Looking to get a smaller wing for chest+ surf and/or strong winds. I would get a small Spitfire or one of the upcoming small Uni wings.
Have full Axis gear as well as Unifoil, no loyalty.
The sponsored reviews compare them to the existing Axis wings, which are almost all at least 2 years old and mostly not surf oriented wing, so the reviews aren’t very useful. Axis missed about 2 generations of surf wings so this is already going to be a huge apparent step up in performance for those dedicated riders.
Is the Spitfire ACTUALLY better than latest generation comparable surf wings of other brands? (sponsored riders and marketing aside)? Anyone compared them to the Hyper2 or Progs or Lift or Sk8 etc?
Look at what Jeremy Wilmotte was doing on his older videos. To what he was doing on his latest clip before he left AXIS. I’d say they’re better.
I saw them in person, but there were no waves to try them yet. I’ll get on them and report back when I get a chance. I do hear they want to be ridden tight in the pocket. The harder you surf them, the better they are.
A friend has one, it looks like it will be an improvement on the HPS which is years behind current, so it will easily be the best Axis foil by far… lower bar I cannot imagine. I’m waiting for him to use it so that I can swap with the prog140 and we compare notes.
Other friend has the sk8 and he is ripping the hardest of the 3 of us by far, but he also surfed better so there is that
I’ve just demoed the 900 and had some thoughts. I’m fairly average as a foiler, was on some pretty small waves and I’m 66kg. I was using the 75cm Ali mast, Black Advanced Ultrashort fuse and a P425 tail.
I’ve just swapped over from Armstrong and when I’ve used Axis wings in the past, it’s been the big dockstarting wings like the 1150, which have felt super stable, like jumping onto a door. I thought that was because of the size of the big wings, but the 900 had that same really easy and stable feel, so I think might be the stiffness of the Axis setup.
Pumping felt really good. Still knackered me pumping back out, but was able to do so on my first wave, then doubled the next. One thing I noticed was that it was possible to accelerate the wing from a really slow speed, rather than bogging down and sinking. I recently owned the Armstrong MA1000 which is a similar size and purpose, but I found that wing punished any movement that wasn’t absolutely perfect. I found the 900 much more user friendly, even though it was a new wing to me.
People are talking about how good it rolls from side to side. I’d agree with this, even though I was not pushing it in any way. I can imagine it’ll surf and flow really nicely.
I think more and more that wing preference is a personal thing, but for me, this wing is outstanding and I’ll be grabbing one as soon as they’re back in stock. Overall, really simple and easy to use, rolls and turns really well (even with a huge tail) and pumps easily and pretty darn well.
I have a question about pumping the spitfire. I saw Dom’s video and he says to pump it you rely mostly on the lifting up and not so much on the front foot down. I have the 780 only and have pumped it a few times (really not enough attempts to get used to it). I managed to get some 10-15s pumps in just by mainly jumping and not putting front foot down. It does feel like there is not much pressure on the front foot to step down on unlike the ha and bigger wings I’m used to. On ha and bigger winds there is a stiff platform feeling in the front foot (as well as back) and I don’t think it’s the same on the spitfire. Just wanted to get some more in depth technique tips from experienced riders on how to pump differently on spitfire wings compared to the ha wings which are alot easier to pump
I think he said it in that video too. Keep the board flat. Even pressure with both feet. You do not want a strong nose up, nose down, porpoise movement.
