If you were buying....

[bodie1kanobie 0]

Thanks Davincis.... I was hoping more would comment on the Fusion. Good to hear that you liked it. It is at the top of my list. I think I am down to three and wiil be demoing each.... not too happy about the $100 bucks I gotta spend to demo the SabRE2, but I will just save that one for last unless the others are as expensive to try out. All of these canopies seem to be getting good feedback and there are certainly a lot of PD fans out there who are standing up to defend thier choice so it is worth looking at.

Thanks everyone for your advice.... it is greatly appreciated.

[Psychonaut 0]

I have to disagree, as I believe many others would, with you putting the fusion in front of the sabre2.

I'm not telling you to jump on the bandwagon, but you need to think of multiple things.

I was once in your very shoes, convincing myself the fusion was the way to go. And I'm not putting it down, I'd still love to try it out after being on my sabre2, but think of things such as PD the company itself. Huge, great R&D, customer support and outreach. It's just a better family to get settled with than other companies.

But hey, go demo them

Stay high pull low

[AndyMan 7]

The Fusion is not a very popular canopy in any part of the USA that I've visited. Keep in mind that when it comes time to sell it, you may find that you don't have many buyers.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[dragon2 2]

Quote

Warning: Comments from an even newer newbie than bucketlistpilot

Not much said about the Fusion so far, so here are my .02. Take them with a grain of salt considering my (lack of) experience.

My home DZ has a Fusion 190 for rental and/or student use. I did most of my A license on that canopy, loaded at about 0.85, and I really liked it. My first few AFF jumps were on a Pilot 210, and the Fusion was definitely more fun to fly (I'm sure the slightly higher wing loading helped, too) -- responsive into and out of turns and with a powerful flare.

I never had any problems on opening, but I was just about the only student who didn't. (Worked out well for me -- no competition for that canopy since no one else wanted to take it for a ride!) My openings were always soft -- it sniveled for about 700 feet at my wing loading -- and almost always on-heading. There were a couple of times that I opened into a 45 degree turn, but those corrected themselves before I even had a chance to grab rear risers. In about 20 jumps on that canopy, I had line twists once, and that was only about two wraps (and I know my body position wasn't symmetrical at pull time on that jump).

However, almost every other student I talked to at the DZ is afraid of it -- they complain of frequent line twists and diving turns on opening. Based on my own experience, I hold that it's most likely a result of asymmetical body position on opening, but that's nothing I can prove.

You obviously have more experience and would be loading it higher than I was, but since only one other person has chimed in about the Fusion, I wanted to offer what limited info I could.

The fusion wouldn't be my choice for a student canopy, for exactly that reason: it's a (way) more high performance canopy than a pilot for example, and hence much less forgiving of body position on opening, it's also more responsive in flight, turns faster, dives longer. Over here, you need at least 100 jumps to fly one, for that reason.

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[DaVincisEnvy 0]

I'll agree with you that the Fusion is not an ideal canopy for many students, and to be fair to the staff at my home DZ, I was told this before I jumped it the first time. That canopy was primarily for rental gear -- I asked to jump it because I was just tired of jumping a 210 when my exit weight is about 165lbs :-/

However, the very thing that makes it less than ideal for many students (high sensitivity to body position on opening), can, in my opinion, actually be a good thing if a student or new jumper knows what to expect. Lightly loaded, the Fusion doesn't seem to have a strong propensity to spin up newbie jumpers so badly on opening that they need to chop (no cutaways on that canopy that I've seen or heard of at my DZ, anyway). It can scare them a bit though, scare them enough to take a good look at themselves and their own bodies throughout the deployment sequence -- from wave-off to full canopy deployment.

I honestly can't speak for other newbies, nor should I with only 9 months experience in this sport, but for me, personally, I'm glad I had the opportunity to jump this canopy. Because I was jumping a less forgiving canopy, I didn't have the chance to develop some of the typical newbie bad habits that can come when jumping an extremely forgiving canopy (poor body position, wriggling around to look at the canopy as its coming out of the bag, grabbing risers during the early/mid deployment sequence). And learning to do something right the first time rather than having to re-train myself after several hundred jumps of ingrained sloppy habits is something that I think will serve me well.

But again, that's just for me personally. I have no right nor desire to speak for students in general.