so the skipper 2 is aimed at particularly cross-country pilots, ambitious
cross-country pilots who are looking to do long technical flights and people
getting into cross-country competitions. it's not got a great big fairing on the
back like a full comp harness and it's aimed particularly at safety so you've got a
big protector with lots of protection. This is a pre-production model
Supair tell me it's pretty much the finished thing but there might be some
little details that might change when they bring out their final version
coming out soon. their emphasis is on safety and performance, comfort, control,
rather than for example lightweight and minimalist. this is not lightweight
minimalist harness although it's much lighter than and much less bulky than
the full comp harnesses and much more manageable than that.
so this harness is I think five point eight kilos for the medium size roughly
so quite a bit heavier than what I normally fly with. they've made this very
easy harness: it's very easy to get into and move around on the ground.
you don't feel encumbered by a great big bulk and weight whereas for example with
the full comp harnesses like the Kortel Kanibal Race 2, the Gin Genie Race 4, you kind
of feel like you're waddling about like a big penguin on launch and with this
you don't have that at all, it's very easy,
but it's got a lot of the features you'd expect to see on a full
comp harness. so for example you've got the underseat reserve here
which is designed to fit all sizes of solo reserve. I've got a high adventure
Beamer 3 that's my primary reserve and as you can see here a very nice clean
reserve system the handle is very easy to get. It is held on by a little bit of
velcro there to hold it nice and tidy. I found that really secure with nylon
pins there so it's really easy to check your reserve. The second reserve you've got an
optional front mount reserve and I think Supair have
done this really nicely, it's really clean, sits in there really easily. I've
got a Companion SQR Light 120. For a front reserve I prefer to have something a bit
lighter and so that's in there. that fits really easy I could certainly
fit a bigger reserve if I wanted and the system for attaching this is really
well-thought-out. When you put it all together it takes a little bit of
getting your head around putting the straps on but when you clip in it's a
simple clip in, like so. we received the harness with the normal flight deck
supplied: you actually get both, surprisingly. Supair supplies you with
with both so you've got them to use if you want. as you can see the
flight deck it just zips on so you've got these zips here it's actually pretty
easy to do that, it unzips on both sides, like so. You've got an extra little
popper and then with the bridles that holds it very securely. it's quite a
generous flight deck you can easily fit two or even three instruments on this
flight deck. you can put your battery pack in there, lots of space
inside and a storage pocket so you can put your snack bars and whatever you
want in the front of there. this certainly isn't a harness that's lacking
in space, it's got a lot of storage as
you'll see. the harness is delivered with a nice removable flight panel with
Velcro on it, it fits perfectly and it's got a lip on the front to protect your
instruments.
you can see this harness is sort of somewhere between the lightweight XC pod
harnesses and the full comp harness. it's got a very stiff reinforced very
supportive back that you might expect to see on a full comp harness and these quite
stiff sides and when you're flying you feel very supported on your back and on
the sides you feel very in contact with the harness so all in all the feeling
you have when you're in the harness is very supported, up the sides on your back
and very comfortable. and when you're doing things like wing overs it's a
great harness for doing that and with the seat plate as well you feel really
in contact with the harness and you stay in contact with it as you're doing your
wing overs. something I noticed the difference between some of the
lighter pod harnesses with less support on the back or with with a hammock style
harnesses is when you do your high G maneuvers you kind of get this feeling
of like being flexed back. you don't feel quite as supported and you feel like you
need to bring your legs in more. otherwise you get this kind of like ooohhh
in your back. with this style of harness like the comp harnesses, you don't, you
feel very supported even when you're doing a high-g maneuver like a spiral
dive to get down or just for fun or ... wingovers, it's really good.
