early aura impressions.

i want to start with the fact that i was not impressed much by the colugo in comparison to what was already out there. ive flown a couple different colugos and enough jumps on them to know it wasnt something i was willing to buy when i already had a wingsuit i was very comfortable in.
...so i bought an aura. im a gear nerd. ill buy the latest and greatest and off it at a couple hundred dollars loss just to know for a fact i do or dont like it. i dont horde, i keep my favorite. havok for partying and then a business suit...which is now an aura.
i caught a bunch of flack for my early viper impressions, but i stand behind my feedback still. if i was half as impressed with the viper as i am the aura in just 3 jumps, it would have been a completely different post. i have many more jumps in my viper and it still is not growing on me. its a suit that requires counter input to the tail to be able to make a mellow turn without things happening that you dont want to happen. yeah i can get aggressive with it now but it is not confidence inspiring to do so and would not want to experience what a slight mistake would result when base jumping the suit.
okay, to the aura. ill start from square one, dealing with squirrel. great, another waiting game after emailing the company...NOPE! email response almost immediately. i think the longest i waited was 12 hours. i made a request on a thread color they dont stock and it was taken care of with out a hassle. suit went into the que 10-11-13 (to my knowledge) and was on my doorstep 11-13-13. not to mention any names, but this one company that rhymes with foenix-ply wasnt able to get a viper to me before i got my aura and i preordered in march! the one ive been flying was one i purchased from leading edge wingsuits (awesome people, i highly recommend working with them if you see a product they have that you like)
so awesome customer service, including updates on your order, tracking numbers, etc....you know, stuff that a company who has thousands of your dollars should do but is way to unfamiliar for some reason in our sport.
my girlfriend and i took the measurements using their guide...measure twice, err 6 times submit once. suit fits perfect.
first flight could not have been more satisfying. inflation seems moot to mention nowadays because i have yet to fly a wingsuit that doesnt go "bang" once you open up from a plane...but it was definitely 3 full pressurized ram air chambers once those wings opened up.
first thing i did was wiggle around in the suit a little bit, just to get a feel. then a little flare, a 5 second dive and then a big flare. next a sharp input both left and right...feels good. my buddy i jumped out with is now below me so i shut it down and move next to him (hes flying a venom) without having to think about what im doing. i wanted to go to him, i made some adjustments and there i was. i think the word for that is intuitive :). we cruise together for a little bit (i get bored with flocking stuff so a little bit to me is probably 10 seconds) and then notice the group we gave 10+ seconds separation to and decide to after burn it towards them. i mach to them with ease, slow it down to say hi, then pealed away for some more learning...diving turns, top speed sharp turns, stalling, and max glide...ohhh max glide was easy! mostly due to beta received, but required no effort. point your toes, relaxe your knees and slowly add the arms. before i knew it my flysight was shooting mid 90s video game lasers into my ear (victory tone fore the preset glide, which i set at 3.5) and held it until i got bored of that!

jump 2 i decided to do some flocking with the guys. im not really sure what their plan was but when i got there it was a colugo setting the pace with some v4's, another aura playing around and my buddy in his venom. i was able to stack a few feet above the base with no issues what so ever. super stable with more lift than my nearly 200lb tequila drinking self needed. chilled in the middle of things for awhile til i decided it was time to try some new things.
jump 3 went very similar except for a top speed run. my buddy i fly with a lot has seen me walk away from him in my apache many times...in the aura he said it was depressing to see how fast i put distance between us where as he said he had hope when i was flying the apache.
i did everything from diving carving turns, diving as hard as i can to turning as quick and hard as i can, stall to head down barrel rolls, sustained max glide (which was nothing but impressive,) and it did it all with out a fuss or even really trying. i described the tail end of a viper like trying to drift on ice. well the aura in a turn feels like a motorcycle on rails.
those who know me, know i speak very highly of my "pre production apache x" well that just got replaced.

edit: i feel like i need to add that "without really trying" doesnt mean just laying in the suit and wishing. im pretty well versed in the suits out there, p2, ghost, havok, x1, x2 apache x, apache, rebel, jedi, colugo, v4, venom, viper...jumped em all. definitely not ninja status with all of them, but i know when a wingsuit feels right for me. what may be intuitive to one person may be a flying rubrics cube to another. this is the best suit i have flown to date, and it took a couple years to find something to replace my previous suit.

yeah, if that could be written a bit more logically and in some sort of format, that would be greattttt.

this website got the full on ~15 minutes it took to blurt that out as fast as i can. im not gonna sit here and think for a internet post. the motivation behind it was so i could send the many people with questions a link rather than texting each individual about the suit.

ill shorten it for you though...3 jumps in the suit and its already, without a doubt, the best suit ive flown.
"3 jumps in a suit, you cant figure out a suit in just 3 jumps. dont talk about what you dont know"
well 3 jumps in, its out performing everything ive spent time to dial in.

cheers

Ok just to counter the heckler here,
Thank you for the post.
This sort of thing is useful for serious pilots to know about.
So far I've only been flying Tony's gear the last few years and am likely to stay that way because his gear works particularly well for me, but I'm very interested in how the competing maximum-class suit designs are doing. I've flown with an Aura being flown properly by a serious pilot and I gotta admit, its a hell of a suit. Can easily go toe-to-toe with an Apache-class suit.
I'm thinking of putting up my own review of Tony's latest rocketship myself. There's something new coming up. Another evolution of the basic Apache-type chassis he's calling the Rebel 2, I put 4 flights on the prototype and it immediately rendered my much-loved Apache XRW/Rebel 1 obsolete. Just when I thought I couldn't possibly fall any slower... -B

Thanks for the review.

