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Welcome to the Flybubble Paragliding channel.
- [Nancy] We are free flight experts
and equipment specialists,
helping you get the best flying experience.
- Hello, let's have a look at some details on the STRIKE 2.
I think it's a really nice-looking harness.
It's one of the nicest looking of the ultralight pods,
currently released, the nicest looking.
And down here we have,
I'm not sure what this material is called,
lightweight, stretchy material.
It's got a bit of stretch in it.
It's not super light.
So, I mean, some materials are so light
that the air just blows through it.
This actually does give you some wind protection.
So I think it's a really nice balance.
The top part of the harness as you can see here
is made out of Ripstop material.
You can see the grids on it.
You can see that I've used it quite a bit.
You can see there's a very generous,
you can tell even from the outside
there's a very generous storage pocket in here.
And actually, it's so generous,
you need to make sure you fill it up.
Otherwise, the back can be a little bit kind of saggy.
Supair have clearly decided with this STRIKE 2
to prioritise storage space over having a tail fin.
They've gone for a very nice clean shape,
but they haven't bothered with the spoiler on the tail end
because this harness clearly,
it's prioritising hike and fly, and vol biv.
That's what it's really about.
In the back here, you've got a pocket to put stuff,
you can put your Camelbak in there if you wanted.
Your drink system off that,
if you've got one of those drink system
that has a hook or a loop on the top.
There's a little hole there
for the drink system to go through.
So your drink system goes through.
They have a hole on both sides.
So depends on you, if you are a right drinker
or a left drinker, you can swing both ways.
You could have two drinks tubes if you wanted.
So now looking inside in the back here
is the comfort foam pad.
So that comes out.
So if you want to, you can take that out.
If saving every gramme is your priority,
you do lose out then on the comfort on the back.
So I personally prefer to leave that in.
If you're doing more carrying than flying,
then you might choose to take that out.
I guess you could put something else in there.
I mean, looks like you could fit a few pizza bases inside,
would go quite nicely.
You could put them in there and you can cook 'em up later.
Oh, well, we can move on to now where the protector is.
Here.
I really like the kind of protector it is actually,
it's kind of, it's a foam protector,
but it's quite squishable.
So if you want a squishy protector,
you want to squish it down inside, compressors a lot.
You can see it gets inflated, shaped back up really quickly.
So I think it's a great, really great protector.
It's very, very light.
I personally prefer a foam protector
just because I hate having to blow up inflatable protectors.
I'm not really that keen on the inflatable protectors.
I realise they of course do save some weight
and then once you deflated it, you can get it down.
It makes a very compact package.
There is an option for an inflatable protector, if you wish.
I personally prefer the foam protector
but there's an option with that.
If you have an inflatable protector, one thing we've noticed
with all the harnesses with inflatable protectors
of course, they can go pop.
So be aware of that.
If you get an inflatable protector,
you need to treat it with extra care.
And the advantage of this is that you can...
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Well, within reason.
The speed system, you have these little openings.
Speed system comes out,
with a little bit of reinforcement around there.
So that's very good.
Moving down to the...
I found it inflates perfectly fine.
The footboard is actually quite generous compared to some.
On this one I find it's a little bit big,
but that's actually really nice.
I don't have a problem with that.
I guess it makes the front profile slightly less efficient.
You can see the attachment points here again.
Well, that's interesting to look after quite a bit of use.
In a comfort point of view
and getting your feet in there easy
and not feeling like your feet are kind of overlapping
on the top or the bottom and kind of squished,
it's quite luxurious.
Yeah.
Luxurious is the feeling, it feels quite nice
from that point of view.
Yeah.
You can see they've put a little bit of,
Just where your feet go in and out,
there's a little bit of extra reinforcement there.
That's an area that often gets wear on various pods.
So it's really great to see
that they put that detail in there.
I do fly with boots sometimes,
and there's no problem getting in and out of a pod.
Another area of storage is actually under the seat,
under the seat area, if you open up.
So you can see,
there's actually quite a generous pocket underneath.
Here, this is how you access the back protector.
Unzip that.
Have a look under there, that's the back protector.
So yeah, that's the actual protector.
Inside there's actually a kind of foam sponge,
nicely shaped.
This is where the mini seat board is and that's removable.
I would definitely prefer that (keeping the seat board).
So there's the little mini seat board.
It's very light.
How the harness looks when you open it up.
So one thing that STRIKE 1 owners will notice
is that the comfort, I think is much, much higher.
Particularly around the seat and around the back.
With the STRIKE one, I always found there were
kind of you could feel where some straps were,
the part of the frame of the construction
of the harness is sort of, for every harness
they have a framework of webbing
that kind of makes up the structure of it.
Like the chassis of a car.
There's a much better comfort across the bottom area
and the lower back and right up the back.
Particularly when you keep that foam,
the foam part in the back there, nice comfort padding.
It's much cleaner across the back than the STRIKE 1.
I find it actually surprisingly comfortable
for how light it is.
It's one of the most comfortable of the ultralight pods.
It's actually more comfortable
than some of the semi-light pods,
very comfortable to fly in.
So impressive, great job, Supair, there.
There's lots of stitching and reinforcement here
and you can see whereas on some other ultralight harnesses
we've seen at these points, like signs of wear,
stitching coming apart and tearing on the fabric.
There's the leg straps.
Okay.
So you can see those.
Okay.
So you can see how that all is.
It's actually a very neat system,
well placed bits of material here
to hold the lines away from your legs.
The adjustment is done with these little plastic grommets,
I'm gonna call them.
Yeah.
These slide up and down quite easily,
like so for adjustment.
The side that's got the clip on it like that,
for the closing of the speedbag.
And in the top here you can see
the speedbar line comes up and through these
for a nice pulley.
