~Intro~
This past spring I got to try the 2.5m Glide AA and it blew my mind. At that point in time I had probably 4-5k miles of wingfoiling experience I had never experienced a wing so perfectly made for my riding style. Ridiculously light in hand, great flagging, good grunt, it was perfect. I probably spooked Peter Wright, Ocean Rodeo ambassador who was letting me demo it. I came in so absolutely frothed out of my mind he probably thought I was a nutcase. That day would mark the beginning of my journey towards the AA wings and some major breakthroughs for me as a winger.
~My Wing History~
From the moment I learned to wing I always wanted the smallest possible sail. I came from kiting and the wing always seemed like an inferior tool that was in the way, physically demanding, and simply unrefined. I also didn't want to wear a harness (I do now) and sizing down wings was critical for not getting pumped out on 3 hour sessions. Smaller wings were also more fun to fly (especially as a 5'6" member of the smurf crew) and in the earliest of my wing days I focused on sizing down as quickly as possible by focusing on strong pumping and underpowered water starting skills.
My first real quiver was the Duotone Slicks which were good for a few seasons, but I didn't especially love the newer versions. After that I was on Cloud IX wings. Their wind wings are surprisingly light and low tech but I enjoyed their dacron version and didn't complain at all when flying their 3.5m. At the 4.2m size they had a Ho'Okipa frame which was my introduction to super fabrics and I have to admit, I fell in love right away. My only problem was that the 4.2m wasn't a size I wanted to fly that much. I always wanted to be on 3.5m or smaller. I picked up a used 2.5m and 3m Ocean Rodeo Glide A which, when in the right conditions, I loved. However, the low end of the 3m left a lot to be desired and the 2.5m is a touch small for a daily driver.
My quiver today:
2m Strike v3: The greatest high wind wing ever? Struggles with low end (30-35+ knot average) but even in 62 knot gusts I found it to be manageable.
2.5m Glide A: Maybe a 30-40ish knot range on this wing. It's an excellent choice if I'm scared I won't be able to get back on foil with the Strike.
2.5m Glide AA: I can fistfight this wing onto foil at 20 knots with the Silk 1050. It's probably best suited for 25-30 knot averages.
3m Glide AA: The best wing I've ever owned. Powerful, versatile, incredible range, can't be beat. Average 20-30 knots is my happy place on this wing.
4m Glide AA: 10-20 knot average is a dream on this wing, I just wish the span was shorter.
~Enter Ocean Rodeo~
After going bonkers on the 2.5m AA demo I had to find my way onto the AA wings. I tracked down a 3m to get my quiver started and eventually got a 4m. It was hard to come by, but the rare and elusive 2.5m also fell into my hands before the summer was done. I put 2000 miles on these wings this summer and can't seem to find another wing that compares to them. So, why? What makes these wings special to me vs others?
~Style Match~
I ride in the Columbia River Gorge and like surfing swell with a lot of speed and aggression. I'm usually going down the line on a left or a right and approach swell riding similar to the way I would approach breaking ocean waves. Top to bottom turns with full reaches back and forth across the river. Up until this point I had really just looked for grunty small wings that would get me up and then park out of the way so I could surf and not have to worry about them. Wings get better every year but even the best performing wings I had used still seemed like a bit of a nuisance until I got ahold of the AAs. I initially thought of wings as tools vs toys. All of my old wings were tools that had specific jobs to do and nothing else. The AAs were toys, they are these joyful items that I could throw from hand to hand with confidence that it was going exactly where I wanted it to. Flying the AAs was intuitive, like having a dance partner that new all the moves and could improvise on the fly. This was a breakthrough for me as a winger. I now saw the wing as an asset, not a hindrance to my riding.
~Weight~
I never thought much about wing weight until I flew these. I'd expect the average rider would first notice the weight impact when using them in light winds and lazily gliding through gybes. Light wings simply stay aloft and out of the way really nicely. When doing more aggressive riding and tossing the wing around, it's just more responsive and predictable in every way you might imagine.
