Do any non-sponsored riders have any experience pumping Axis spitfires vs pumping progression wings prone surfing? I am 72kg and ride lift 170 and 120. I can link 3, maybe 4 waves, but often struggle with stability in turbulent New Zealand beach breaks. It seems like Spitfires and Progressions matched with high mod / katana masts are stable and surf well. Progression wings obviously pump beautifully but possibly have a limit in wave size and power. I wonder how a similar size Spitfire pumps out to link waves in the surf.
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Based on Axis team feedback: ART wings pump better than Spitfire wings.
Based my experience: Progression 170 & 140 pumps as good as ART wings (if not better)
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That’s not encouraging! I was under the impression that the Progressions were way better pumpers than the Arts, and I was hoping the Spitfires would be at least better than Arts.
to me ART vs. progression pump seems similar
The reason I purchased the 1099 originally is because I could only link a few waves and I thought it was going to be a cheat code for linking tons of waves. It wasn’t unfortunately. It made me realize it’s all about efficiency on foil and technique. My buddy can link 10-15 waves on just about any foil you give him and my cardio is way better than his. My typical best is 5-6 waves now
“It’s the Archer, not Arrow”
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Haven’t ridden progressions. Prone foil 699, 799, 999. Been riding spitfire 840 for a couple weeks. Spitfire pumps great for its size, good glide, relatively fast, and has good low end stall speed. ART’s are efficient, and I ride the 799 the most but it has no low end speed. 840 is much more forgiving and easier (less technical) to pump than the ART’s.
I was tempted to buy a 1099 for the same reason, seen another dude pumping forever on it….good to know!
you should demo a progression.
Because everything that is said about the spitfire comes exclusively from people already riding axis foil… so their reference aren’t “up to date”
The progression can pump almost forever with a slow pace
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Actually thats a pretty good thing to hear. Someone saying the progression pumps similar or equal to the ART, which is ultra high aspect and has a high stall speed and huge wing span.
If a wing can match that ART pump ability yet have a way lower stall speed and still turn enough to be fun in surf, you know that wing somehow matched the best quality of ART without having the worst qualities of the ART.
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I agree! P170 pumping is solid. I was impressed. I tend to be skeptical too 
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go on put a smile on my dial 
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Anyone have both the spitfire and progression. It’s hard to believe one wing is better in every way over all conditions. There has to be some pros and cons right?
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I have only seen one progression foil in HI, and he was ripping small waves, but he ripped on his previous equipment, so arrow/archer…
The hot new foil here is now code. It mostly went lift 120, takuma, f-one, and now code. With a couple of tangents on SAB and cabrinha in there.
I have tried most of those (excluding the progression) and still keep riding axis, as do a lot of us here in the islands. 
keep riding axis? you mean ride spitfire or also some of the arts
The reason I am weighing up between Spitfire and Progression is I am an older guy riding Lift 120 and 170 in the surf. I had been biding my time waiting for the 150 hax, and now it’s here, it seems like it is more DW focused, where as SF and Prog seem like better options for surfing and seem to be user friendly where as Lift seems to have gone more elite focused. All the Progression marketing and feedback of great pump for average cardio and user friendly is talking to me loudly, but I live in New Zealand and we do have some grunty waves, so I was thinking the Progression might be over powered here, but like you say, no wing is perfect
My personal guess is that because progression is more high aspect, it will pump better than spitfire. Due to the lower aspect spitfire, it seems like it’s better and easier for bigger, more powerful waves. And it should be overall more user friendly and forgiving to beginners. But you lose some of the pump in exchange for it to be easier to use. This is just my pure speculation, I would love to try other setups, but it’s quite hard being on a remote island.
Compare the 780 spitfire and the 140 progression. Both are 900cm. Spitfire is 6.8 AR while progression is 8.9.
Completely different wings. Probably compare the smaller spitfire to the lower aspect unis instead
Agree you are talking about 2 different wings in the Progression vs the Spitfire. What isn’t stated in this string is that while the Progression and ART pump similarly, The Progression surfs/carves/rolls much better. My buddy has a Spitfire. Loves how it surfs. Says it doesn’t pump like the ARTs. He uses it for towing mostly. I have yet to ride it so can’t comment.
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I rode the spitfire 900 back to back with progression 140. Eye balling them they looked the same span and size but the 900 is actually closer to the progression 170 in surface area (167”)
Spitfire = first session, Progression = daily driver for 3 months so this is a first impression. I was riding an Axis HPS 880 for the 4 months prior to switching to unifoil. I will update more this week
Conditions - typical waist high bouncy onshore crap that we get daily
Breach - this is where the biggest improvement on the HPS. Relatively shallow angle breaches were recoverable. Probably on par with progression or at least “no longer nightmare” like the HPS
Glide - spitfire has noticeably less glide, even for the 167” area. Put this down to the bigger chord ie lower AR
Pump - simple pump, but require more effort to maintain. Has a pitchy pump, maybe peculiar, it felt similar to the first time on the axis 1201 that is novel to me, but once you get it it is forgiving if a little bit high energy. Requires less finesse than the progression but loses altitude noticeably quickly. P300 tail so I will try a different tail to discount this.
Turn - fun and playful, still a bit pitchy and less smooth than the progression but much more fun than the distant memory of the HPS. Granted I’ve improved since then but I felt like I had plateaued. Turns nicely and rolls quickly which was the HPS worst feature, HPS would stick on one side and fight to roll over.
Turbulence - the lower aspect ratio means the spitfire gets less unsettled by whitewater turbulence, so you can pump sooner after going through the back of a broken wave than the progression.
On the whole I was happy and quickly pushing nice feeling turns in similar conditions to what I enjoy on the 140. I noticed the lack of glide, but also the simpler pump which I guess might suit really crap conditions.
This is absolutely correct, in the general sense that the ART range is tricky to pump and any mistake or wobble or turbulence and you’ll stall
“Better” is too broad to definitely call. I’d break it out into the following
Ease of use (most to least)
Spitfire > Progression > ART
Pure efficiency or Glide(most to least)
ART > Progression > Spitfire
The progression in my eyes is the best compromise between very good glide while still being easy enough to deal with the surf zone confusion and less than perfect technique.
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Wow extensive Matt, awesome insights there. I’ve pulled the trigger on Progression. I don’t want to die wondering! Will report back
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the 300p makes every foil pitchy from my experience on BSC and ART as it’s quite small so it makes the sweet spot of center of lift pretty small
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