Responding to this here: Flitelab who knows - #8 by FlyByFoil
I bought and rode a Silk 850 + 142 rear for 3 sessions and approximately 20 waves with a Cedrus Evolution. Came from riding Unifoil Progression 140 and 125 extensively, and a Lift Havoc 121 for about 3-4 sessions and probably an equal amount of waves on that. Also I only prone, no wing.
My experience opposes what most people here have said:
- It felt slow and draggy immediately, I found it difficult to clear sections and get on shoulders that I thought I would’ve have been able to make on any of the above wings. For a wing with less area (850 vs 900 on the P140) I found this very surprising.
- The pumping was one of the worst I’ve ever felt, it did not feel like any of the power input resulted in pump output to me. Moved the mast around quite a bit trying to make it work but it just never did. The pump distance from one wave to another for me is usually about 50 yards minimum and I couldn’t get a single connection in those sessions. I didn’t expect it to pump well, but I did expect it to be doable, which for me it was not. I pumped the Lift Havoc 121 with more success than the Silk, and it is both smaller in area and span.
- The finish on the connection surface of wings is pretty poor, there are chipped off carbon pieces on the connection surfaces from however its sanded or machined down.
- Not being able to change fuse lengths for different preferences isn’t ideal, also unnecessarily difficult to travel with, and I’m not convinced that the molded fuselage makes any meaningful difference.
- The fuselage is totally flat. This means that when you bolt on the rear wing, it adds thickness on top of the fuse. AFS rears have a recess in their rear wings, so they bolt on seamlessly accounting for this. However trying to use other brands rears results in the bolt on rear creating an elevated surface on top. Some brands like Code and Uni have a small recessed cutout on the fuse with a flat area for the rear wing to attach, which results in the added rear wing being mostly uniform with the fuselage after. So these fuselages are not universally compatible with other brands rears without a drag penalty.
- The wave riding and carving felt smooth and good, as expected. But a wing with an 87 CM span only being 3 shorter than the P140, it still wasn’t low span enough to allow for as steep of a roll, especially for the trade-off of pumping and slowness I experienced. By comparison the Lift Havoc 121 74 span allows you to roll very hard, and trading off low pumping for that benefit was worthwhile to me.
I ended up selling the Silk after 3 sessions. It’s possible I gave up on it too fast, but after 3 sessions I had zero desire to ride it again as I felt like I was just wasting sessions. I started to think that the tubercles and winglets are gimmicks, adding unnecessary material = drag to the wing for no benefit. Seems like most people really like them but just didn’t feel good to me, and left me wanting to try the F One Sk8 and Flitelab Flux as alternatives.