Freak 3 vs. Colugo 4

I own ATC2, pretty happy with it and intend to keep it for any-style flights.

But I’m considering to buy additional, larger wingsuit for single purpose – to stay longer in air. No acrobatics, no base and no flocking with it, just cloud surfing as long as possible. Which one will be better for this purpose – Freak or Colugo ? Or there are other brands which are better matching my purposes ?

If you say no acro/flocking then I would suggest the Colugo 4. It's an introductory version of the race suit line essentially.  That being said, the Freak 3 is close and more versatile with the back fly slots.  People do a lot of xrw and cloud surfing with Freaks.

I would suggest using the ATC2 and learning to max out the performance of that for time/distance runs with a flysight.  Then if you like the ability to easily swap between group and performance go for a freak.  Otherwise choose the C4.  I tend to like the Freak3 for my performance training since I can do some runs with it and then go for some group jumps without the hassle.
 

I own a Freak 3 and a Colugo 4. They are both fantastic suits. The answer to your question is easy--for time the Culugo 4 will do better. It's a larger suit and it's based on the C-Race platform. The ATC2 is basically a stripped down version of the Freak 3 and the Culugo 4 is a stripped down version of the C-Race. However, the difference in time between the ATC2 and the Culugo 4 is not as much as you might think, and the difference is even less than the difference between the Freak 3 and C4. If you're pretty good and you know how to fly for time well, you might get an extra 30 seconds in a jump with the C4 vs the ATC2. Even the difference between something like a CR+ and a Freak 3 is not as large as you might think. I have done many time runs and I know exactly what I can get in a given suit that I fly regularly. In my CR+ I can get my average fall rate to about 31 MPH. 29.1 is my best. In my Freak 3, I can do 33-34 MPH. So in reality, there is only about a 3 MPH average vertical speed difference (about 30 seconds) between the CR+ and Freak 3 and those are two massively different suits.

Also know the step up from the ATC2 to the C4 will be pretty big at first. The C4 is a powerful suit with quite a bit more surface area than the ATC2 and again it's based on a race platform so it's built for performance. The Freak 3 will be slightly easier to fly and pull in. Also, the C4 does not have backfly inlets. I still backfly mine and it can backfly okay, but you need to be fairly experienced and conformable to be able to do it and actually stay in formation.

Overall, my personal recommendation would be the Freak as it's better for flying with other people, you can backfly it easily and you can still totally crank out close to a 4 min jump if you're good and know how to fly for time well. However, if you're truly dedicated for time only with zero care about anything else, the C4 will do slightly better and the C4 has a lot more flare power than the Freak 3. But the Corvid will do even better than the C4 will do for time at the cost of speed. The Corvid is a big suit. If time is your  main goal something like a C4 would be good and then the next step would be the CR+ which is about as good as it's going to get. I've done a 5min 3 sec jump in my CR+ from 16.5k before.


 

Wow, you made it very clear.

Thank you for comprehensive explanation.

I will go for C4.

If you are 100% absolutely not going to do acro, the C4. But I think a Freak may make more sense as it's apparently fairly similar in performance and you may change your mind in the future and want to do more backflying. Additionally if you do get a high-performance suit in the future like a C-Race then you may find yourself still using the Freak for backflying, not so much the C4. 

I've done 1 jump on a Freak 1 and none on any Colugo so there's not much I can say in terms of personal experience.

On 6/18/2020 at 1:21 PM, Gideon Yampolsky said:

Wow, you made it very clear.

Thank you for comprehensive explanation.

I will go for C4.

I'd spend the extra bucks and get the RACE suit. I fly the ATC and C-Race. When you fly the Race, you know exactly where your money went!   

17 hours ago, timski said:

I'd spend the extra bucks and get the RACE suit. I fly the ATC and C-Race. When you fly the Race, you know exactly where your money went!   

ATC to C-Race is too much of a step up for most people. I dont think I have ever met someone who's flying an ATC that is truly ready for a C-Race. I know guys with 600 WS jumps that still arnt ready for that suit.

On 6/21/2020 at 1:01 AM, 20kN said:

ATC to C-Race is too much of a step up for most people. I dont think I have ever met someone who's flying an ATC that is truly ready for a C-Race. I know guys with 600 WS jumps that still arnt ready for that suit.

Given a lot of people selling Freaks with one or two jumps and looking for ATC's in stead, I'd say in general, you are correct. People are mistakenly buying suits that one, they've never flown, or two lack serious experience and the confidence to fly it. I've seen it first hand, dude on his first jump on a brand new custom Freak can't find the PC and tries until he has an AAD fire. 

Do we both know people who have gotten away with up sizing too fast? Yup, this guy. With a hand full of jumps I ordered a new Funk. It's a far cry from a beginner, but yet I taught myself to fly it successfully. That suit is easy enough to fly, however, we both know the pull is "tricky" with that suit design and it's easy to find your hand in the wing in stead of on the PC!  After a few hundred jumps and a couple Freak demo's I went into the RACE suit. Again, not everyone can pull that off. It's certainly not recommended, but again, everyone progresses at there own speed. 

On a side note, look for my MUTATION2 review coming soon! Did two yesterday on the NEW suit, it's a fucking tracking machine!        

On 6/20/2020 at 2:43 PM, timski said:

I'd spend the extra bucks and get the RACE suit. I fly the ATC and C-Race. When you fly the Race, you know exactly where your money went!   

Well, I already ordered C4 suit. And I think jumping from ATC to RACE is too much.

I will use C4 for a year or two before considering further upgrade.

2 minutes ago, Gideon Yampolsky said:

Well, I already ordered C4 suit. And I think jumping from ATC to RACE is too much.

I will use C4 for a year or two before considering further upgrade.

You'll be happy with it's performance. The Colugo platform can't be beat.   

On 6/23/2020 at 6:27 AM, timski said:

You'll be happy with it's performance. The Colugo platform can't be beat.   

amen

On 6/23/2020 at 9:27 AM, timski said:

You'll be happy with it's performance. The Colugo platform can't be beat.   

ha, of course it can, in some regards. My CR+ is much faster and more powerful than my Colugo 4. But yes, all things considered the Culugo is a very powerful platform and it is great for what it is intended for. My flare height is actually slightly higher on my Culugo than on my CR+ simply for the fact that the arm wings on the CR+ are so massive that it's quite difficult to correctly flare in a suit that large. The Culugo is an easier platform to do a large flare in.

11 hours ago, 20kN said:

ha, of course it can, in some regards. My CR+ is much faster and more powerful than my Colugo 4. But yes, all things considered the Culugo is a very powerful platform and it is great for what it is intended for. My flare height is actually slightly higher on my Culugo than on my CR+ simply for the fact that the arm wings on the CR+ are so massive that it's quite difficult to correctly flare in a suit that large. The Culugo is an easier platform to do a large flare in.

The "C" in CR+ stands for Colugo!  See where I'm going with this?   And YES I fly a RACE suit! 

On 6/23/2020 at 5:49 AM, timski said:

On a side note, look for my MUTATION2 review coming soon! Did two yesterday on the NEW suit, it's a fucking tracking machine!        

Just commenting that I'd love to see this, especially how it compares to a Power Onesie (if possible)

On 8/15/2020 at 12:31 PM, cvjoe said:

Just commenting that I'd love to see this, especially how it compares to a Power Onesie (if possible)

Fucking Covid isn't helping with my jump numbers. Only two jumps so far. First impressions however are VERY positive. Super stable out the door and through out the flight. I was traveling almost as far as my ATC! . I do hear that the ONSIE POWER in the right hands will out perform it (slightly ).