Would really like to see your review of the Rebel 2 . How are the wings different than the Rebel and what are the flight characteristics ? Any idea how far the proto is from production ?

seeya

Would really like to see your review of the Rebel 2 . How are the wings different than the Rebel and what are the flight characteristics ? Any idea how far the proto is from production ?

I rarely see two identical tony suits, I class them all as prototypes.

seeya

Would really like to see your review of the Rebel 2 . How are the wings different than the Rebel and what are the flight characteristics ? Any idea how far the proto is from production ?

i just flew with tony 2 weeks ago, he was in the first rebel2 that was made from the factory, so i would say they are already in production.
i was in a borrowed apache scorpion,
another experienced guy in a colugo.
the scorpion was pretty fast and really good glide compared to the r2, we left the colugo in the dust. but it was his first jump on a colugo. fall rates under 30 for quite a while. i got climbs on the scorpion with ease. i really enjoyed chasing tony down! that was a fun jump!!!!

Was wondering if the Colugo and Aura get more floaty like the TS xbirds when you kink your elbows up ?

well if you look at what kinking your elbows does to the airfoil, it creates deeper camber which creates more drag but also more lift. speed will be used to create that lift. id rather a 3:1 gr at 120mph than at 80mph.

yeah , but it's a cool feature to have , especially in lifting conditions, where a 3:1 at 80mph will yield a higher effective glide than a 3:1 at 120mph

I want to give my opinion on the suit too, and I think it´s very interesting due to my short ws experience. I had 35 wingsuit skydives and another 42 wingsuit base jumps. 77 ws jumps in total, all with my Phantom3.
When I decided to go straight from my P3 to my desired suit at the moment (Squirrel Colugo), many of my friends told me it would be a bad idea to go for such a big suit with my small amount of jumps. But I was very comfortable from my first ws jumps and I was not willing to do 3 different steps. If I would need one thousand skydives first with the Colugo to base jump it safely I would do it, but I was not going to buy an intermediate suit and repeat the process again for a third time some seasons later.
Once at the VBG, Squirrel dealer asked me which wingsuit I was base jumping in and in which style of flying I was interested on, so I said "glide". He recommend me the Aura as a better option for glide than the Colugo.
So I ended ordering an Aura, and 33 days later I was skydiving it.
I found it stable from the first second and jump after jump. Some problems with the arms tension/angle at the beginning, but after 15 jumps I´m getting it comfortable and growing on agility on turns and improving performance: First skydive weekend, pulling at 3.600ft, only 1´30" (same time that with my P3). Second weekend, same pull altitude, 2´10". And waiting for my third...
Still a lot of work to do before think about to base jump it, but the begining has been very easy and comfortable, and I´m sure that in 50-100 jumps I´m gonna rule it 100%. I have all the winter long and this suit is simply awesome :)

Quote

On 11/30/2013 at 5:45 PM, WingedWarrior paper writer said:
I want to give my opinion on the suit too, and I think it´s very interesting due to my short ws experience. I had 35 wingsuit skydives and another 42 wingsuit base jumps. 77 ws jumps in total, all with my Phantom3.
When I decided to go straight from my P3 to my desired suit at the moment (Squirrel Colugo), many of my friends told me it would be a bad idea to go for such a big suit with my small amount of jumps. But I was very comfortable from my first ws jumps and I was not willing to do 3 different steps. If I would need one thousand skydives first with the Colugo to base jump it safely I would do it, but I was not going to buy an intermediate suit and repeat the process again for a third time some seasons later.
Once at the VBG, Squirrel dealer asked me which wingsuit I was base jumping in and in which style of flying I was interested on, so I said "glide". He recommend me the Aura as a better option for glide than the Colugo.
So I ended ordering an Aura, and 33 days later I was skydiving it.
I found it stable from the first second and jump after jump. Some problems with the arms tension/angle at the beginning, but after 15 jumps I´m getting it comfortable and growing on agility on turns and improving performance: First skydive weekend, pulling at 3.600ft, only 1´30" (same time that with my P3). Second weekend, same pull altitude, 2´10". And waiting for my third...
Still a lot of work to do before think about to base jump it, but the begining has been very easy and comfortable, and I´m sure that in 50-100 jumps I´m gonna rule it 100%. I have all the winter long and this suit is simply awesome 

Hi,

I've never met people who really enjoyed skydiving the Aura (however, I've never tried the Colugo, so I can't compare). I thought the Aura Series are used for BASE jumping basically. A friend of mine is reassuring me to try Aura3. A couple of reviews and feedback (generally) on Aura3 which I found here: http://www.basejumper.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2993182;page=unread#unread

Edited September 24, 2019 by StefanAlbrecht

On 11/30/2013 at 10:45 AM, WingedWarrior said:

1´30" (same time that with my P3). Second weekend, same pull altitude, 2´10".

...  I think I get > 2'10" on my Shadow...

Edited September 27, 2019 by lyosha