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I am about to purchase my first ever WS but am in a dilemma.

A Prodigy is designed for beginners but I'm told will become boring after the first few jumps. This might be true when jumping from the safety of an aircraft but will that be the same feeling when standing on the edge of a cliff?

Conversely the Phantom will not be boring from an aircraft but has anyone jumped an intermediate WS from a cliff for their first ever Base WS?

What to do?

John

(I have done seven tracking jumps from Brento with a PF tracking suit but that's about it in terms of Big Wall)

if you able to skydive it 25-100 times before u base it, i would go phantom2. if your able to do a few balloons also that would be best. I skydived with the s-fly which is an intermediate suit and then took it off a great starter cliff. i think the first cliff u intend on hucking from matters. lauterbrunen is not first cliff WS jump, esp an intermediate suit. if you gonna do it, do brento or norway with the phantom2.

this is assuming u have done terminal tracks in tracking gear and have a good feel for exits and flying. if your doing all low slider down stuff and want to WS, i would get the prodigy first. Otherwise, skydive the phant2, take it to a big terminal cliff with a 10+ rock drop at the known sites. Before you take it to a cliff, make sure you wear it alot with your gear, get real comfy in it. climb up and down stairs,, etc... you will want to be able to be comfly moving around the exits points all zipped up.

it really hard to tell you, with out knowing your experience, but hope that covered some of the questions for u.

Hey John how are you my friend....

In my opinion, it's gonna be the same, it will depend on how much you pratice off a plane before the cliff.....it will make you confortable on the edge.....

I did my 1st wing base on my V2....pc on BOC, and I lived.

Let me know when and where you will try it...

Cya
Andre.

phantom only

I have a prodigy and a V2. And I never get board jumping my prodigy. And there are some jumps I prefer to jump the prodigy over the V2, better ground rush. And also for jumps where you need a good running exit and then a better flight that you would get out of tracking pants, the prodigy is my choice :-)
Also the phantom and the V2 or V3 are much closer together performance wise than the prodigy with the V3. So to have a better distribution of flight tools, I would go for the prodigy. The prodigy is very nice because you can reach the toggles with the wings on and also it is no problem to grab the pc at the boc. But it can be a bit tricky to fly the prodigy. It is not the most easy suit to fly. You need to fly it more active than a big suit. So even if you start of with the prodigy I would do a couple of jumps out of the plane first.

I bypassed the Prodigy and got a Phantom, I feel like it was the right chioce for me. Easy to fly and not too hard to learn on.

Phantom is awesome. Go for it.

most jumpers acquire a collection of different pc's. that way they can select the best for the jump at hand.

some do the same with rigs, getting a lightweight one for mountain flying and retaining a bulletproof one for low stuff. others can only afford one.

can you afford more than one wingsuit, eventually? or if you desire an "upgrade" will you be forced to trade in? will you be interested in jumping a variety of objects that might require a variety of suits? or is there basically one object to wingsuit in Kenya?

I got no clue!

I think the P2 is the best all-around wingsuit out there right now. Get comfortable with it out of planes obviously, but it is one of the easiest to fly suits ive ever jumped. I have a P2 and a V3 and there are some jumps I prefer the P2 on.

I faced a similar dilemma and went with the Prodigy.
I think it was the best choice for me, and I still have and jump the Prodigy, although I've since bought other suits.

The Prodigy functions like a really nice tracking suit. You get good performance, but once you pull, you don't have to fuck around with zippers or freeing you feet, just land as is. After the initial flights, I am now comfortable doing more of the fun things in a Prodigy, like two-step exits, aerials, low-pulls, and lower jumps (where I would otherwise use a track suit). All stuff I wouldn't think of doing in a more restrictive, high-performance wingsuit.

http://www.phoenix-fly.com/...ingsuit_selector.pdf

Hope that helps

"I still think you are a bit weird..." (c) Mikki_ZH

Talk about advice given on the Internet. Here's a better one:

Make as many skydives [ballpark] in wingsuit before making your first WS BASE as what you think is the minimum number of "regular" skydives before it's relatively sane to do your first "regular" BASE jump.

For example, if you think about yourself that after 200 skydives you would have been ready to do your first BASE (even if you, for example, actually did your first BASE after 5000 skydives), then do at least 200 wingsuit skydives before doing your first WS BASE.

Reason: you really want to feel yourself in wingsuit like fish in water or bird in air. Every little aspect of flying wingsuit - exits, corrections of imperfections of exit, recovery from shitty exits, stable and onheading pull, flight performance, pitch & angle of attack awareness and understanding of aerodynamics, flat turns, changed altitude and ground rush perception - everything must become your second nature.

Phantom is perfect for BASE and its performance is only ~15% lower than that of the highest performing suits. Skip Prodigy (although it's the best to do baby steps in) and go with Phantom.

