Jeff O\'Brien\'s Rotor harness

Wills Wing Rotor harness site

Nene Rotor dropped off a harness here at Quest Air. It was a duplicate of another made for a Spanish pilot when only one was desired. Here at Quest Air is marked for a pilot 5' 10" to 6', 160-195 pounds. Pretty generic. There were no measurements of me for chest and waist size, for example.

I believe the harness is the Rotor Vulto S, in its latest manifestation. It was made just a few weeks ago.

I got to try it out. Here's what it looks like on me:

More photos down below.

Here is what I noticed about the harness:

1) there is a sacrificial carbon fiber boot cover. This is by far the strongest boot cover that I have seen. The only problem I see is that the carbon fiber scratches;

2) in addition there is leather around and underneath the carbon fiber boot, and a metal screw at the very tip, that further cuts down on wear;

3) molded fiber glass boot with a spring loaded door on the foot plate. This makes it easy to get thing in and out of it. I was easily able to put my cross country bag in it. Dustin thinks that that might be too much weight that far back;

4) a zipper on the material surrounding the main back slider that is supposed to close off the harness as the slider moves back and forth (it doesn't seem to be hooked up to the mains at the moment);

5) zippered pockets for the tow tabs at the chest (seems like the slider handles could be replaced with paraglider line);

6) two long longitudinally well padded zippered pockets with built in bungie lines to connect to radios and cameras. There are holes in the upper portion of the two pockets allowing for easy routing of radio cables;

7) drogue chute pocket on the left side;

8) two large long side pockets filled with two zippered stuffing bags for forming the smoothing the sides by the legs. These can be replaced with your own glider bags, or left in to help form the harness;

9) interior chest and leg buckles;

10) a clean side mounted parachute;

11) there is a two part carbon fiber back plate, and apparently you undo a connection between the two back plates in order to get the harness into the harness bag;

12) there are two zippered storage sacks over the carbon back plates. The bottom one is most likely the one to be used, I put the harness bag and my glider bags in it;

13) a separate neoprene bag for your camelback;

14) a ring on the bottom slider that allows the pilot to more easily pull up the bottom zipper;

15) the harness is tight but comfortable around the legs and feet, which is normal for a racing harness.

With my head on the control bar:

A few shots from the other side:

Head down.

More like it would be in flight.

Inside photos by Nicole.