But how light is it? Really?
My quiver:
2m Strike v3: 1400g
2.5m Glide A w/hard handles: 1350g
2.5m Glide AA w/hard handles: 1325g
3m Glide AA w/hard handles: 1475g
4m Glide AA w/hard handles: 1.63kg
They are lighter than any other wing on the market by a significant margin. If you look up the weights of other sails and compare them, you'll notice that on any other brand you typically need to find a 2m if you want something that is lighter than the 4m Glide AA.
It's hard to really grasp the weight concept until you've flown and thrown wings of this weight around. Let's consider the weight difference when compared to an F-One Strike v4 4m. or the Duotone Slick D/Lab with Carbon boom. Either are about 500g (1.1lbs) heavier. That's about a 30% increase in weight. That increase in weight dramatically decreases how playful and maneuverable the wing is. When flagged out and holding the wing by the leading edge that extra 500g slows my ability to move my arm up, down, side to side. It also encourages the heavier wings to fall out of flight. IMO this is why I was so blown away by the AA wings. Ditching all of that weight results in a performance upgrade that is impossible to ignore.
~Neutral Flagging~
~Roll stability as well as stability from multiple handle locations.~
When I am playing with flagged out wings the first thing I tend to notice is if they oscillate side to side on the roll axis or if they stay relatively parked in place. A lot of the earlier generation wings would swing side to side and made it hard to focus on the swell riding. So, in general, a non oscillating wing is critical if you want to focus on surfing. As I progressed as a foiler and surfy swell rider I also started to make note of the fact that there are times when I want to flag out from the leading edge, and times when I want to flag out from the front strut handle. Not all wings were able to do this. Some were stable from the front strut handle while others were better from the leading edge handle. The AA is stable from both locations.
~Pitch stability for the most predictable flight response.~
Now, all of the above flagging traits are probably enough to satisfy most wingers. When I still thought of the wing as a tool and not a toy that was all I needed. After flying the AA for several thousand miles another stability trait became apparent to me. Pitch. I first started to pick up on this trait when I was surfing aggressively and I instinctively threw the wing like a paper airplane on a turn. It magically landed in my other hand. I haven't tried to develop that skill or trick, but whenever instincts kick in and I throw the wing it tends to land in my other hand. I started to identify it as pitch stability when I would test other wings. I started to notice that I could actually feel downward pressure in my hand when holding certain wings from the leading edge handle. I would assume that this downward pressure lends itself to nice, parked flagging, but it didn't lend itself well to playful, fast moving, swell surfing. Wings that want to nose down in my hand resisted movement in more radical maneuvers. The AA wings wanted to fly with me at my knee, waist, chest, overhead, wherever I wanted to put the wing it moves there effortlessly and is comfortable staying there for my maneuver of choice. Surely, some of this is a result of wing design. However, I think a lot of this has to do with weight.
~Durability~
I consider myself to be "a perfect gentleman" with my gear and my wings are no different. I'm constantly riding a smaller wing than others so there's less wind load on the canopy. I hang them up to dry and commonly don't even pack them into the bags. They hang, dry, and then ride again the next day. I also ride in a river where you're never getting "caught inside" and having your wing smashed on by waves. At the end of 2024 my 3mAA has over 1200 miles on it and hasn't seen any decrease in low end or change in shape.
One question I've been asked frequently is "Do you think the Aeris canopy is worth the extra money?"
From Aluula: "Featuring the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any of our fabrics, Aeris™ is the absolute lightest and strongest material we make. Lighter than nylon and polyester with unrivalled construction capabilities that include ultrasonic welding, this fabric is next level."
This year I unintentionally put the tear and puncture resistance of the Aeris canopy to the test. I was riding an absolutely miserable universal mast for about 25% of my sessions in 2024. It suffered terribly from ventilation and that resulted in some pretty outrageous crashes that commonly resulted in my foil getting speared into the canopy. I had a 100% success rate of destroying my dacron canopies and leading edges in these crashes (3 wings, RIP). However, after 2000+ miles on my AA's and 6 direct foil to canopy strikes including one that I watched knife across the whole canopy, I can happily report that I didn't have to do a single repair on the Aeris canopy.
