TALONSKY

Well used Falcon 195 Used Safire 169 Used but almost new (less than 70 jumps on it) Crossfire 2 130 Used Crossfire 1 129 (for B rig) Used VX 109 I have bought a new container but as far as mains go, I figure out my next canopy and start looking for one used as long as the color is not too bad. Kirk

If you are looking for a new canopy demo a few different ones. The one that gets my vote is the Crossfire 2, love the performance and the opennings are great. I have ove 100 birdman suit jumps on mine loaded at 1.85 to 1 Kirk

I would second the Crossfire 2. Although not recommended (and should not fly elliptical canopies when starting to wingsuit fly) but I love mine and have over 100 plus wingsuit jumps on it( I made over 50 wingsuit jumps on a square canopy first). Most of the Birdmen lean more toward the Sabre 2 as the canopy of choice though. Kirk

Truely, the best way to make up your mind is to demo both. I demoed a PD 143 loaded 1.67 to 1 and it flew great. It also allows you to truely know how your reserve flies before you are under it in an emergency Kirk

I tried using it as my primary alitimeter but ran into some veiwing problems. My freefly suit is so baggy that it covers it up on my wrist in freefall, so I use it mainly for a back up devise for my setup alitude for HP landings. Also found out it makes great chest mount for birdman suit jumps, just wrap it around your chest strap and use the smallest adjustment on the band. Kirk

I use a Suunto Vector watch for Skydiving and it works fine. They refresh once every second verses the digitudes which refresh 2 or 3 times every second (I believe) Kirk

If you are looking at new containers you forgot some really nice ones. I really like Infinity, Kelly make one great rig and you can not be their customer service. Plus her is also Wings to. Both of which have alot faster turn times then Mirage or Odyssey, oh did I mention they are cheaper too. Kirk

How can you possibly know the cause of this incident if you did not know who did it and interview them to find out why they did it. To know that they did something they should not have done is less then half of truly trying and fixing it. Unless you have some all seeing power to know that the wingsuit pilot altered his coarse because he did not get a acknowledgement from the pilot and the pilot turned left into his pre-designated flight path.

May be I do not get the bigger picture, but if the jump pilot did not acknowledge my pre-designated flight plan. Then turns left into my pre-designated flight plan, I do not care if God himself told me I had to fly that route I would use that thing between my ears and pick an alternate route. I would not fly the same side the plane is descending just because I was told that is where I needed to be and take a bigger chance that I might strike the plane. I believe it is not just a matter of right and wrong, I believe it was a matter of breaking the chain that might have led to something we would have read about on the incident report. I also find it surprising that the people who supposedly had to answer for this accident seems to have not taken any initiative to find out all the facts in the case, as they only found out the who was responsible online here. Which if the jump pilot needs some training on this matter still leaves the fixing the problem (which may mean the pilot needs to observe the wingsuit area more) for future assurance up in the air.

I may be mistaken(since I have never spent any time researching their products) but isn't a Chuteshop SA ZP150 an elliptical canopy? If it is your comparing apples to oranges. If it isn't may be they are trimmed steeper than Safires. Kirk

This is a repost of my measurement comparison between a Sabre 150 and a Safire 169. I know now that the bottom skin would have been a better place to measure from still all measurement points were the same on each canopy so the comparison is apples to apples. Once again my Safire was made in Spain. I know that several times there has been a debate about Safire size being different than a PD of the same size. This weekend I had a chance to measure my Safire 169 against a Sabre 150(did a hop-n-pop in the rain). To measure the canopy here is what I did (I know this may not be extremely accurate but I feel it at least compare the two well):”all measurements were taken with the material pulled tight on flat on the ground” 1) I measured the length at the nose from seam to seam on both canopies ( Sabre 150 was 5” longer than a Safire 169) 2) I measured the center cell on each for width( Sabre was 4” shorter than the Safire) 3) Then because the Safire is lightly elliptical I measured the end cells for width(Safire tapers 13-1/2” center to end) 4) Then I created a 9” thick (flat) solid model of each in Cadkey and got a mass reading. Which stated the Sabre had a bigger mass(not by much) So with this a Safire 169 is just a little smaller than a Sabre 150. Which verifies what Icuras had told me. (both canopies were made in 2000) Blue Skies Kirk

I think you are reading more into Simons letter than was intended in this paragraph: The Safire-1 and the Omega are measured differently to PD canopies. As a rough guide a Safire-1 or Omega is about the same size as the next size down - eg A Safire 149 is about a 135. A Safire 119 is about a 109. Use an equation of 8%. The Safire-2 and Omni (Omni supercedes Omega) are measured the same as PD. Simon does not state just the one's made by PA are affected but he does make a blanket statement that covers all Safire's and Omega's. Later in the letter he gives the reason for the measurement error as being purely PA fault, but at no time does he state that only PA made canopies are affected. Kirk

Unless you have already decided on only buying PD you should demo a few other canopies as well. The Samari by Big Air Sports, the Crossfire 2 by Icarus (my personal favorite) just to name a few. when I went elliptical I wish I would have demoed a few more canopies because there are alot of great canopies out there. Oh, you may also want to demo a Vengance to Kirk

Well as I just stated, I had a Safire 1 169 made in Spain and compared it to a Sabre 150. They were relatively the same size (taking in consideration that the Safire is tapered and the Sabre 1 150 is not). From talking to Icarus and the e-mail the sizing thing affects all Safire 1"s and all Omega's not just the one's PA made. From my understanding there is one differance between the PA made one's and the Spain made ones. It seems a fair amount (not all of them) made by PA have less bottom end flair and open kind of hard where as the open's made in Spain perform great. (When talking to Icarus about having my Safire relined, they relayed that message to me. Plus, talking to other here and at the DZ that have Safire's seems to enforce the idea that the PA made one's perform different than the Spain made one's) Kirk Kirk

