When is it time for a bigger wingsuit? This guide explores the skills, habits and progression milestones that matter far more than jump numbers alone.
The common assumption is that a bigger wingsuit is more forgiving because it feels more stable. It does feel more stable in controlled flight. But that’s exactly the problem.
A larger suit amplifies every input you make, controlled or not. When things go wrong on a bigger suit, they go wrong faster and with more energy. Recovery demands more skill, not less.
As Matt Gerdes from Squirrel put it when writing about suit progression: a small wingsuit is harder to fly comfortably, but easier to control when you’re out of control. The bigger the wing, the more wing you’re fighting when something goes sideways.
Squirrel’s own progression guide states that before moving to an advanced wingsuit, you should have at least 450 total skydives with over 100 of them in an intermediate suit. That’s not a conservative estimate. That’s a minimum. And it comes with a note that some pilots need more than those numbers suggest.
Rushing that jump to an advanced wingsuit not only increases your risk but It actively slows you down. Prematurely upsizing doesn’t accelerate your progression. It exposes the skills you haven’t mastered yet which can be dangerous. Gaps you maybe weren’t aware of yet become highlighted.
ARE YOU READY TO UPSIZE?
Before you move to a bigger wingsuit, ask yourself:
- ☑ Stable exits, every jump
- ☑ Consistent, on-heading deployments
- ☑ Controlled formation flying
- ☑ Comfortable with your current suit’s full speed range
- ☑out of control flight recovery
- ☑ Solid flight planning and navigation
- ☑ Controlled back flying and transitions
If you can’t confidently check every box, you’re probably not ready to upsize.
The Squirrel Progression Path
Understanding the progression structure helps you see where the transitions are, and what each one demands.
Sprint Cat 1: Instructor-use only. Small surface area, ultra-forgiving. Designed for First Flight Course use, not personal ownership.
Swift 5: The first suit to own. Built for your first year. Excellent speed range, relatively easy to back-fly and transition. Aim for 100 jumps here before moving on. Most pilots leave too early.
ATC 5: The intermediate step. Introduces mid-chord surface area, more power, more speed range. Can fly in mixed groups with both Swifts and Freaks. Squirrel calls it a “mini-Freak” for a reason. One ATC 5 pilot review said it directly: most people rush to upsize from the ATC without unlocking its full potential. That’s a mistake.
Freak 6 / Creature 3: Advanced territory. The Freak 6 is the DZ go-to suit for daily use: fast, agile, versatile. More glide performance, more range, with the agility of the Freak line. Requires solid freeflying skills, excellent canopy skills, and a minimum of 450 total jumps with 100+ in an intermediate suit.
C-Race / CR / Creature 3+: Competition suits. Expert pilots only. The CR+ has won every major wingsuit performance event for nearly a decade. These are not progression suits. The Creature 3, released in 2026, sits between the Freak and the C-Race.
The path from Swift to ATC to Freak is not a checklist to rush through. Each suit has a ceiling of performance that most pilots never reach before moving on. The pilots who do reach it are the ones who develop real range, real recovery ability, and real control under pressure.
The Skills Checklist
Jump numbers are a proxy. Skills are and should be the real indicator. Before upsizing, you should be able to honestly answer yes to every item below on your current suit consistently. Check the below, with real honest self assessment.
1. Clean, Stable Exits Every Time
Not most of the time. Every time.
A poor exit sets a bad angle of attack from the start and often dictates the quality of the entire flight. If you are still occasionally tumbling on exit, over-arching, or coming out chest-high and catching your rear wing, you are not ready for more wing. Take your time to master this before moving on.
World champion Luke Rogers, writing for Skydive Mag, put it this way: instability issues and spins often start with a poorly executed exit. The exit sets your angle of attack and proximity with other wingsuiters from the start, and often for the rest of the flight.
2. Full Speed and Angle of Attack Range
You should be able to run your current suit at its full range: from maximum glide at a flat angle of attack to steep and fast at minimum drag. If the only way you know how to fly your suit is at one angle, you don’t know your suit.
You need to feel what good airspeed feels like, what the stall edge feels like, and where your suit is comfortable across that whole spectrum. A bigger suit does not give you more range if you haven’t explored the range you already have.
3. Fly in Formation, Approach Cleanly, Break Off Safely
This is one of the most overlooked readiness indicators. Can you approach a formation on level without burping the whole group? Can you hold a slot quietly with small inputs? Can you break off predictably and not leave chaos behind you?
Flying quietly in a formation is a hard skill. It requires fine motor control, spatial awareness, and the ability to make small adjustments rather than constant large corrections. If you’re surviving formation jumps but not contributing to them, you’re behind where you should be before upsizing.
4. Instability Recovery, Intentionally Trained
Not just having survived a flat spin. Knowing what to do in one. Flat spins are asymmetric stalls caused by poor angle of attack and wingsuit configuration. Recovery demands immediate action: arch, look at the ground, dive to increase airspeed. Most pilots either over input or freeze. The fix is to have trained this on purpose, not just hoped it doesn’t happen.
