Style: Freeride strapless kitefoiling
Conditions: 14 - 35 knots
Kites: BRM Clouds 6.2 - 2.2
Board: Homemade pocketboard
Level: Advanced
Disclosure: I bought it from Stonker - no affiliation

I've had this rig for several months now but between winter's inconsistency and Covid restrictions it's taken till now for me to feel I've got enough hours in to write an adequate report. I've performed various modifications in this time and will try to give enough information without it getting ridiculously long.

Summary: if you want a foil with lots of wing and tuning options and you're a carving, wave-riding freerider, buy an Armstrong.

The rig: 100cm mast, 60cm fuse, 232-212 stab, HS1050, HS625 and CF800 front wings.

I bought this rig hoping the 625 would give me the speed I've enjoyed for years on my Zeeko Carbon foil with 700cm Carver wing, but with more stability in rough water, and that the 1050 would give me the surfability of my Lift 150 but with more speed and glide. These goals have now been met and significantly surpassed. I added the 800 later when it came up second hand at a nice price.

Mast: 100cm, actually 103.5 from top of pedestal to bottom of mast. I ride in very choppy water and often in lots of wind so this length is perfect for me. For beginners or those who are predominantly in flattish water the 85 will probably be a better fit.
It's nice and stiff. Trailing edge was a bit rounded for my liking (a safety feature for a surf-oriented company) so I thinned it down a bit sharper, and gave it and all other components a wetsand with 800 and then 1200 grit wet and dry. Surface finish definitely makes a difference to speed and susceptibility to ventilation. This mast inspires confidence.

Fuselage: 60cm a good all round length. Hoping to try a 50cm soon too.

Tail: Started at 232 with +1 degree shim and felt way overstabilized for my liking. First experiment was a plastic spacer under the rear screw to add about an extra +2 degrees. Much less drag, and significantly more looseness, which I liked, but still too stiff on the yaw. Next step was to cut it down to 212 and finish the tips nice and fine. With a thinner spacer (about +1 in addition to the +1 shim) I now have the combination of yaw looseness, minimum drag, and pitch responsiveness that I like. Based on other people's foils of other brands that I've ridden, my Armstrong setup is looser than what most people ride. Beginners should start with 0 degree shim and 232, intermediates with +1 shim, and tweak it from there as you get more advanced.

HS1050: The biggest wing I've ever ridden and the biggest I can imagine needing at 80kg. This thing has massive lift and is still capable of going pretty fast (I'm not a gadget guy, I don't know exactly how fast). It smashes upwind, holding high angles even when underpowered. High upwind vmg means more time to ride swell back downwind. This wing has great ability to extract energy from swell. It rolls from rail to rail very smoothly and its popularity with prone and tow surfers is very understandable. It's not as loose as the smaller wings but can still be cajoled through 360s easily enough. I love this wing from 14-22 knots with kites from 6.2-3.5m. More wind than that and I'm ready for something smaller.

CF800: This is fatter than the 1050, a fraction less lift, but still plenty of low end, and a fraction faster at the top end. This wing is the loosest of the three and I suspect this is because the more swept planshape puts its surface area back closer to the mast. I also find myself standing about an inch and a half further back on this wing compared to the other two. With a given tail setup it is more pitch-sensitive than the other two. It rolls from rail to rail with less foot pressure than the 1050. These factors make it more playful for tricks like carving 360s and general hooning. I love it when there's 16-24 knots and some flat water behind the break wall to blast around in. It can ride waves no problem, and if the swell is cleanish, it's a blast, but when its getting wild and messy it becomes too loose unless I remove the shim spacer, but why do that when I can change to the 625.

HS625: I didn't like this wing at first, and yet, yesterday, I had the BEST session I've had in twelve years of kiting on this wing.
Out of the box this wing was both slower than I'd expected, and had some quirks when initiating tight turns and when heading upwind when well powered up. It felt like it was catching and pulling sideways and I couldn't trust it the way I wanted to in gnarly conditions. So, I cut the winglets off, thinned out the tips, and thinned the trailing edge down from the underside.
It is now a totally different animal. This thing can hold a tonne of speed in gnarly chop. Yesterday was a solid 25-30 knots with as big a swell as I've seen in Port Phillip bay. On my 2.8m kite this little wing motored upwind, had plenty of lift to ride the swell back down with very little pull from the kite, and would hold and hold and hold as I went for faster and harder turns and dropped down some pretty steep faces. The lift is totally controllable even at ridiculous speeds and it handled the G-forces I was getting yesterday with precision and poise. All of my trust-issues are now resolved. From 20 knots and up, with kites from 3.5-2.2m this is my weapon of choice and it can handle as much as I've been able to ask of it.
(I spent a lot of my teens and early twenties tuning windsurfing racing fins so I'm pretty comfortable taking the tools to a foil shape. Even if you don't feel comfortable reshaping the trailing edge, the chopping of the winglets is a pretty simple affair and for me there have only been upsides to this.)

