nickfrey

I've never jumped a full PMS, pants with a ski jacket only. So can't make a fair comparison.

Before getting in to the specifics of what I think of the suit... My SUMO first arrived April 2, I was one of the first orders and chose custom colors. I ordered it on Feb 13th and received an email a week later saying it would be completed on March 28th and shipped immediately. I don't think full production had started when i ordered and I hear delivery times are closer to one month now. This is exactly what happened, there was even a one day customs delay and the suit was overnight-ed from US Squirrel HQ to me to make up for it!!! Even after I told Mike I couldn't use it till the next week. My first impression was great build quality as usual, but this thing seems really low volume... I should have just took pictures and sent them to Squirrel when I got it, but I didn't. Turns out it was built way to small for me, at 5' 3" and 150-160 I am difficult, to say the least, to make suits for. I emailed [email protected] from the DZ and had a response from Matt within 20 minutes (i think it was actually even faster then that). He immediately recognized the problem from photos, it was just plain to small. He told me they would fix it and put another one in to production immediately, even gave me the option to change the colors. This was on a Monday, and the new suit shipped to the US that Friday and was shipped to me from Utah arriving Wednesday... 9 days!!! Needless to say I was very impressed and it fit perfectly. They even sent me a hat with it! Now on to the suit, I like it! It's stable, and even my cannonball frame was able to consistently glide at 1:1 by the second jump. It's pretty nimble as well, and though not the greatest glide is also stable on its back (no inflation). Remember I'm 5' 3" and 190 with gear!!! I jumped it with and without the No Wobble leg wraps, Even without it is super stable, no issues at all. Though with them I found turning to be much more crisp and require far less movement and corrections to get the desired effect. I started to gun it on the last (3rd) jump of the day and was surprised by the ground I covered, flysight said 1.1 to 1.2 GR. I do not consider myself a good tracker by any means and have actually only made about 10-20 real tracking suit skydives out of 600+ sky jumps. But I can tell this thing has A LOT more to offer in more capable hands. Cant wait to BASE it, and to find out it's true potential. I think Squirrel did a great job with it, felt as stable as a standard PF, with far more performance available. I don't jump for time, nor do i consider that a measure of performance, but for those that care, 85 seconds from 12.5k to 3.5k... It took me my first twenty wingsuit jumps to get my cannonball ass past those numbers!!! Ground speeds were easily in the mid 90's... To put it in to perspective, The best PTS glides on PPC are just over 1.1 at 105mph... And I've BASE tracked with that guy, he's better then me. TUBE 4 shows 1 at 1.3 and then drops off to 1.0. My initial impression it likes to go steep, arms back about ass level it seems, wide or narrow stance is totally fine, and seems to have little effect, maybe some on forward speed, though much greater changes to glide and sink were to be had with arm height and width adjustments. Was still stable even in a pretty hard de-arch and rolled shoulders. As it speeds up, glide improves. I am super stoked with the suit and the service from Squirrel... I'll soon be ordering my 4th suit from Squirrel, bring on the FUNK!

Actually chest mount reserves were used in the filming of transformers. Except for the building jumps.

If I read it right, sounds like a hybrid mono/triwing. Separate arm wings, but the entire body inflates with the leg wing, not sure what advantage that would have but interesting. Though it does just seem like more volume to fill, that may or may not need it? Maybe it helps maintain pressure during front/back transistors? The video is cool, but you could put trash bags on Fred and Vince and get the same result! Hopefully it will be a valid alternative to the Havok.

Don't know about CA but Skydive Danielson in CT has $14 hop n pops on Wednesday. Best price in New England.

156th skydive, 3 prodigy jumps 175th skydive, FFC in Birdman Firebird Various ill fitting P2s. and expert for 20 or so jumps Wicked wingsuits tbird 30ish jumps S fly expert (that actually fit) 50ish jumps New Ghost 3 200+ Jumps 20 or so V4 and various other suits All this before first WSBASE jump in the Ghost, made a mistake on WSBASE #5 that with less experience in the suit could have very easily cost me my life... experience made it scary but fairly easily handled was stoked to have waited. Now in an Aura from a colugo Probably more detail then you were looking for but someone else might be interested. Some may consider this a fast progression, others a fairly conservative one... for me it was just right. Most difficult part was being above average weight for my height and sinking out constantly, didn't get a bigger suit... Lost ten pounds and learned to fly the Sfly expert I had (hint keep your speed up and be aggressive!!!)

