Ass bad as the posters attitude is, I would have to agree that a lightly loaded Stilleto is a pussy cat.
Control sensitivity is mostly a function of the canopy shape, size, and line length not wing loading.
The Stiletto is more sensitive to toggle input than any other popular canopy. John LeBlanc detuned all the following PD designs including the Velocity and Katana because too many jumpers had problems with roll axis stability landing Stilettos.
Relatively small amounts of toggle input (whether intended or not) will quickly roll the canopy into a diving turn so you may end up headed at the ground fast in an unrecoverable attitude if you get surprised in the landing pattern (likely) or don't instinctively limit your control inputs when you get back low from a long spot.
That leads to issues like this where a guy with 480 jumps killed himself with a Stiletto 150 loaded to 1.2 pounds per square foot:
I fly a Sabre 150, and have made ONE jump on a Stilleto 170. Knowing it was HP I set up earlier, made my turns more carefuly, played up high, and set it down just fine... ONE time.
Landing a parachute into a wide open field is not a big deal, even elliptical ones.
At dusk with a low turn to avoid unseen power lines to a down-wind landing on asphalt (think about what happens on the sunset load when the cute chicks flash the pilot for extra altitude and some one in your group gets hypoxic and gets their foot caught on the seatbelt so you take forever to climb out and have a long spot) it's a huge deal. Things seem to happen much faster and you may not stay flat enough in the turn to avoid a painful impact.
Avoiding that situation by flying larger less sensitive parachutes until you've built muscle memory is a wise idea.
(This post was edited by DrewEckhardt on Jun 17, 2010, 11:31 AM)
Edit Log:
Post edited by DrewEckhardt
() on Jun 17, 2010, 11:30 AM
Post edited by DrewEckhardt
() on Jun 17, 2010, 11:31 AM