Between these wings I now have all of my foiling wants covered. However, the N + 1 rule being what it is, I'm also looking forward to trying the HS850 when it appears. As others have covered, construction is top notch. This gear will last a long time. Hit me up with any questions.

Thanks great reviews.
I have the hs1050. And just recently got the hs625.
I am extremely happy with 1050. Use from it from 7 knots. Has very low stall speed.
Looking forward to exploring the what the 625 is capable of.

I see you got the the 850. Sorry you never got to try mine.
I have since added the HS1050 which I like with the original tail and 0 shim. I have not ridden the 850 since.

I was interested in your recommendation re shims. Should I try the +1 shim again to provide more stability for these flying jibes I am yet to master?

My stack..
The SS i76 is g8 for slow take off.. Complex shape in comparison.
Cheers
AP

Here are a couple of shots of the top of the 625 chop. I went a couple mm further out and a bit more square than the dotted line printed on the wing. And yes I went way harder with the wet and dry on this wing than the bigger ones. The smaller the wing, the more critical the details as you're working at higher speeds and higher pressure differentials between top and bottom surfaces (80kg of lift spread over 600cm2 is more pressure than if it's spread over 1050cm2).

I'll get some pics of the underside and the other wings up at some point this weekend. Been pretty busy this week.

One obvious thing when I chopped the 625 and the 232 is the quality of resin saturation of the fibres and the total absence of bubbles and pinholes. Way ahead of the carbon laminate quality of some other brands' wings I've looked at and worked on (with the exception of Zeeko, whose laminates have also been impeccable, in my experience).

Had another ripper of a session on this wing this morning - 25 knots, 2.8m kite and some nice bumps to play on - soooo much fun!

Underside of wings. You can see that the area of the 800 is further back relative to the collar that goes on the fuselage, contributing to its extra responsiveness/reduced stability, depending how you want to think about it, and to standing further back on this wing.

1050 on top, 625 in the middle, 800 on the bottom. Note the flatness of the 1050 (efficient generation of lift), thinness of 625 (speed), and fatness and deep anhedral of the 800 (smoothness through turbulent water).

Yep, kite low, keep your speed up, and aim to have the board just kiss the top of a chop mid foot-switch. Practice on land so that you can get each foot to arrive where the other one was without looking. You want to be looking at the water in the direction you're going, not at the board.

I would love to hear from someone who's compared the Armstrong wings vs Axis as I am thinking of upgrading one day (currently on 680 and 920 for light winds).

dafish said..

Today I will try it out with the +1 shim. I was riding it set at zero.

I will be interested to hear the thoughts on the +1 shim. Which tail do you use?

HS1050 and CF800 update.

Yesterday I went out to experiment more scientifically than I had in the past with tail shim angles on the CF800. This yielded updated insight for me on the different performance and rider-conditions suitability of the 1050 and 800 wings.

Conditions started at 16 knots on my 4.8m kite and steadily built. At 20 knots I switched to my 3.5m and it continued to build to mid 20s.
I was ranging between what I estimate as 0.5 degree and 1.5 degree additions to the +1 shim (212 tail), and switching between the 800 and 1050 on the front.

The primary realisation for me was that I've evidently been learning more and more about how to handle and push the 1050 at the top end of its range. This means that I no longer want the forgiving nature of the 800 as the wind builds above 20 knots and brings more swell and chop with it. I'd rather the extra performance of the 1050 right up to the point where I'd switch out to the 625. For me the 800 is redundant and I'm going to sell mine.

However, the CF800 absolutely still has relevance for kiters who are less experienced, and/or heavier than me (80kg). I would recommend it in at least three scenarios:
1, as a one wing quiver for anyone between 60 and 90kg who is learning to foil, from complete beginner to riding toeside and learning foot switches and wave-riding.
2, I would also recommend it as the smaller wing in a two wing quiver for any kiter over 90kg for whom the 625 may not have as much lift as they want even when it's windy (paired with the 1200CF or 1250HS).
3. An allround wing for people who learned to foil on big wings in light wind and are now wanting to foil in conditions that they'd previously regarded as too gnarly for foiling.

Jonny316 said..
I'm thinking of upgrading my Jshapes gear to the Armstrong 1050 and 85 mast so I can get into winging as well next season (will need a bigger front wing for winging). I ride strapless and yesterday tried a different foil that sunk and found it was super hard work to start strapless! Just wondering if the 1050 floats or sinks? Is it board dependent? (Thinking of matching the foil with the Armstrong 3'11 board). Cheers.

The Armstrong wings float well enough to give you time to get yourself sorted. Having come from an aluminum mast on the Zeeko which didn't float I found the Armstrong a doddle to get going. With the Zeeko I had to hold my board on edge and loop the kite one handed to get static on the board before release. Though I still do that it's more habit and I have way more time to get static pull.