Looks ever so slightly larger then the Aura, but more vertical grippers. Looks like the vents are propped open, similar as well. But they still retain that silly, pain in the ass to put on 4 zipper system... and clearly no escape sleeve. Deal breakers for me. Does getting rid of the foot and moving the wing to the toe really improve drag noticeably enough to justify the obvious issues? Do the fins cause issues on the ground or in aircraft... What about downhill sloping BASE exits or any exit where your not on the immediate edge?

It's a shipping issue, but still working on colors?

Anytime anyone is trying to make things better is great, however I agree this is a solution that no longer has a problem in recent wingsuit design. The BOC PC is easier to reach on my Aura then any suit I've ever flown with the exception of the Colugo, swift, S-fly expert and the Phantom 2. The future of wingsuiting as you call it is already here, Integrated rigs have been available for a couple years and haven't caught on. If the demand was there, we'd be flying them already. In my opinion the only thing that is going to necessitate and push deployment style change is a change in Wingsuit design that negates the use of BOC deployment and increases performance enough to make it worth changing. Only a guess here, but I think more pilots have been killed by PC position changes, unfamiliar gear and poorly fitting suits; then no-find/no-pull on familiar equipment. And I really think this system could very easily end up responsible for as many deaths as it prevents.

I don't get it, are you agreeing or disagreeing? He never in any way said the larger surface area decreases drag... And as a function of surface to weight fighter jets actually have quite large wings compared to large airliners...

And 30%(4) of them have died BASE Jumping, three in wingsuits and one tracking... I would suggest adding the BFL to your prerequisite reading...http://www.blincmagazine.com/forum/wiki/BASE_Fatality_List

Davis is closed until the second.

On a wingsuit with good zippers (one way locking YKK for example) the snaps at the booties are almost entirely unnecessary. The only time I use them is in crowded planes on the way up and I unsnap them before exit. As far as to hold the leg wing up, I doubt magnets would hold most modern leg wings up during canopy flight, My aura stays partially inflated and trails nicely behind me and has yet to get in the way on landing. Guess it could be useful walking back to the packing area but snaps aren't difficult to do up once your on the ground. Just my two cents.

Possibly because you used an unrelated video, in an unrelated thread to attack the coaching at another wingsuit school? And I don't believe your on a banned list either, just not recommended just like the Swift is not recommended by you for FFC.

It did make me literally LOL though! bwahahahaha me too!!! Turnabout is fair play... He publicly admitted he could/would not train students in Swifts, so totally fair to recommend future Swift pilots seek instruction else where.

His identity is in his signature, are you refuting his claims?

I think the fact that so many experienced terrain flyers have CHOSEN not been recruited to trust their lives to Squirrel Suits speaks volumes. These are pilots who have flown damn near everything out there and truly believe in the product through experiance. I have no problem hearing a review from them. There are VERY few people (if any) that are actually being sponsored monetarily by wingsuit manufacturers. Recently two very prominent pilots have released footage directly blaming safety and control-ability issues on the new suits they were flying. So I trust the opinions of people who trust their lives to this equipment. I also believe Squirrel philosophy of putting safety above all else in design to be an excellent example for the rest of the industry. How many suits with horrible pulls, inflation issues and flat spin stories have you heard about with other manufacturers suits (including current models)? How many have you heard of with Squirrel? Back on the original topic: I finally did get to fly the Swift and I was very impressed by how capable it is for a suit of such manageable size. I am not a coach, so I cannot speak to it's suitability for FFC, but I found it no more challenging then a Phantom and less so then a T-Bird to fly. I will say, without hesitation that it is an excellent choice for a first suit to own. With the availabilty of intro suits for FFC and rental, there is no reason most anyone should not buy a swift for their first suit to fly once they have a handful of flights. It will literately fly circles around a phantom, and give the Ghost/havok/rbird a serious run for their money. There is no reason why a competent pilot would not be able to fly a Swift in a flock with any of these suits (with the possible exception of very light pilots). Additionally there are habits you will learn in some suits that will not translate to the larger Squirrel suits if you plan to do so in the future, learn to fly the Swift well and you will be well prepared for the Colugo or Aura. Seat of the pants impression is that I could outfly myself in my Ghost3 after a few more flights (I have nearly 300 in the ghost). The suit I demoed did not have back vents, the only acro I attempted was a couple of barrel rolls, no drama. I had my risers in hand before the slider on my Sabre 1 came down on every jump, even better then on the Aura because the arm wing is not connected to the foot. DSE... Beach ball hugging? Really? Are we belly falling or flying a wing here? I think we have reached the point aerodynamically where induced drag is no longer a valid way to manipulate a modern well designed wing-suit in most situations. I find it much easier to use forward speed and the available lift generated via AOA and surface area changes (arm sweep) to change glide ratio then it is to induce drag and slow fall rate by grabbing air with your hips, which also is detrimental to forward speed and further reduces available lift. In my opinion the Squirrel line (and some of the Tony line) represent the beginning of change from using inefficient and awkward body positions to actually flying a proper wing and manipulating it as such. Elevators are used to change the pitch or AOA of an aircraft there by causing the plane to increase or decrease glide ratio are they not? And AOA changes are very effective in doing so with the Swift. Not saying the hip thing does not work in other suits, i have in fact used it effectively with my Ghost but even in that suit there are much better and more efficient ways then inducing unneeded drag and entirely unnecessary in the swift. People just need to stop flying slow and relying on drag to keep them in the sky!!! I truly believe we will soon be seeing medium size suits that can leave the flying mattresses of just a year or two ago far behind and below them. There is so much to be done in profile changes and increased aerodynamic efficiency, we've just barely scratched the surface. Thanks to the team at Squirrel for pulling the industry in new directions. I can't wait to see what comes next.