Yuri

buy both, robi will be happy

Forget the wingsuit and learn how to track! Tracking is the new wingsuiting. :)

look at his videos with a Prodigy_2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOTcGoZ8fao
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igVXivK04jU

from my experience...

more easy to fly the V3 than the prodigy2...

so I think the same about the phantom2...easier than the prodigy2

prodigy 2 will give you more opportunity to learn how to fly wingsuit, from the beginning to dynamics, speed, performance etc...
and more possibilities if you miss your opening...in BASE environment

and like said by Yuri, learn first how to fly whatever wingsuit you will choose, in all the configuration possibles, even when closing your eyes!

and for you maybe start to fly big wall, like if it s completely normal and safe even after deep angle exit or sketchy exit before putting wings around your body!

Play safe and go at your own speed

hahaha, good one

All,

Thanks for the replies.

Clearly there is a diverse range of ideas.

I've now seen some amazing stuff being done with a Prodigy so my reservations are no more, mind made up.

Appreciate

John

if you haven't jumped either you might want to demo them both. i have very few wingsuit jumps (18) 14 on the prodigy and 4 on the phantom. the phantom was like a breath of fresh air, practically flew itself were i found i had to put alot of effort into flying the prodigy (requires quite a bit of upper body strength to control the flight due to the smaller wings)

some day when cash flow permits i'm going with the phantom2.

11 cents from inexperienced wingsuit flyer.

Are you referring to the original Prodigy or the Prodigy2 which I understand has been massively improved especially in the way of stability thru the implementation of ram air wings as opposed to single skin wings.

Also may I ask, are your eighteen WS jumps in the Base environment or sky diving?


John (Kenya)

[quote: more easy to fly the V3 than the prodigy2...

so I think the same about the phantom2...easier than the prodigy2
/quote]

I second that, based on skydiving only.

look man, yuv been told yull get board, and yur buddyz rite!!! you will.

get the P2. Its easy enuf to learn on. but that doesn't mean youlll get over it quick! youll have a lot of play in it. its a good BASE suit. its not too fast, its not too slow , it s not too big, it's not too small. you can easyily get to the BOC/PC .... its not soo scary flyin close,,,, except don't let a talus swalllow you up know yur lematations!!! ya know... get the P2,,, DONT B AFFRAID...therees nuthin to be affraid of!!

So by P2 you mean the Phantom 2 or the Prodigy 2?

Prodigy and Phantom/Vampire are almost apples and oranges, as they are optimized for different tasks. Ideally, you may want to own both Prodigy and Vampire/Phantom/Ghost etc to cover the whole range of fun.

Prodigy will be very easy to handle as far as exits, openings and general safety goes. It will be quite tricky and hard to learn to fly well - but once you do it's tons of fun ;) Still its top L/D will be less than Phantom.

Flying Phantom or Vampire will be easier to learn, but obviously more wing and physical arm and leg restrains can be an issue in BASE environment - especially on lower end of the scale.

Once you master both, roughly speaking:

Prodigy is ideal in higher urban environment, say anything around 800..1500 ft range, while big suits are ideal for big mountains.

P.S. my opinion is based on lots of Prodigy 1 experience. I only flew Prodigy 2 once and didn't notice anything that'd radically change the story. I thought 2 was neat but generally similar to 1 in the air.

Oh! that was kinda dum?

yeah i meant phantom2!


but really youlll get board of the little one for sure!

u know the mmoderator guy did point out sumthin smart though, for A's n stuff i think the smallfry suit is a smart choice! but your gonna be Bangin on some big walls then Phantom2!

sounds to me your gonna be wallbangin to me?

now more importantly: What color u gonna get?

I don't really agree on this. Both inexperienced and very experienced jumpers seems to like the Prodigy, it's those in between who usually don't like it because they don't have the skills to fly it very good. It's easy to fly in a decent way, but it's hard to fly very good. On the Phantom on the other hand you can easier get a medium good flight.

When it comes to safety it's no comparison. Plenty of situations can hurt or kill you on a wingsuit base jump like line twists, line overs, tension knots and so on. The Prodigy will save you a couple of precious seconds in a situation like this.

I'm not really sure which suit to recommend. If you are just planing on doing a wingsuit jump once in a while I would go for the Prodigy, but if you plan on jumping a lot i would either go for the Phantom or a Prodigy/V3 combo if you feel the extra risk is worth the fun.

prodigy and skydiving.

learned yesterday the next phantom will have zippers instead of cables. by the time i save up enough to buy one it'll probably come with rocket boosters.

The Phantom have been coming with zippers for almost a year now. Haven't seen any checkboxes for rocket boosters on the order form yet, but I'm looking forward to it

im speaking from experience, and the original poster was asking for one or the other i believe.

if your bangin on big(er) wall the Phantom 2 is the best choice. and also if you wanna go between the two suits get the fukin Acro!! that's a great suit for a beginner!!!! and for someone whose been around!! that's a safe BASE suit. Acro! i say get the Acro. and ive jumps on all 3 of em in the BASE enviro and SD enviroment.... i don't know why i didnn't suggest befor?? if your havin a hard time deciding the Acro is a goo d choice for sure....it s super stable and not twitchy and blah , blah...

anyway i nominate the Acro!!! ta daaa!!!!

I would try to borrow a Prodigy/Intro/Expert at the DropZone for 15-30 jumps and buy a Phantom 2.
The Phantom will feel better in the mountians because of the faster inflation and ease of flight.