~Canopy Math~
I had my Cloud IX 3.5m and Glide AA 3m inflated and leaned against the wall and noticed something kind of funny. The AA looked as big, if not bigger than the Cloud IX. Was this just an optical illusion? The canopy shape was very similar so I got out the measuring tape and started comparing.
The wingspan of my Cloud IX was 1.5" wider than the wingspan of my AA. The chord, was 1" shorter. So, pretty close. Next, I tried to isolate the canopy and I measured the interior span and chord, not including the leading edges. Here, I started to see significant differences. The Cloud IX wingspan that was originally wider had an interior canopy span that was 2.5" narrower. The chord was also 1.5" shorter with these new measurements. Why? Different diameters on the leading edge resulted in a significant change in size.
I took these numbers and did some math to get the square meters. I want to clarify something real quick here: Any DIY math we do is going to be flawed vs any computed math done by a brand. However, I learned that different brands have different computations to arrive at their published m^2 so it's a bit wacky across the industry. No-one is intentionally misleading with published numbers, it's just different programs. So, my numbers really just serve to give me a better understanding of why one wing feels strong vs another that feels weak at the same published weights.
If we use the internal, non leading edge canopy measurements we get the following:
Cloud IX 3.5m computes out to 3.3m
Ocean Rodeo 3m computes out to 3.48m
So, I plugged this into all of my wings as well as a few of my friends and got the following:
Brand | Model | Size | Calculated |
F-one | Strike v3 | 2m | 2.12 |
Ocean Rodeo | Glide A | 2.5m | 2.42 |
Five-O | Dynamo v1 | 3.4m | 2.88 |
Ocean Rodeo | Glide AA | 2.5m | 2.93 |
Ocean Rodeo | Glide A | 3m | 2.95 |
F-one | Strike v3 | 3m | 3.16 |
Cloud IX | Wind Wing | 3.5m | 3.3 |
Ocean Rodeo | Glide AA | 3m | 3.48 |
Cloud IX | Cirrus | 3.5m | 3.554 |
Five-O | Dynamo v1 | 4.3m | 3.8 |
Cloud IX | SLE | 4.2m | 3.92 |
Ocean Rodeo | Glide AA | 4m | 4.37 |
Five-O | Dynamo v1 | 5.3m | 4.53 |
Ocean Rodeo | Glide AA | 5m | 5 |
Pretty interesting results in my opinion. To summarize a bit:
The Ocean Rodeo Glide A's calculate to be a bit undersized and in my experience on the water that's accurate, they felt a bit weak.
The Ocean Rodeo Glide AA's calculate to be a bit oversized until you reach the 5m mark. I would also say this felt accurate on the water.
Cloud IX tends to hit the mark pretty close and that feels accurate in my hands.
Five-O which does tend to tell people to size up their wings and they do calculate to be significantly smaller than their published sizes which again, makes sense.
The F-One v3 Strike tends to calculate out to just a hair larger than the published numbers. For me, this wasn't accurate. This wing felt weak in my hands when sitting in the water and most people acknowledge there was low end missing in the v3. This is where design must be considered.
I'd encourage everyone to not overthink the canopy math. Some brands get a reputation of being "super grunty!" and I would love to see what my math breaks down to be while other brands like Five-O encourage people to size up, which totally makes sense from the calculations and on water reports. Just think of the canopy math as an assist like when you are buying a t-shirt and reviews state if it runs "true to size" or not.
~Considering Wingspan vs Personal Height~
I'm 66" tall (5'6") with a +2 ape index (armspan is longer than height) and in my commitment to optimizing my wing setup I learned to pay close attention to the wingspan for consideration of how hard I can pump a wing to get myself up onto foil. Here's a couple noteworthy measurements for me:
105" span is the widest wing I found I could absolutely rage on to get myself up onto foil. At 106.5" I lost my ability to really hammer on the wing to get up in light wind. I would have too many tip strikes while pumping to get up in the lightest conditions. 105/2 = 52.5" at the center which is 13.5" shorter than my height. So, I need 13.5" on the downstroke to pump myself up in the weakest conditions. The wingspan on the 3m AA is 105" so I am good to go.