I can confirm that it applies to all Safire's. I had a Safire 169 made in Spain comparing it to a Sabre 150, they were the same size. I e-mailed Icarus and explained that this had been talked about here and if they could give me a reply that I could post so here is Icarus's reply The Safire-1 and the Omega are measured differently to PD canopies. As a rough guide a Safire-1 or Omega is about the same size as the next size down - eg A Safire 149 is about a 135. A Safire 119 is about a 109. Use an equation of 8%. The Safire-2 and Omni (Omni supercedes Omega) are measured the same as PD. All other Icarus Canopies are measured the same as PD. The reason for the difference is due to Precision measuring their canopies differently. Icarus have always measured the same as PD however when we originally commenced in the USA, Precision were building parachutes for us under license and were doing it using their size equations and not Icarus/PD's. We have therefore had to wait to supercede these models to change the size equation. Only the Safire and Omega were affected. Blue skies Simon

While all helmets offer some type of protection most skydiving helmets offer very little real protection. If you really look at most skydiving helmets there is little padding and no hard foam to absorb real impacts. I think the idea is if you have a real hard impact your head is going to be the least of the problems. All of this excludes the protec which if I am not mistaken was not originally designed as a skydive specific helmet. Kirk

If you are looking for protection, the protec offers the most protection but the least in the looks department. Most all other helmets offer little true protection. That said, I prefer the Z1 EVO, it is cheaper than most other open faced helmets and has two audible pockets inside the helmet. The Gath is cheaper than the EVO but does not offer internal audible pockets. Depending on the color and size you are getting you should have no problem getting it by the 21st Kirk

I have bought gear on line a few times. The first time I bought a canopy COD. The next time I asked if we could use my local DZ rigger as the middle man. (They contacted the rigger and sent him the canopy, The rigger checked it out I handed the rigger a check and he handed me the canopy). This last time I had it sent COD. I feel the most secure way is using the DZ/rigger as middle man. In the end someone has to take a small leap of faith. Kirk

I have ordered two Tony suits both with Rush delivery. The first one was delivered to me in 13 days from the day I ordered it. The second one they had some back log it took them 3 weeks to get it to me. I love my Tony suits and they have great customer service. Kirk

Touché , that answers part of the reason why they request it on all Cobalt’s, however it still remains that when a customer has a hard opening Cobalt at standard terminal velocity one of Atair’s fixes is to go to a smaller Pilot Chute. Which still leave the question of why does a Cobalt need a smaller pilot chute to get good openings when no other manufacturer’s canopy does? Kirk

The error in logic that those of you in the stows-and-PCs-don't-effect-openings camp seem to be making is at least two fold: 1) Assuming that the deceleration provided by tight line stows is what's important, and 2) Assuming that your experiences with a small sample of canopies can be extrapolated to all canopies. -Josh I do not know about the others but the point I have made and I have yet to see a tangible argument on it. Pilot chute size may make a difference but how come no other manufacturer’s out there request a change in PC size for their canopies. If PC size really made a huge impact on opening then would it not make sense that other manufactures would be requesting PC size change. In the end I am sure PC size has an effect on opening but if the canopy is designed well they are not that sensitive to PC size. I have jumped a Falcon 195, a Safire 169, a Crossfire 129, a Crossfire 2 130, and a VX 109 all with the same size of PC and had great openings on all of them. Now I will add the Falcon started opening hard at about 1000 jumps on it (I am quite sure it was way out of trim) and it did take me a few jumps on the VX to figure out how to pack it in order not to have hard openings. That aside all did not need any fix’s to get them to open nice. You may go on and on about snatch forces and PC size but really I have yet to see other manufactures requesting a change of PC size to get nice openings as a standard part of using their canopies. Kirk

The most ironic thing (in my opinion) about the Cobalt is the canopy was supposedly designed to open at high freefly speeds in case of a premature deployment freeflying or incase a freeflyer did not decelerate before deploying and some of them open fairly hard and need some bandaged style of fix’s to make them not open hard. Kirk

May be I missstated what I was trying to get across earlier. I was stating in relationship to pilot chute size ONLY, that I do no recall any other manufacturer out there requesting a smaller than stock Pilot chute size in order to get good openings ( now by smaller than stock, I mean I have had 4 rigs and ordered 2 pilot chutes and all of them are 28”, I am sure you could order from some factories smaller ones but on an average I would bet that 28” is pretty standard and 22” to 24” are very rare). Also by no means in my statement was I even implying that no other canopy manufacture has made mistakes in the past or present I only was relating things as far as pilot chute size (which if I am not mistaken is what this original post was about to begin with) Kirk

When I was fairly new to skydiving about 130 jumps, I switch from glasses to contacts. I never really had any problem standing up my landings till that point. It took me about 10-20 jumps to refigure out landings after changing. I would pick what you are going to wear and then figure on an adjustment period to get use to it. Kirk

Because it was a design problem, and a smaller PC is a bandaid to fix it. Just like bigger or pocket sliders are bandaids to fix a design or construction problem Be very leary of any company that makes you change a part of your system to make up for a bad design in in their part of the system. -------------------------------------------------- That was kind of the point I was getting to. Supporters of Atair keep going on about pilot chute size, body position when pulling, and packing, but I believe if the canopy is designed well then it should open good without extra attention to anything. I find it rather interesting that Atair pushs all these issues yet refuses to acknowledge any design problems with their canopy. Kirk