Squirrel swift 3 versus funk 1

Hi all,

I hope someone will have the time to give me a piece of advice. A few things about me first as I haven't posted before on this forum :
My name : Morad
Location : Lille, france
Jump numbers : 650, mostly tracking and tracing jumps
Wingsuit jumps : 13 on an S-fly Indy

I recently discovered the pleasure of wingsuiting. What a thrill ! This feeling of gliding, the jump that seems to last forward even on my small wingsuit...
I started with an S-fly indy which is a small wingsuit. I want to invest in what we call a level 2 wingsuit in France. (intermediate). I have my eyes, like many, on a new swift 3 but I found someone selling a funk 1 at my size for half the price of the new swift 3. What would you do ?

Would a funk 1 be a good first wingsuit if I up my jumps numbers to 30/40 on the Indy ?
Is now a good time to invest in swift 3 or is squirrel about to release a swift 4 ?

I would definitely go for Swift. This suit will keep you busy for hundreds of jumps. 

You should feel already quite a difference between the Indy and the S3. Also everything (transitions, barrel rolls, back flying, flocking) will be significantly easier on S3 than on the Funk which will allow you to progress much faster.

Swift 3 came out last year so the new version will come at earliest in 2020. However the difference shouldn't be too big (S3 is already an awesome suit. Also technically speaking more "advanced" than Funk1 in that sense that it came out few years later)

The Gus, is a Swift 3 handsfree. It has roughly same performance but is more agile. I currently fly the Gus when I fly with students. You could also just ask Zun, He developed the Gus and the Funk3

The Swift 3 is possibly the best beginner WS ever made or at least the best I know about anyway. It's a fantastic suit with tons of range and power for its size. Without question it's worlds better than a Funk 1. The Gus and Funk are delta wing designs intended for acro which are naturally pretty slow. Someone in a Swift 3 could outfly someone in a Funk 1 (or a Funk 3 for that matter). I've flown with Carves, Funks, and other deltas in my Swift 3 and I often have to depower my S3 to stay with them.

3 hours ago, 20kN said:

The Swift 3 is possibly the best beginner WS ever made or at least the best I know about anyway. It's a fantastic suit with tons of range and power for its size. Without question it's worlds better than a Funk 1. The Gus and Funk are delta wing designs intended for acro which are naturally pretty slow. Someone in a Swift 3 could outfly someone in a Funk 1 (or a Funk 3 for that matter). I've flown with Carves, Funks, and other deltas in my Swift 3 and I often have to depower my S3 to stay with them.

we fly the suits here together in flocks regulary. We have a student fleet of Swift3's.The Gus and the Swift3 are in the same performance legue speed and all. I know Squirrel paints another picture in their performance comparisons, but that is not true in reality.

23 hours ago, roguender said:

Wingsuit jumps : 13 on an S-fly Indy

I'd hate to be the party pooper here, but buying an S3 seems to be a huge step-up from 13 jumps on an Indy? Maybe you should check with your mentor if there are any intermediate suits to rent nearby, Versos, Hawks or similar older "French level 2" suits?

The Indy is a great suit to start for your first jumps. But it's an old, low-pressure design. Your position when pulling from an Indy won't matter much. The S3 on the other side, is a race car in its own category, not to be underestimated. 

Again, check with your mentor. You're in for another 7 jumps before you can get your "niveau 2" anyway  

29 minutes ago, jallison said:

I'd hate to be the party pooper here, but buying an S3 seems to be a huge step-up from 13 jumps on an Indy? Maybe you should check with your mentor if there are any intermediate suits to rent nearby, Versos, Hawks or similar older "French level 2" suits?

The swift 3 is suitable post first flight course.  Squirrel recommends 5+ jumps for a Swift while 50+ on a funk. So they should be fine on a swift especially factoring in the likely 7-8 week wait on a suit.

As I wrote we use the Swift3s for first flight courses, so that is from the very first jump

Everyone is saying to go with the Swift 3, and I highly agree with them. On that note, I want to take a second to save you from buying a Funk 1. I upgraded from a Swift 1 to a Funk 1 about 2 years ago, and I regret that choice more than anything. The biggest issue with the suit IMO is the lack of forward speed, which makes it hard to keep up with flocks, and the fact that the suit has little flare when it comes time for deployment. I eventually got to a point that I didn't want to WS anymore until I could get a new suit. And this wasn't from lack of skill, but just the fact that the suit is built specifically for acro and not anything else. Plus the suit itself is actually quite large, and definitely not suitable for someone's second suit @15(ish) jumps.