114" inches seems to be the cutoff for effective pumping for me. 114/2 = 57" which leaves me with a 9" downstroke before hitting the water. My Cloud IX 4.2m SLE was at 114" in total span and it's the widest wing I felt like I could ever effectively pump onto foil and I never caught the wingtips in flight.
The Ocean Rodeo 4mAA is 117.5" in total span. I can tell that I am significantly restricted when trying to pump onto foil at that span. When in flight, it is not uncommon for me to accidentally hit the wing tips a few times during my sessions which I find annoying. I don't think I'll buy another wing at this span in the future. I'll probably consider a parawing or a larger foil/board to ride in light winds.
~Why is the canopy loose?~
Not all fabrics behave in the same way when they are put into a canopy. We've all heard the term "bagged out" when describing our old dacron wings and there's conflicting ideas around if the material stretched, or if the frame fatigued. This is why many people like superfabric frames but don't spend the money on the superfabric canopy. They get enough benefit from the frame. However, my understanding is that while traditional canopies are more likely to stretch, some superfabric canopies actually shrink. This makes manufacturing quite difficult because the material needs to be heavily crumpled before being cut and assembled so that as the canopy shrinks, it doesn't pull and deform the frame. When you look at the AA canopies they come pre-stretched/bagged/wrinkled and I haven't noticed any shrinkage. I actually prefer the looser canopy over tight ones.
~Handles~
You have 4 choices for handles on the AA wings. The soft handles and the boom are not my favorites. The soft handles are too floppy and the boom is too thick for my hands. This leaves the short carbon handles and the long carbon handles. I run a short in the back and a long in the front. This allows me to use the long in the front to fly one handed and the short in the back minimizes tail weight. If I only had one set I would use the long. They are slightly slimmer and have a better design for a tighter fit on the center strut.
~Long term heart rate data~
Early this year I was helping to test and develop a prototype wing. I was routinely seeing high average heart rates on my sessions with it. I started noticing a small trend and decided to do what any other winger would do... track their heart rate on every single session for the year and compile it into a spreadsheet.
1.5 million heartbeats on foil later I averaged all my heartbeats by foil, mast, wing, and found the following...
Over 2000 miles, when riding an Ocean Rodeo A or AA wing my heart rate averaged 115-119bpm.
Over 1000 miles, anytime I rode any other wing, my heart rate averaged 120-131bpm.
Is this difference because of the weight? Maybe the nature of how the fabrics transfer load to the body? I'm simply not sure. It would be cool to see a much larger study on fabrics and heart rates but the difficulty of controlling the variables to produce extremely valuable data would be difficult. Regardless, it's an interesting stat line.
~Price~
AA wings are expensive. There's still a few of the larger sizes (5m+) out there new for about 1/2 off and I can point you in that direction if you are on the hunt for one. What I haven't come across is performance complaints about these wings. As far as I'm concerned, I have no problem paying the highest price for the highest level of performance. I'm a believer in the saying "you get what you pay for."
~Should everyone buy the AA wing?~
Not necessarily. I have no clue if it's good for jumping and freestyle. I think that if you ride swell more casually, like a DW supfoiler does, then you might not need this much performance. If you consistently have 2 hands on your wing instead of one, heavier gear is probably of less concern. However, if you are dedicated to powerful and dynamic flagged out swell riding I don't think that there is any wing on the market that can match the performance. Not even close. At least not one that I have tried or heard of.
~As Always~
Thanks for taking the time to read. I hope you found this article informative and don't ever hesitate to reach out with questions.
See you at the river,
Bryan Lee, M.S. Experiential Education.
Thanks for the great analysis - really like the way you look at things and then that you take the time to write them down.. Cheers.