Leaderboard

I think the Sabre 2 is a great canopy made by Performance Designs. I have owned a 190, 170, 150 and 135 throughout my skydiving progression. Here is a breakdown of my experience with those wings, exit weight around 200lb. Openings: Usually what the Sabre2 takes the most flak for, inconsistent headings on opening. Overall my experience is really good, most jumps are smooth and on heading, some have a small 90 turn and the random one a bit more. I would say the most consistent thing about this canopy opening is the closed-end cells. Anytime I had a 'bad' opening I would blame it on my body position or not coming out of the track enough, still totally acceptable openings though. Never had a line twist with this wing at any size. Control Inputs: Risers are a great tool for controlling the canopy, I found all the pressures to be acceptable and I can maneuver the canopy easily without having to use toggles. Fronts are great to get that dive started before a landing and rears feel powerful, though I don't have much to compare too (Mainly a Crossfire 1). Flare is sensational, practice stalls up top and it seems like you can pull the toggles down forever before it stalls. When coming in to land I never have any problem using my toggles to convert all my forward speed to lift. Harness: I have never really been impressed by the harness inputs on this wing. The crossfire I jumped for a while, was at less wingloading, but had way more control using the harness. I can definitely finish my 90 swoops with harness after some front riser input but I really have to lean to get some output. Overall, it's a great wing to learn on. I have about 600 jumps across different square footages and wingloadings and have loved every second under this canopy. I would call this wing the jack of all trades and master of none, there is a probably a canopy that does a specific thing better than this one but this is one where you could flare out your big WS, chuck your PC, then ride down and do a 270 and drag pond

I'm jumping a Safire3 at 1.4 wingloading as a wingsuit canopy. The openings are amazing. Soft but not snivvely, on heading. Better openings than my previous Sabre2, better flare than my old Pilot. Soft stand up landings on no wind days. Behaves well in slow flight, flattens out well on rears, gets me back from ugly long spots. Surprisingly good harness response at 1.4 wingloading. Fun to fly, highly recommend to anyone, even those just off student status.

After a reserve ride, I demoed a Safire 2 from the gear store since multiple people told me they had awesome openings. It only took 2 rides for me to know that I was buying an Icarus canopy next. When I ordered my Safire 3, I knew that 1.6 was higher than they recommended, so I called NZ and asked why did they recommend 1.5 max. They said that at higher wing loadings the flare would suffer. I ordered it anyways because I was getting bored on the Hornet (Old pilot) I had loaded at 1.4. The openings were amazing, the turns were responsive, but the flare was unimpressive. I was kind of upset even though I had been warned. It seemed that if I did not use a front riser turn or double fronts, the flare was not that strong. However, I also noticed that I could not stall the canopy. So I had Nick Armstrong trim the brake lines 4.5" and man did this canopy come alive! Great Flare, super responsive and the same SOFT snively openings as before! I am so glad I bought this canopy now. I look forward to putting 500-700 jumps on this canopy!