If you do decide to go the Funk route, I highly recommend either the Funk 2 or the Funk 3, which Squirrel specifically addressed the issues of forward speed and flare for these models.

9 hours ago, birdynamnam said:

we fly the suits here together in flocks regulary. We have a student fleet of Swift3's.The Gus and the Swift3 are in the same performance legue speed and all. I know Squirrel paints another picture in their performance comparisons, but that is not true in reality.

I've never flown with a Gus but I've flown with many other larger delta wings like the Funk and Carve. They are slow. I have to fly in brakes or shut down my Swift 3 in some fashion not to pass them. This is over multiple jumps at multiple DZs with different people, so it's not just the one person who cant fly his Funk.

Thank you everybody for taking the time to answer me. It's really appreciated.

This helps me with my decision. I'm going the Swift 3 route. :-) I do realize the suit is... swift and that it will be quite a change from the Indy. I plan on depowering it for my first jumps. Do you have a recommendation for the power level for the first jumps ? It's seems to be graded from 1 to 10. Anyways, I 'm placing my order in the comings days and I'll probably put 15 to 20 more jumps on the Indy (we rent them freefly at my club) before I receive it.

Actually, the max power level is 11 ! So funny. You can turn it up to eleven ! 

"When you need that extra push over the cliff"

1 hour ago, roguender said:

Thank you everybody for taking the time to answer me. It's really appreciated.

This helps me with my decision. I'm going the Swift 3 route. :-) I do realize the suit is... swift and that it will be quite a change from the Indy. I plan on depowering it for my first jumps. Do you have a recommendation for the power level for the first jumps ? It's seems to be graded from 1 to 10. Anyways, I 'm placing my order in the comings days and I'll probably put 15 to 20 more jumps on the Indy (we rent them freefly at my club) before I receive it.

You dont have to depower anything, if anything it will make the suit fly worse. I started with Swift 1, moved on to Swift 2, never touched the zippers in the beggining and never had a problem, tried few times to open up the zippers just for fun and I felt it was harder to fly it. Let it inflate and do its job. And I agree that funks are slow as hell, I also always had to fly in brakes in my swift 2 in formation with a Funk. It could ofcourse be the pilot but I'm not so sure.

4 hours ago, roguender said:

Do you have a recommendation for the power level for the first jumps ? 

I haven't jumped one but my advice on any upsize in suit is to treat it like your first wingsuit jump. Rehearse your recovery procedures, go up in good conditions (not lots of cloud) focus on a good exit, let the suit do its thing (but expect a bit more power and responsiveness) do some practise pulls in freefall, and pull high. You'll be right.

My experience with people flying Swifts is they have a pretty high stall speed for a small suit (so fly it fast or else).

I think intro suits from competitors are better.

Also never seen anyone in a funk1 have trouble getting into flocks. Just sayin'...

Gus, Swift2/3, yes stall speed is high and you have to fly fast in these suits. They do not like to fly slow like not at all. Once that has been established as a fact, we just tell our students to get going flying fast (no head high). So thats our world now and well, it works fine.

13 hours ago, birdynamnam said:

Gus, Swift2/3, yes stall speed is high and you have to fly fast in these suits. They do not like to fly slow like not at all. Once that has been established as a fact, we just tell our students to get going flying fast (no head high). So thats our world now and well, it works fine.

I find the stall speed to be quite low. The Swift 3, like all of Squirrel's products, likes to fly fast but it has massive range. You can shut it down big time if you need to. I've shut my suit down so much that I practically had my knees bent at upwards of 60 degrees and I was still flying the suit in formation.

17 hours ago, lyosha said:

Also never seen anyone in a funk1 have trouble getting into flocks. Just sayin'...

I've never seen someone with a Swift 3 have trouble getting into them either. I've flown my Swift 3 with a C Race and an Aura 3 before. It can be done under some circumstances. I have on the other hand flown with Funk 1s and I was shutting down my S3 big time. If I kept it in full flight I would smoke right past the Funk 1. All delta wing designs that I've ever flown with are very slow. Any T wing design can out fly them easily, even if the suit is smaller.

Thank you guys. Some good information here. :-)
I took my measurements with two different persons. Wasn't easy. Some of the measurements were off by up to 5 centimeters. But one of the friends had been measured for and S3 too and seemed to know how to do it. With the help of the video on the squirrel website (that could definitely be improved) and a reseller on the phone, I think I have some good measurements. :-) Up to ordering and waiting now. Will keep you posted in a few months when I get the thing.