If you have never intentionally induced instability and practiced recovery, you are carrying a debt into a bigger suit that will eventually come due. Barrel rolls and recovery drills belong in your regular training rotation. Prepare yourself by training this.
5. Consistent, Controlled Deployments
Deployments are the most unforgiving part of wingsuit flying, and they get harder with more wing. Poor deployment technique is one of the leading contributors to cutaways, line twists, and hard openings.
Before upsizing, your deployments should be automatic: pitch control to bleed airspeed, symmetrical reach to the BOC, a clean strong throw, a stable body position through the snatch force.
If any of those elements are inconsistent on your current suit, adding surface area makes the problem worse, not easier. Master your deployment on the smaller suit first before changing gear.
6. Navigation and Flight Planning Without Guessing
Too many off landings happen because pilots follow the group blindly, push too far downwind, or do not account for winds aloft.
Before upsizing, you should be able to plan a flight from exit to deployment altitude, account for current wind conditions, and arrive at a deployment point upwind of the LZ with margin to spare.
This is not just courtesy to your DZ. It is a reflection of whether you have real situational awareness in flight.
If you are landing off regularly on your current suit, that problem will not improve when everything is moving faster.
7. Back Flying and Transitions, Not Just Surviving Them
For pilots heading toward the Freak or Creature, this is the specific skill that separates the ATC pilot who is ready from the one who isn’t. Can you back fly with control and intention? Can you transition without losing altitude dramatically or destabilizing the formation? These are the foundational skills of dynamic flying.
Squirrel’s coaching partner Next Level Flight runs dedicated courses on exactly this. The WS Dynamic 102 course is built around transitions and backflying specifically because they are the gateway to everything more advanced.
If these feel uncertain or inconsistent, spend more time in the ATC before moving up.
The Ego Trap
There is a pull in wingsuit culture to associate bigger suits with more experience. People notice. But the pilots who are actually at the top of the sport tend to have the opposite relationship with their gear.
They fly the smallest suit that makes sense for the jump. They choose the ATC for flocking because a small suit flown fast beats a big suit flown slow every time. One of the most instructive things in the ATC 5 reviews on Squirrel’s own site comes from Caleb Brown, who wrote:
“I feel most people view the ATC as just a step towards the next big suit and rush to upsize. Rushing to upsize from the ATC you’re missing out on unlocking this suit’s full potential.”
That’s not a manufacturer trying to sell you a suit. That’s a pilot who has been in the community long enough to watch the pattern repeat.
Jump Numbers: What They Actually Mean
Jump numbers are not worthless. They are a reasonable proxy for exposure time and experience breadth. But they can be gamed in both directions.
A pilot with 300 jumps who has done a lot of coaching jumps, deliberately trained instability recovery, built formation skills, and flown a range of conditions may be more ready than a pilot with 500 jumps who has been doing solos and no real training.
The minimum thresholds exist for a reason. Squirrel’s guidance is 200 total jumps before any wingsuit, 350 with 100 in a beginner suit before intermediate, and 450 with 100 in an intermediate suit before advanced. Those numbers are the floor, not the destination.
USPA’s minimum for wingsuiting is 200 jumps and a First Flight Course. Many experienced coaches recommend higher than that, particularly for pilots who lack a rounded freeflying background. What matters is what you did with those jumps.
As the coaches at Next Level Flight put it: repetition is not the answer. Practice makes permanent, not perfect. Solo jumps add time in the air but don’t necessarily add skill. Training with clear goals and feedback does.
A Practical Decision Framework
Before you order the next suit, run through this sequence.
- Write down every skill in the checklist above. Rate yourself on each: Consistent / Sometimes / Not Yet.
- If anything is Sometimes or Not Yet, that is your training goal for the next block of jumps. Not upsize. Train.
- Talk to a Squirrel-certified coach or a trusted wingsuit mentor who has watched you fly. Not someone who will say yes to make you feel good. Someone who will tell you what they actually see.
- Ask yourself: am I upsizing because I have genuinely outgrown my current suit, or because I am bored and want something new? Both are honest answers, but only one is the right reason to upsize.
- If you get coached jumps on a demo suit first, even better. Renting or borrowing the next suit category before buying it gives you real information and a decent reality check.
The Long Game
Wingsuit progression done right compounds. Every skill you build thoroughly at one level makes the next level significantly easier to access. Pilots who rush lose time to bad habits, incidents, and having to retrain things they skipped. Pilots who are patient build a foundation that holds up when the conditions are not ideal, the jump is more complex, or they make a mistake in the air.
The goal is not to be on the biggest suit. The goal is to be the best pilot you can be on whatever you fly.
As Luke Rogers, current wingsuit world champion and Squirrel athlete, wrote in this article:
“Progression isn’t a race. The best pilots go slow and go far.”
When you do upsize and you are genuinely ready, the transition will feel natural. You will not be fighting the suit. You will be flying it.
Further Reading
Related articles on Skydive Mag:
- Which Wingsuit?
- 4 Key Wingsuit Skills by Luke Rogers
For Squirrel’s full progression guide and suit comparison, see squirrel.ws/suits.
For coached progression, Squirrel have a list of coaches that offer all different levels to flying.
