Wingsuit specific canopy choices

[theplummeter 14]

I was on a Safire2 for a long time and really loved it. The Crossfire reminds me of the Safire on opening and in flight, but really takes things up a notch on the bottom end. I'm sure a Safire would make a great wingsuit canopy but wanted to get a larger 7 cell into my container for the wingsuit jumps. The overwhelming majority of my jumps are freefly jumps, so staying on a smaller suit (Phantom3) with a larger canopy seems like a good idea until I have some more experience with wingsuit jumps.

What I really need to do is take a trip somewhere and spend a week or two with a coach and some experienced folks willing to take me under their wing and jump the suit a ton.

[mattjw916 2]

I use a Sabre1 135 @1.5 for wingsuiting. Personally I've had excellent results with this. Even if it takes off one way or the other it always recovers to level flight on it's own. I had half a line twist once, that untwisted itself as I was unzipping...

I've also used a Silhouette before for WS jumps but the lackluster flare would keep me from recommending it. Storms open great at terminal and are not packing sensitive at all IMO; I'd have no concerns about using them either.

My $0.02.

NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

[odeseni 0]

Atair from Slovenia, the leading company in BASE canopies have just released a wingsuit specific 7 cell for skydiving. Give them a try or ask for a demo.

I believe Adam Foster at leading edge wingsuits has one aswell, so you can check it out or demo it.

I love the 135 and 150 i flew... but hey.. i'm bias.

My previous experience is a Storm 135 and Spectre 135 loaded at 1.7. I prefer the WinX from Atair.

Happy flights

[aaronschimke 0]

mattjw916

I use a Sabre1 135 @1.5 for wingsuiting. Personally I've had excellent results with this. Even if it takes off one way or the other it always recovers to level flight on it's own. I had half a line twist once, that untwisted itself as I was unzipping...

I've also used a Silhouette before for WS jumps but the lackluster flare would keep me from recommending it. Storms open great at terminal and are not packing sensitive at all IMO; I'd have no concerns about using them either.

My $0.02.

+1 on this. I fly a Sabre2 120 loaded ~1.5-1.6 and find that the canopy is very "stable" on opening. In this context, stable means level flight after inflation, even in less than ideal conditions, such as line twists. I've experienced a few poor openings due to PC hesitation, poor body position, etc. which resulted in as many as 3-4 line twists at times and find that the canopy still remains on-heading in level flight. I say this with the disclaimer that this is my experience on the canopy and know that things could always go much worse. As also stated above, I find the range of the canopy to be great fun for higher performance landings while remaining docile enough to leave more reaction time if sh$t goes wrong. The flare powah is awesome!

To me, the most important factor to consider (especially for WS), is to fly a canopy that you are extremely comfortable with, know how to quickly react when things don't go according to plan, and know when to chop that sucker if you don't like what you see/feel.

My $0.02.

[phoenixlpr 0]

odeseni

Atair from Slovenia, the leading company in BASE canopies have just released a wingsuit specific 7 cell for skydiving. Give them a try or ask for a demo.

I believe Adam Foster at leading edge wingsuits has one aswell, so you can check it out or demo it.

I love the 135 and 150 i flew... but hey.. i'm bias.

My previous experience is a Storm 135 and Spectre 135 loaded at 1.7. I prefer the WinX from Atair.

Happy flights

Cool! I see you are a test jumper jumping a prototype canopy.

[Anachronist 2]

As a general rule and as WWS pointed out, the more docile 9-cells work great. I've known a couple people who put hundreds of WS jumps on Saber2's with no problems except when they got to Aura/X3 sized suits.

I've put roughly 100 WS jumps on a Pilot, great, roughly 100 on a Pulse, also great, and now roughly 50 on a Prime, also great.

I'm one of those who had a less than awesome experience with the Storm, It would seek 180 degrees from 90 right to 90 left 3 or 4 times during the snivel. I demo'd one to see what the hoopla was all about. Put about 10 jumps one it, every snivel did the same thing. Sometimes it would spin up right before inflation and leave me with 3 or 4 line twists. I've never experienced that with any other canopy so packing and body position are not likely contributors (though not impossible to rule out). I've only had one spinning line twist scenario where I reached for the cutaway handle and it was on the Storm, fortunately as I was reaching, it spun me out even faster than it spun up. Size was 210, WL was 1.2-1.3 . I've heard a lot of folks who love the Storm so maybe there is something else going on but I don't have any idea what that would be. I also had a much more experienced (orders of magnitude more experienced) friend with a smaller size and higher WL have the same issue on the Storm. Once it was open it was ok though, but you can say that about most canopies.

I think "WS specific" canopies are kinda silly even though a few manufacturers are playing around with them.

I would posit that the bottom line is, keep the WL below 1.5 (higher if it is well within your experience level) and everything that isn't "high performance" will work fine. No matter what you jump, if you pitch like an a**hole you are going to have problems, body position through the deployment is important.

[chemist 0]

anyone wingsuit a triathlon?

[skydave89 19]

I bought a Triathlon 175 as my first WS canopy because I wanted a boat. Mission accomplished. Loaded at 1.1 it was ridiculously tame, to the point of boring, after I was no longer concerned about being able to pitch stable. Never jumped one at a high WL so I can't comment on how they handle that though.

[HIGH1 1]

over the past 40 WS jumps, I have been pitching a 175 Triathon Hybrid and it works like a charm. On heading openings at 1.5 WL wihtout issues. Before the triathlon, I was loading a Pilot 188 at 1.3 and even with line twist, she flew on heading... and she was softer on opening but I like the quicker openings of a triathlon. It is personal preference but wingloadings <1.5 is ideally a safer WL for Wingsuiting.

Check your ego at the door. Stay humble.

[Prior23 0]

I have been jumping a Crossfire2 129 while wingsuiting for a bit now and I really enjoy it. Had a couple interesting moments due to body position but that's to be expected.

B.A.S.E. #1734

[TheCaptain 2]

I have about 50 wingsuit jumps on a crossfire 129 loaded 1.85 to 1. I personally think the crossfire is one of the best all around canopies made that being said I have found in line twist it always points to the ground. I would not open any lower than 5K due to the line twist thing jumping the Crossfire with my wingsuit. Generally speaking you want a canopy that will perform well in line twist when flying a wing suit. I did change canopies to a VX109 loaded 2.2 to one with about 100 wingsuit jumps on it and have had rather good success with it but again I have a minimum opening altitude of 3500 with it. I have in the more recently bought an Sabre 135 for my wingsuit as I have found it would be nice to be able to stay with the formation till actual break off and not have to leave early due to my higher deployment altitude

Kirk
He's dead Jim

[skydave89 19]

Update to my last post: A month after I chopped my 120 Sabre I had to chop my 107 Spectre. I had a barber pole before the canopy even fully opened. I have to agree with Jarno's statement about canopy size. It might be a 7-cell, but I found my Spectre 107 spinning and diving towards the ground at a rate that I never would've expected. (WL @ 1.7).

[theplummeter 14]

I finally got my Spectre 170 hooked up and started jumping it today. Openings are nice, on heading, and uneventful. I thought it might be a boring canopy, but full flight is faster than I expected, and it's fairly fun to fly for a beat up old 7 cell. Flare is different but very easy, overall I'm very satisfied that this will be a good wingsuit canopy.

I've heard a lot of people talk about long sniveling openings, but compared to my Crossfire I thought it opened fairly quickly. It didn't seem to make much difference if I was on a hop and pop (from a slow Cessna), falling at terminal, or tracking it was always a soft but positive on-heading inflation.