I tried to try the XWings Hero, but it turned up 4 months late and doesn't fit : (
XWings is refusing to issue a refund or bear the full cost of a modification, leaving me out of pocket with an unusable harness. The build quality looks reasonable, but that is little consolation when I cannot get my feet inside it.
At the start of June 2022 I decided to buy a new harness, the primary consideration being whether it could arrive before the final competition of the season in mid August. XWings initially quoted a 120 day lead time. When I lost interest, this miraculously shrunk to 35 days, by remodelling a “60% complete” harness. Tempted further by the custom graphics and competitive price, I sent over the graphics I had in mind (I'd wrapped them around a rudimentary CAD model of the harness) and was met with an enthusiastic response and promise of an expedited service. Foolishly, I was persuaded to part with the full sum of money up front.
Amazonian explorer Peter Fleming wrote in 1933,
“Delay in Brazil is a climate. You live in it, you can’t get away from it. There is nothing to be done about it.” This is one climate that shows no sign of changing. The graphic design should’ve taken no more than “8 days”. After 23 days of back and forth, it eventually converged on what I’d sent in the first place. Despite assuring me, “I intend to have everything ready by the 10th [August], at the latest on the 12th, to be able to send,” it was November 11th before XWings finally dispatched the harness. Queries were generally ignored, parried with “I'll get back to you in a few minutes” (read “days”) or met with an unimaginative selection of excuses, from “national holiday” (seemingly every other day) to the trusty classic: “computer problems”.
At long last, the harness arrived in time for Christmas. I dared to hope that it would be worth the wait. Unfortunately, the footwell is 40 mm too small in height and width to accommodate my (completely unexceptional) feet. Naturally, XWings blamed my footwear (a standard pair of outdoor trainers), even though the harness does not match the measurements I sent, insisting that only “tennis” shoes may be worn by competition hang glider pilots. Quite coincidentally, I actually play tennis regularly in the very same shoes, but still the harness does not fit.
It is coming up to 8 months since I sent “more than 1 month's pay to a random guy on the other side of the world” on trust, a trust that has been well and truly betrayed. Relations have worsened, I still have no racing harness to wear to the world championships this summer, there is very little scope for bodging at this end, XWings is refusing to arrange postage back to the factory for modification (anyhow I would probably not see the harness again this year, if at all, if I sent it back), and no refund is forthcoming, so I cannot redeploy the capital on a harness that actually fits from another supplier. Rather than seeking to colour your judgement of XWings by venting spleen from my keyboard, I instead link our messaging transcript (
https://www.soper.tech/dox/Transcript_XWings.html), so you can make up your own mind whether to trust this particular artisan with your money and ultimately, your life.