So there's good size pulleys there.
Really pleased to see that.
Some ultra-light pod harnesses really skimp on the pulleys
and they try and save a little bit of weight.
I found the speed system is little fiddly to find,
to get your foot in the right place.
I think it's just because it's made out of those lines
and things like that.
For the lumbar support in a V shape
to spread the load across your lumbar,
right across your lower back.
And that's really helps.
That's the reason that explains the really good comfort
on this harness.
Looking at the front reserve container, stroke flight deck,
bit of a pocket on the back.
Looking at the flight deck in more detail.
You can see I've added a little keyring.
I've added that on myself just to
that's what I like to use for attaching things.
You could use a mini maillon as well.
Looking at the front reserve in more detail
Handle, stick out if you want or leave lying flat.
I prefer to leave it like that.
And see, sometimes the zipper
can come slightly undone there.
And if you give it a real poke, it will do
but I've never had a problem
with the reserve coming undone or anything like that.
So that's fine.
Minor aesthetic detail.
And then the stitching line, the zipper.
So for the reserve, the zipper that would undo
if you throw reserve runs along the right-hand side.
You see there.
And just to show you, if you did throw reserve
here you can see the bridles come around here
around the shoulders, usual kind of system, and here.
Okay.
Now, showing you how to clip in with everything open.
So, as I mentioned before, the really important thing
is to take your time and make sure
everything's as it should be.
So first of all, follow up the leg straps.
Make sure you got those and there's no twists.
Pull the riser nicely and move the riser
completely out of the way, like so.
You clip it so that is facing upwards.
So making sure, following my strap up,
there we go.
Open the gate, check that my, this bit of webbing,
the Dyneema strap is facing upwards, the black and white.
And then clip it on like so.
You can see a little bit fiddly.
Well, to be honest, it isn't that simple
but it's not that complicated.
And as long as you have a system, it shouldn't be a problem.
Now I get this Velcro strap, put it underneath,
and then go through the plastic eyelet there.
And then Velcro it up the plastic eyelet.
Waist strap and clip that in
through the lines, make sure it's all clear.
The clip on the other side, clip that in.
When you're on the ground,
it looks a bit wrong, it looks like this might interfere
with the leg strap but when you're actually flying
and in the air, you can see that's the correct side
for it to be.
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Looking at some of the details
of the Supair STRIKE 2 harness.
So here we have a little Velcro patch
for your mini vario or GPS.
The stitching is really nice and robust.
And the flight deck here, the reserve container
that's really nicely done, very neat,
much neater than the original version.
And you can see the reserve handle here
can sit nice and flat if you want,
still easy to grab with your right hand.
Or if you want you could, before launch or after launch,
move it like so, so it sticks out.
So you could potentially grab it with both hands.
The container is big enough
to fit in a BEAMER 3 light, 100, or 130.
Even the 100 is a reasonably tight fit.
And the 130 is a bit of a squeeze.
You have to really squish it down to get it in there
but I'm pretty certain it does fit.
Looking at the flight deck,
you can see the size of it.
I've got on here, this lovely little instrument.
This can't fit a big smartphone in here.
It would be sticking out right over the top.
You could fit it obviously in landscape mode
but yeah, again, 'cause it's an ultralight pod
it's more geared towards being for ultralight kits.
You know, you're not gonna have your,
you're certainly not gonna have a Flymaster LIVE DS
or some big instrument on here.
Moving gradually down the harness,
the left side, there's a zipped pocket.
I really like the fact that it's zipped
but on the right side, there's no pocket on there.
I would've quite liked there to be a pocket.
In summary, I feel the Supair STRIKE 2
is a really excellent all-round ultralight pod harness.
It's very well made.
It's got really great features.
It's really comfortable to fly.
For me, it's the most comfortable of all
of the ultralight pods to fly.
Both in terms of the sitting in comfort,
how it feels on my bum and my back and my whole body
but also in terms of the flying comfort,
flying in turbulence and active conditions,
it's very comfortable to fly in that way.
It's got a very comfortable and calm feeling.
And I think it's a little bit more on the dampen side.
It's not a very active weight shifty kind of harness
but at the same time, I feel it has good precision.
I've been thermaling and making use of very tricky bits
of lift in thermals and on the slope,
having to turn very tightly
and needing a good responsiveness with the harness.
And I found it really good in that way.
My main criticism of the STRIKE 2
is the clipping in system, it's not the simplest,
the front reserve
and the way that the karabiners are.
And the connection system, how you clip in and out,
it's not the simplest of systems
but once you get used to it, it's fine.
I think that might put some pilots off.
Minor niggle was with the way
that Supair do their speed system.
I much prefer the speed system line to be at the other end.
So you don't have this dangly bit.
It's just a bit messy.
So very compact.
I mean, folds up very compactly.
It's not the absolute smallest.
You can make it smaller by having the inflatable protector,
but it folds, yeah, really nice and compact.
Fits very nicely in around about a 75-liter backpack
with a lightweight wing.
I don't recommend it as a first harness
just in case anybody's thinking about that.
Watching, thinking, "Oh, that sounds great."
I don't recommend pods in general as a first harness.
Just again due to the extra complication of the pod
and clipping in and having to get in and out of the pod.
You've got enough to think about already
when you're a new pilot.
You don't need extra complications
and the benefits that you get out of a pod
are marginal compared to those extra complications.
So definitely don't recommend a pod as your first harness.
So all in all I think Supair have done a great job
with the STRIKE 2.
It's a really nice evolution
from the very popular STRIKE 1.
And we've already had customers,
and we've seen lots of pilots, are very happy with them.
So it's, yeah, for the right pilot, it's a fantastic choice.
It's really, really nicely made.
So, thumbs-ups up Supair.
Good job.
Nicely done.
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