2023 Elan Wingman 86 Ti

The 2023 Elan Wingman 86 Ti returns unchanged for this year, allowing skiers in the advanced category another crack at a great ski with a ton of versatility and personality to it. These skis have a ton of energy and agility, and while they lack the carbon stiffness of the CTi version, they still have the damp power of the metal that makes them stand out in a pretty crowded field of mid-80's front side cruisers. Built with a fully laminated wood core, a single sheet of titanal, and reinforced material over the inside portions of the ski, the Wingman 86 Ti is strong and stable—willing to put up with hard charging skiers who are looking for the pinnacle of performance. In the 178, the skis produce a 16.5-meter turn radius which is right in the middle of good and awesome when it comes to blending the front side with all-mountain—you want a ski that comes around cleanly in a turn, and the Wingman 86 Ti is just that ski. As an asymmetric ski, there’s some unique and interesting stuff going on here, and skiers love the smoothness and energy out of these skis, and likely will for years to come.

Marcus Shakun found the 178 to be short for him, which isn’t that surprising given his 6’5 frame. Regardless, we are seeing a ton of high scores from him on these skis, with 5’s out of 5 going for overall impression, torsional stiffness, edge hold forgiveness, playfulness, quickness, maneuverability, and stability. Versatility earned a 4 while flotation was the low mark of 3. Marcus calls it “Smooth and sweet. Quick edge to edge and easy to initiate. The longer length might be a bit slower, but in this size, it’s very quick and surprisingly stable in that size for me. Loves the groomers, but can jump into varying terrain no problem. Very damp feel which smoothed the ski out on anything hard. Would be a great all-mountain frontside ski for a strong intermediate to playful advanced skier. The weakness is it doesn’t float, but it dances everywhere else.” While nobody’s going to mistake this for a powder ski, it’s not that long ago that 86 mm underfoot would be mid-fat. David Wolfgang was another tall skier on the 178. He found that it skied true to size, and marked it a top score of 5 out of 5 for overall impression. 4’s lined the rest of the card with the exception of a 3 for flotation, so another nice and high set of scores from David, who notes “Some people look to angels as their copilot. Rest assured, if you are an advanced skier, the Elan wingman will do the trick. It initiates a turn with ease and provides a stable yet playful platform. Great ski to rip the front of the mountain on.”

John McIntosh found his 178 to be true to size, scoring it 5’s out of 5 for torsional stiffness, edge hold, quickness, and maneuverability. He had 4’s for overall impression, versatility, forgiveness, playfulness, and stability with a lonely 2 for flotation. He calls it “Energetic and versatile with great edge grip. I found it to be quick turning and stable when turning up the speed. Handled a variety of terrain and conditions with ease. Not sure about the asymmetry, but the overall impression was really good so they have got it right.” A lot of these skis incorporate technology that is supposed to be intuitive—you shouldn’t have to think too hard about it, and it sounds like John picked up on this with Wingman 86 Ti. Chris McClelland would size up from his 178 test model, as he’s a pretty tall skier at over 6’. He scored it 4’s out of 5 for overall impression, versatility, torsional stiffness, edge hold, playfulness, quickness, and maneuverability. Flotation, stability, and forgiveness all got 3’s. Chris found that “The Wingman 86 Ti definitely felt the most "different" out of all the carvers I tested. They were extremely light for a Ti ski and had a very different edge feel that I wasn't used too. I felt like I really needed to angulate that inside edge for it to catch, but once it did it held strong. After getting used to this I actually had a lot of fun and definitely preferred the high edge angle these skis wanted. These are going to be great skis for upper intermediate to advanced skier looking for something sporty but playful to get on.” It’s always interesting to hear two different tester’s opinions about a ski, while John felt it was intuitive, Chris notes that you had to push the ski in different ways than normal. What fun!

Covering the mid-80’s shape for advanced and expert skiers, the Elan Wingman 86 Ti has a lot to offer from both a front side and all-mountain perspective. It’s kind of like a Ripstick 88 Black Edition, but with more of a carving shape to it. That makes it a totally useful and versatile ski for a whole lot of skier types, conditions, and terrain options.