With the Skypper 2 - you've got a bit more feedback than you do with the
Delight 3 it's not lots of feedbacks not like a sort of acro harness, unstable
or weight shifty, it's got a very stable secure feeling to it but you feel
what the glider is doing, you feel well informed of what's
going on but it the feeling is more on the comfortable stable
side of it rather than the sort of wagga unstable feeling. it has a
nice balanced feeling about it.
it's got a very generous storage in the back which is great no problem at all
taking everything in there even my chunky sandals and everything in
the back so it's pretty large. your pocket to put your little Camelback in,
your drink system. We have got our reserve attachment systems, the harness
has the loops stitched in and that's a zip system and that runs all the way
down to here, to the reserve system. A little minor criticism that I have for
the Skypper 2 which is actually similar to the Delight 3 it's just the way they
finished off the zip it has a slight tendency to come undone. mind you I
actually haven't touched that for a week in Tenerife and that's
all that's come undone. very much like the delight 3, it's not hazard, the
reserve is never going to come out, it's just to the perfectionists out there
that's just slightly annoying, that's all. but all you have to do is run the zip
down and back up. yep that's for chaining your monkey to.
so for your monkey you just attach him on there and then he can ... yeah you don't
lose your monkey basically. so that's the useful feature. all right it's not for
your monkey so this is for your drogue chute and Supair supply it you've got a
webbing strap that runs through. They supply it with a maillon and the O-ring to
attach it to. nice thing is that you can access it from both sides.
so you can access it from that side as well. They've got a pocket which they are
aiming at for a satellite tracker and perhaps another slight small criticism
is that this is apparently perfect for a Spot but apparently doesn't quite fit a
Delorme so it would be nice Supair if you'd make it a little
bit bigger! this is a radio pocket on this side there's another pocket on this
side it's actually more of a horizontal pocket. I found that very good
for putting a camera pole in. Under here there's an underseat ballast
pocket. it's not as big as you might expect, it's not particularly big.
One part of their literature it says three and a half
liters in other parts there's five liters so looking at it I'd say more
like the three and a half litres. It felt to me like I probably need the large size
I'm six foot or 183 centimetres it feels like it's really important if you're in
that in the in-between stage you should try both sizes, the medium and
large, to make sure you've got the right size. so I did struggle a little bit
getting in but I think that's just because I probably need to size up.
[GREG] I'm 174 cm and I flew the same harness and I found the same thing so I think
it's actually it is a bit difficult to get in, like you
want to use a little ball and bungee. because it
seems to hug your legs. yeah when you try and get your feet in it's
not impossible but it's difficult. I found I had to let go and hook my hand through.
yeah, the Skypper 2 - it's interesting to work out exactly which pilots is
this harness aimed at because some pilots will probably ... from our experience
of fitting lots of pilots, they tend to either be thinking 'oh I want
the lightweight' and they might go for something lighter weight; or they want
performance and then they go to the comp harnesses but what we find is often
the pilots who do that they go to the lightweight and find they want something
with more stability, more control and more safety and so that's exactly
what Supair are thinking with the Skypper - and likewise some other pilots think
'I want the performance, I want great control and performance' ... they've
flown a lighter harness and found with that, especially the higher performance
glider, the higher aspect ratio, there's too much movement and so they want more
performance and then they try a full comp harness and they're like
'oh my god I've put a truck on my back!' so this is exactly where this
harness is, it fits in between those. it's both for really keen cross-country pilots
who wan to fly big distances and fly for many hours, also pilots who enjoy
doing wing overs and want the control to throw the glider about and have fun and
I want the extra control but they don't want the full bulk. I think as well
this is one of the lightest options that you can get for having the full features
like the two reserves with a very well designed front reserve system and the
under seat reserve plus the drogue chute and you've got all those features so I
think that's where this harness works really well.
the Skypper 2 is ideal for cross-country pilots who are looking for an all-in-one
harness that's got all the features and the safety, the two reserves,
an 18 centimeter back protector ... whose emphasis is on safety, control but
don't want the full bulk of a competition harness.
here I have a skipper - in a fag you'll be confused because it's a gym bag for a
supper harness and you'll see inside there's a skywalk glider just to confuse
the three of you so my boss Greg is already having fun
editing this this is the sound of me undoing the straps crank