How do you know your happy with it if you haven't flown it? How long did it take to get 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?

Your concern is valid but I think you are fixing it the wrong way. There have also been incidents where released toggles have become tied up in the lines. Best bet is to open high enough to do your house cleaning and then pop toggles by a good decision altitude. For me I like to be done with all tasks and pop toggles by 1800. I was taught a long time ago that once you had the toggles securely in your hands you should keep them there. It makes sense not to have them flapping around in the wind. It actually has nothing to do with wingsuiting, we just happen to have a few extra things to do. So do you leave your chest strap tight or loosen it before clearing your brakes?

The unfortunate reality of option 2 is that this time of year Lodi is really the only area DZ that has reliable weekday (turbine) business. Now that select suits are back it splits the already small number of active weekdays pilots up. Real bummer for those of us that would like to train in our "big" suits and don't have weekends to jump. I have no problem jumping a smaller suit for fun, it's just not my current focus. In an ideal situation it would be more about screening the Pilot and less about which suit, but that means someone has to play bad guy and tell people (probably a friend) that they are not prepared to fly their magic carpet yet. Much easier and PC to just draw an arbitrary line in the sand. Unfortunate though, would make a great chance to enlighten a few folks about their perceived skill level. (and if someone who knows me thinks I fall in to this category I hope they would step up and tell me) There are plenty of people that can cause problems in small suits. Probably far more then there are that will cause problems in big suits, with the exception being the ones that caused a majority of the initial problems. BASE jumpers that show up with improper gear to put one or two jumps on their new suit before heading back out to BASE jump it. Glad to see some progress has been made there and thanks to Ed and Pete for making it happen, and to Bill for giving us another (third) chance. Hopefully those jumping there are being smart about it, respecting the rules and keeping Bill happy so we can see a full return soon. Anyone know the official word on Tracking Suits?

Whats broken on the slider? If its just the pull tab you can just replace it with a small key ring, both the leg zippers on my ghost have, works perfectly.

Lodi is reliably busy as long as the weather is good. If you can land pack and gear up in Half an hour you'll get four pretty easily. But not Wingsuits or Tracking dives (even plain cloth/jumpsuit) allowed. Davis has been hit and miss weekdays for me, two thursdays with good weather saw only a couple 172 loads, others I was doing #7 at sunset from 18k. Sac, bring your own crew (i think they'll send the KA up for 6 paid) or call ahead and check on tandem schedule.

And if you commit to the Aura you'll get it before it becomes outdated! As in probably less than a month wait...

Correct, but a wingsuit stall while terrain flying would likely be deadly, speed is needed for glide, and the only way to generate speed is gravity. Stall a wingsuit without enough altitude to recover speed and glide or pull, and it's time for a dirt nap.