‘Fire Fall’ series is a product line of inner-fiber blades that was announced in late 2012 which isn’t long after the Victas brand was born. At the end of 2012, Victas announced three models of ‘Fire Fall’ series – ‘Fire Fall AC’, ‘Fire Fall FC’ and ‘Fire Fall SC’. And, one year after the ‘Fire Fall’ series consisting of five models was completed by the addition of ‘Fire Fall VC’ and ‘Fire Fall LC’, and began to compete with Butterfly’s ‘InnerForce’ series. The appearance of ‘Fire Fall’ series was renewed in 2017 when the new C.I. of Victas was introduced. Still ‘Fire Fall’ series is one of very strong rivals of ‘InnerForce Layer’ series especially in Japanese market.

‘Fire Fall LC’ is a product added to the series in late 2013, and ‘LC’ stands for ‘Line Carbon’ which is also called as Uniaxial Carbon (ULC) or Unidirectional Carbon (UD Carbon). Butterfly is calling this material as ULC. But, the characteristics of ‘Fire Fall LC’ is somewhat different from those of Butterfly’s ULC blades. Victas adjusted ‘Fire Fall LC’ to give the feeling close to 5-ply wood offensive blade while keeping the high elasticity as a carbon blade. ‘Fire Fall LC’ gives unexpectedly soft feeling at light hitting, and hugs the ball very deeply when the player hits the ball very strongly. However, ‘Fire Fall LC’ shoot the ball with very high speed at next moment, thanks to the high energy efficiency of carbon fiber. ‘Fire Fall LC’ is recommended for the players who have used 5-ply offensive blade but want to replace the blade with fiber blade.

The new C.I. of Victas is being applied to current ‘Fire Fall’ series. The ‘splitting’ image is printed at the middle of the foreside of head. And, the name of product is printed above that splitting graphic. Below that splitting graphic, elasticity level and the information of construction are printed. The splitting graphic is also applied to handle. The same design concept of handle is also applied to ‘Quartet’ series and ‘ZX-Gear’ series. A very consistent graphic design is the characteristics of Victas blades.

‘Fire Fall LC’ is an inner fiber blade. Line Carbon(= Uniaxial Carbon) is placed between the middle layer and the center layer. The top layer is Limba. The middle layer is Ayous, and the center layer are Kiri. Overall thickness is around 5.9mm. This blade construction is reminiscent of currently discontinued adidas, and although the materials are same, the details of specification are slightly different.

The official size of head is around 157mm x 150mm. Actually measured size is a bit wider (= 157mm x 151mm) than the official size.

Same concept of the printing on the foreside of head is common to almost all Victas blades. The consistency is so strong that you can easily tell it’s a Victas blade at first glance. However, to distinguish individual products, you must check the product name. it is difficult to distinguish individual products. To distinguish individual products, you must look at their names.

The name of blade and the plywood construction (5-ply + Line Carbon) are printed over and under the left side of the splitting image respectively.

‘Dyna-core’ logo and speed sign is shown under the right side of the splitting image. ‘Dyna-core’ is the name used by Victas to indicate inner fiber construction. (Outer Fiber construction is called as ‘Dyna-shell’.)

Nothing is printed on the backside of head. But, on the backside of handle there is a transparent plastic lens that indicates the name of blade.

The width of FL (flared) handle is around 26mm (at head side) ~ 27mm (at bulge) ~ 26mm (at narrowest point) ~ 34mm (at the end). And, the thickness of FL handle is around 22.5mm (at thumb) ~ 24mm (at the end). The FL handle isn’t a wide handle, and it is somewhat thinner than ordinary FL handles. But, the stability of grip is good because the surfaces are relatively flat.

The size of ST (straight) handle is around 28mm (width) x 22mm (thickness). It is a squared handle whose foreside/backside surfaces are completely flat, like the ST handles of ‘Swat’ series.

One of the characteristics of Victas blades is that the second lens is applied on the backside of handle. The size of the backside lens is same as that of foreside lens, and the name of the blade – ‘Fire Fall LC’ – is written in the backside lens.

Small aluminum plate that includes engraved Victas logo mark is applied at the end of handle. This logo mark symbolizes the image of splitting V.

‘Fire Fall LC’ is one of the representative inner blades of Victas. Although its artificial material is ULC, ‘Fire Fall LC’ provides totally different characteristics from Butterfly’s ULC blades. The characteristics of ‘Fire Fall LC’ are very close to those of 5-ply wood offensive blades.

Above picture shows two products in ‘Fire Fall’ series those are released one year later than the announcement of the other three models in the series. Left is ‘Fire Fall VC’ whose artificial material is V Carbon (= Vectran Carbon = ALC), and right is ‘Fire Fall LC’ whose artificial material is Line Carbon (= uniaxial carbon fiber). Except for the product name and the name of artificial material , there isn’t any difference in graphic design between two blades.

‘Fire Fall VC’ (left) and ‘Fire Fall LC’ (right) are inner blades those have something in common in that the center layers of both of two are not Ayous but Kiri. But, ‘Fire Fall VC’ is much thicker than ‘Fire Fall LC’ due to its thick middle layers.

The handles of two models looks totally identical. If the rubber is attached, we can’t tell them apart until we look at the backside lens or the edge of the blade. (The one on the front is ‘Fire Fall VC’ and the one on the back is ‘Fire Fall LC’.) This extremely consistent way of design of Victas blades is intended to promote the name of the new ‘Victas’ brand rather than individual products.

The backside of ‘Fire Fall VC’ (left) and ‘Fire Fall LC’ (right). The names of two models are shown in the backside lenses.

‘Fire Fall VC’ (left) and ‘Fire Fall LC’ (right) are two most important models in ‘Fire Fall’ series which is the major inner blade family of Victas.

A characteristic of Victas blades is that lenses are applied to both sides of handle. However, the players who don’t like the feel of the lens on their fingers and therefore use the lens side as the backhand side will not like this design. For those players, Victas should make the lens (or Aluminum plate) much smaller than these ones. Fortunately, very small Aluminum plates are started to be applied for new models such as Koki Niwa ZC.

‘Fire Fall LC’ is an inner fiber blade which provides much different characteristics from ‘Fire Fall VC’ in the same series.

‘Fire Fall LC’ (left) and ‘ZX-Gear In’ (right) are similar in overall thickness. However, constructions of two blades are totally different from each other. And, most of all, two blades are using totally different artificial materials. However, in spite of the differences in construction, two blade share many characteristics – especially both of two hug the ball very deeply when the player hits the ball very strongly. Both of ‘Fire Fall LC’ and ‘ZX-Gear In’ are recommended for the players who have used 5-ply wood offensive blades. The players will not spend much time until they get used to new blade.

Following are the performance indices of Victas Fire Fall LC (avg.weight = 85.1g) :

– Ep = 1.87

– Ec = 1.29 (Ec/Ep = 0.69)

– Vp = 1.10

– Vl = 1.39 (Vl/Vp = 1.26)

Please note that above are average values and can be updated by further measurement.

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