I've got a thousand jumps on one as well as 5 BASE jumps, numerous dead centers and some tight, urban demos. I was and still am 150 pounds but my legs are no longer made of spring steel. I'd jump one on a breezy day, no problem.
The pic attached was a trick I often did which made the canopy fly even better.
Even then, in a young man's body, it was like jumping a canopy that didn't flare as much as you'd like, and landed harder than you liked. That is the main reason I made a few that had 6, 7 or 8 cells. They were better.
Kind of expensive, I can remember when you could get slightly used ones for free. I liked the canopy, it was a pretty radical little "flyer". Like jonstark, I used it for BASE jumps and tight demos, and made a lot of barefoot jumps and pavement landings...
I don't think that's a K-XX. It looks like the original Pioneer 23' tri-con. I had one that was identical to the one shown, used it twice with no problems, but they were grounded later after a few of them blew apart on terminal openings. Even without those patches, it isn't any good for anything but a car cover or a play parachute for a daycare centee. Those tri-cons had the "cat's eye" vent that was also used in the K-series reserves. Also, I'm pretty sure they weren't manufacturing K-XXs in 1969.
Even then, in a young man's body, it was like jumping a canopy that didn't flare as much as you'd like, and landed harder than you liked. That is the main reason I made a few that had 6, 7 or 8 cells. They were better.
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Once you got it to a 7 cell, wouldn't it have been considered a strato-cloud?? My first square main was a bullet proof cloud with a 24' flat with a 4-line release. It was all "nicely placed" (ever so gently) into a Racer SST (struggle struggle thump)
You and Zing are correct. I've never seen a Pioneer 23' Tricon but when I saw the cat-eye vent I thought maybe it was a K-XX or K-22 I guess would be closer in size. I never jumped a K-XX but lots of my friends did and they always had good landings with them. In fact, one of my friends had to use his on a demo into a football stadium and stood it up on the 50 yard line.....or in Canadian football fields the 55 yeard line
The K-XX and K-22 reserves were not produced until very late in the 70s or early 80s. I joined Pioneer in May of 78. I was hired to get them back into the sport market. We quickly released the Super 22 reserve and sold a lot of them. With the push to smaller and lighter gear, we then produced the K-XX and K-22. These were both tri-conical in design but had diapers for deployment. The lack of a diaper was what caused the problems with the original "Tri-Con" reserve and the "Reuter Wrap" was what Pioneer's Jim Reuter developed to fix the issue. The diaper appeared sometime later and was adopted by Pioneer (and other round reserve manufacturers) as being superior to the Reuter Wrap.
By the way, the "K" referred to the use of kevlar reinforcing bands instead of nylon. Since kevlar does not burn like nylon does, in the event of an inversion (line-over, mae west, etc) during deployment, the kevlar bands would help the canopy remain round even if the nylon panels were damaged. National Parachute adopted the idea with their round reserve shortly thereafter.
flyer.jpg
into a Racer SST (struggle struggle thump)
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