I thought your review was spot on. My experience and opinion after owning the Orbit 3.5m for about a month now closely matches yours. There’s a lot to like about it, but for me as a short dude the tip drag issue is a big big negative and I spend a lot more time in the water when I use this wing which negates the gains it might make. I’m keeping it for a bit longer and will give it a fair shot and try to learn how to handle it better, but honestly every time I use it I kinda just wish I was on my simple single skins. I haven’t noticed a significant upwind advantage over my PRv2, but maybe I’m just not good enough to use it properly.
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Yeah absolutely terrible for a “premium priced” product. My fight to get a refund is still ongoing, I don’t know if it’s ozone or the dealer dropping the ball but for something to completely fail and be unusable after about 2hrs of light usage (as a backpack parawinging… the whole purpose of this thing) it’s still a strong avoid from me. A mate has the cheaper amazon option and it’s wayyy better constructed.
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IMO if you were at the Hatch and the gauge was showing 27 knot gusts you were fantastically overpowered on a 4.5m during your demo. I did three sessions. One desperately underpowered, 13 knot average on the gauge (close, but not quite on foil). One perfectly powered 24 knot average. One overpowered, over 30 knots.
88kg rider, 77l Carver, Code 720s, Flex 110 tail, 78sss v2 One Ocean mast.
I felt like it was magic until I got overpowered and then I noticed a few things that you did. Again though, I don’t want to say many critiques after just a single day demo. I want time to understand it before I lay out what I might not like about it.
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Yeah I think the variance in strength and direction that day didn’t do it any favors. I’d love to have a smoother-wind day on it.
Looking like Afterburner won’t have 1.9m or 2.4m sizes. Smallest is 3m. Interestingly it goes up to 6.5m now!
That afterburner sizing is a great segway into something I’ve been thinking about all summer.
The number one thing driving “VMG” of parawings is how overpowered you are riding. I have thousands of miles on the pt hybrids now and am partial to them but have noticed that they don’t get good vmg because the profile is magic or something, they get good vmg because I can comfortably harness ride the 4.3 into the high 20s. If I’m out in a gusty directionally challenged day then I’m getting the same angles and speed as anyone else on (almost) any other wing. If it’s lit and I have an extra square meter of material good luck keeping up unless you are riding similarly overpowered. I see a lot of people ride double skins and hybrids at the bottom of their range at the hatch and universally it looks challenging to say the least. I think when parawings were brand new the advice of “use the smallest one possible” was really common advice which was good advice at the time and less good advice now
This to me confirms what we all already know, it’s 99 percent rider skill. Afterburner sizing down the just 3 confirms to me that they want you ride it a size up, which will certainly get the better vmg. Just trying to put this somewhat obvious info out into this thread since I feel like it’s really missed in parawing discussions.
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Agree with caveat:
Everything I have from 777 gets better on the high end of the range. Which I freaking love.
Lots of single skins get destroyed on the upper end.
Too early to say for sure, but I think the Orbit is going to be a low end tool that is ferocious upwind when it’s operating in its bottom to mid range.
The challenge, IMO, is that no brand really advertises and no reviewers talk about sails being high end or low end specialists so you’re buying in the dark and sorting things out after the fact.
Appreciate the thoughtful review mate!
Contemplating the 5.3 as a daily driver in 12 to just-over-20 knots, so yr feedback re sheeting and steering v helpful 
Completely agree that being well powered is the key to getting good upwind angles. I also often see people on tiny parawings at the hatch spending a lot of time on their knees and not making much progress upwind. Rig big, hook in and let er rip
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What explains bar pressure differences between wings? Is it basically about how aligned the pull of the wing is with the direction of the foil?
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Great question. I’d like to know as well. My low AR sails are higher bar pressure than the high AR ones but I don’t know if that’s why.
I believe the increased bar pressure is mostly because lower AR parawings sit further back in the window so your fighting that dw pull more vs a higher AR parawing.
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While I agree that more power == better upwind angle (at least on good PWs) it’s not the only ingredient that matters.
With my 4.7m Frigate I find that with a slippery front wing as soon as it’s 12-14 knots I can hit a 30-35° upwind angle. That doesn’t really change that much until I hit around 22-25 knots when it goes up to 35-42°.
Unsteady wind definitely hurts the angle though.
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Relatedly,
been thinking of the variables that affect upwind performance. sail size seems very important.
Sail size
Sail AR
Line lenght?
Dihedral vs flatness of the front foil
Flatness of the stab shape
Current
Whether wind has gaps/holes
Don’t forget sail profile! It’s fairly safe to say that in a properly designed parawing, if you add cells you can design a more precise profile. A more precise profile generally means better performance.
However, increasing cell count raises the cost. More stitch work, more material, more lines, more line connections, more rods/battens.
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My pleasure. There is a L1 5.5 as well, might be an option for easier handling and more lowend
Had a long session on the 6.5 afterburner. My daily driver is 7.3 pt skin. I have the pt hybrids too, but have gone back to riding only the skins because at my parawing skill level, I am just doing alot better on the skins. The reason is my jibe rate is way higher on the skins vs hybrid, and the hybrids are less forgiving, ie if you touch the water, there is a chance it’ll stick and you cant recover. Now the afterburner, felt exactly like the hybrids, I’d say even harder to jibe. I went from like a 90% jibe rate yesterday on my 7.3 skin to less than 10% on the afterburner the next day. No matter what I could do, it just wouldnt jibe. I blame this on my skill, my technique for jibe isnt technical, I just wing it and do it on feeling, and that doesnt fly for the afterburner, you likely will need perfect technique. I was able to get a couple jibes using the behind the back jibe as Ive found that often easier than a normal jibe even on the skin. The upwind of the afterburner was a bit better than the skin. But that was about it, i didnt get any huge gusts so i wasnt able to see how the high-end would be better. And Im not sure about the differences between the afterburner vs hybrid, perhaps hybrid is even better upwind and high-end. But all I know is that it’s not for beginners, I have like 30 sessions of PW under my belt and I was starting to feel really good on the skin, nailing almost all my jibes, and it just went to crap when I used the AB. So yeah, its probably good for advanced riders, same like the hybrid.
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Pretty damn good prices and they have positive reviews from Gav and some french dude. Almost $400 less than a 3.5 Ozone PR V2 im looking at.
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finally, a kiters parawing 
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Post #1000.
Wooo.
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