt that Squirrel has contributed to this with their marketing and awesome suits.

Seriously...Squirrel is doing things that are rocking the skydiving/wingsuit/BASE worlds. They deserve your business and I cannot stress enough how pleasant and smooth the whole process was.

Mike, Matt & Team....a HUGE thank you!

PS: If it was in the budget...I'd happily take you up on the frequent flyer program. Unfortunately...the wife disagrees. That being said...when I'm ready for another suit, I won't mind paying full price for this top notch service.

I should also mention that Squirrel wasn't the only company I spoke with and asked questions to. I was interested in 2 suits primarily, Squirrel and another well known company. I sent messages to the other company and replies were spotty at best. Eventually, they just stopped responding. That sealed their fate in my books. Squirrel was just getting better and better, so they got my business. Customer service means SO MUCH to many people. I won't just give my money to the first company that makes X or Y suit.

That's all for now...

I bought my Neptune about 2 years ago. From day 1, it was simple to use, kept very detailed info and it worked great.

I used the original battery for all of last year, and about 3/4 of this current season (it's now end of october). Battery life was a bit interesting though. I bought it with the 2.6.2 software and the battery sometimes would show very little, 3/4, 1/2, empty. This occurred between jumps. I just kept using it until it died, I wanted to see how long it would last. Turned out it must have been a small software issue, it wasn't reading the voltage correctly or something. Nonetheless, the battery lasted almost 2 full seasons and 130 jumps. I am only a weekend jumper.

Now, introduce software v3.0.0....WAHOOOO! It is now easier to use, menus contain more info, logbook logs differently, with a few extra features, and the battery seems to read great now. I REEEEEELY love the canopy flight time it records. I do alot of cross countries, high alti H&P's and I just love to know how long I was up there. I want to get the software for it but don't really want to drop another $90 or so...jumps are more important!

Either way, I HIGHLY recommend the Neptune to anyone who wants a digital alti that is very accurate, reliable etc etc..

It's worth every penny.

I got to jump this canopy in my progression. I don't have alot of experience in noticing minor changes in a canopy's performance but I noticed alot with this one. I'm 140 out the door, and I was jumping a Pilot 170 with 10 jumps on it.

Opening:
Pulled the pilot chute, then there was a canopy sniveling above my head. Didn't feel anything open, snivel lasted a long time and it was the smoothest opening I've had yet. It sat me up in the harness like I was in a La-Z-Boy, just smooth and slow. I was watching the canopy snivel for what seemed like eternity. My first jump I thought I was going to have to chop, I thought I had a slider hangup. Canopy stayed on heading the whole time. It was all good.

Flight:
Canopy is very responsive. I felt very stable and safe under the canopy. Does some nice snappy turns and level flight is great.

Landing:
Flare was great, didn't even have to finish the flare to achieve a stand up landing. Didn't have to run it out or anything.

This canopy is really what it says it is. A canopy for the true pilots out there. This would be a great intermediate canopy and can probably be pushed to be fairly swoopy if wanted. I would love to try one with abit higher wing loading to see how it flies when loaded.

I had a chance to jump the Sabre2 150 for 5 jumps over the last 2 weekends. First of all, I'd like to give PD credit for a wicked canopy. This thing does everything almost perfect. The only thing I could comment on was the openings. The openings happened not too fast, not too slow, but the canopy seems to jump around a bit. Could be my body position or packing but it seemed fairly consistent. Still, I'm not concerned about it at all. On jump 3 I had an end cell closure, very minor problem. Jump 5 was somewhat interesting. The canopy opened and started to snivel, it seemed to start turning to the right and invoking a line twist so I grabbed the risers and separated them. The canopy sniveled a bit more the suddenly spun up. I had 4 or 5 twists in it. Again, wasn't worried at this point as I knew It was fine. The canopy was opened square, both brakes were stowed but it was still spinning up. I started kicking out and the canopy was fighting me for a bit, but eventually I got them all undone and all was well.

I would still definately buy a Sabre2. It's a blast to fly whether you want to take it easy, or spiral out of the sky. I was loading it at about .93 and felt very comfortable under it. Flare was incredible as well. Highly recommend.