The numbers here were read off the page each wing links to — all but 38 of them the manufacturer's own spec page — and converted, so that one brand's wing can be compared to another's. This page shows how that's done.
What's on the map
1,015 front wings from 23 brands, each read off the page it links to and converted into real area in cm² and real span in mm. Every brand prints its sizes its own way, so a "1000" means something different on each of them: Axis and Sabfoil name a wing by its span in millimetres, Lift and Unifoil work in square inches, and most of the rest print an area without saying how they measured it. Getting all of that into one set of units is most of the work. Current to August 2026.
The plot plants each wing on two of those figures, area and aspect ratio, both of them fixed properties of the front wing. So the same 1,000 cm² is a big wing under one rider and a small one under another.
Where the numbers come from
Figures come from the brand's own website, with some exceptions.* Every wing records what kind of page its link points at: the manufacturer, a distributor, a shop or a review. Only the first is the brand's own word.
Where a brand publishes no figure, the space stays blank.
When each number was last read
A link records where a number came from, not whether that page still says it. So each wing carries a date — when somebody last sat down with its spec page and read the figures back off it — because brands quietly re-spec wings, move pages and drop sizes, and a tick with no date behind it would make a reading from two years ago look like one from last week.
82 wings have been read back against the page they cite, most recently on 2026-09-14. 933 still stand on their original reading. Each wing's page shows its date where it has one.
How every aspect ratio gets checked
Aspect ratio is span squared divided by area, so a brand publishing span, area and aspect ratio has published the same fact three times. Every published aspect ratio here is worked out again from that brand's own span and area, and the gap between the two decides which figure the map uses:
- Within 5%, the brand's figure stands. 912 wings.
- 5% to 10% out, it's flagged as not quite adding up. 23 wings.
- More than 10% out, the span and area win and the published figure is dropped. 13 wings.
Two cases the check reports rather than settles, and says so on the page in both. Where the span was itself worked out from the brand's area and aspect ratio, the arithmetic is circular and can only agree with itself, so the wing reads "unverified". And 164 wings share a single aspect ratio the brand quotes for a whole family, smallest size to biggest; for those, the band describes the family rather than that particular size.
What the straw underline means
An area is only comparable if you know how it was measured, and the two ways of measuring run 3–8% apart — wider than the 5% this site uses to call two wings the same size. Where a brand states whether its figure is projected or flat, the map takes it straight. Where it leaves that open, which is 783 of 1,015 wings, the area carries a straw underline — here, and on every wing page.
How two wings get called equivalent
A wing's equivalents are the current wings from other brands that sit within ±5% of its area and ±8% of its aspect ratio. Other brands only: the same brand's other sizes are its own size steps.
Where that box comes up empty, the page shows the closest wings anyway and says how far outside each one sits. Searching at all takes an aspect ratio, or a span to work one out from, and where a brand publishes neither the page says so instead.
A wing a brand has stopped making keeps a page of its own, and that page lists what replaces it. Every other page's equivalents are current wings.
Found something wrong?
If a number here disagrees with what the brand publishes today, send the wing, the figure, and the page you saw it on to the contact address. Every wing with a page of its own links back to the page its numbers were read from, so you can point at the same page the site read.
* 38 wings are the exception: these figures aren't published on the manufacturer's own site, so they were sourced from reliable third parties — a distributor, shop or review — and each links the page it was read from. By brand: Armstrong (12), Lift Foils (7), North (7), Slingshot (5), Takuma (3), Duotone (2), Unifoil (2).
Updated