Rock Dragon compared to a Flik - Reviews\Opinions Wanted

[petemac 0]

Don't know much about them, currently jumping a Flik 293, vented - for low jump 140-300 feet.

Landing area potentially quite tight!

Cheers

Pete

edited:typo

[petemac 0]

Not many people jumping then?

Any comments about Rock Dragons at all!

How about Foxes?

[greeny 0]

I love my foxes.

both V-Tec, ZP Top skin, mulit, 5th line
What do you want to know?

Greeny

[NickDG 23]

All I know is I jumped on the very first prototype FOX that Anne built and I've never looked back . . .

I think if you could remember when there were no "BASE" canopies than you'd know anything from any BASE manufactuer is smoking cool.

I started BASE on Para-Flite Cruislite. I used to think a near miss on an object was on-heading . . .

NickD BASE 194

[MyTwoCents 0]

Pete, send me a PM with your email address. You can't receive PMs it seems.

[airdog07 0]

I don't think it's abut which canopy is better or worst, they all have good and bad there is no one canopy is good for all jump,it make difference on between non valve or valve canopy,terminal or non terminal, as we all get older like to have softer opening, my troll with valve open really hard some time and my neck hurt for abut week I have troll 265 and 245, 245 was retrofit with valve, now I wish I did not install it so I can just use if for terminal jump or some thing hight, just like skydiving canopy which is better just mater of what you are use to, which ever is more comfortable for you. al

"A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body; jealousy is like cancer in the bones ..."

[980 0]

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Any comments about Rock Dragons at all!

not sure about now, but they were made under license by Precision Aerodynamics when I got mine

you may or may not be aware of this, but many skydivers have had some sort of issue with their Precision Aerodynamics canopy.

I am not going to make a blanket statement about Precision Aerodynamics' quality control or their products, as that would be unfair given the small sample size I have had(2 canopies). I do feel it is relevant to point out that there are many people who have had some sort of issue with their products.

I currently skydive a Xaos-21 that I bought with around 1300 skydives on it (mostly in AZ) and I absolutely love how that thing flies and opens.

I love pretty much everything about my Xaos-21.

No issues at all.

The other canopy that I have owned that was made by Precision Aerodynamics was a vented and valved Rockdragon 266.

Apex Moab was awesome because when I phoned them to ask what stock canopies they had (my 2nd canopy was not going to be ready for my trip and my 2nd rig was), as I needed a canopy in less than 3 weeks, Marta asked me what colours I wanted.

I said: 'Why? Do you have many 266 V&V Rockdragons in stock?'

She said, no, they don't, they will make me a V&V Rockdragon in the colours of my choice if I order in the very near future and I will have it in time for my departure.

They were not kidding, just over 2 weeks later my brand spanking new 266 V&V Rockdragon arrived, resplendant in custom colours.

I had my 2nd rig in action for my trip! Thanks Marta and Jimmy!

I put 2 skydives and 17 BASEjumps on the Rockdragon. Many of those BASEjumps were back-to-back loads with my Blackjack 260.

At that point I had about 111 jumps on the Blackjack and as that was the only BASE canopy I have jumped it was my only point of reference for the Rockdragon.

I liked the openings on the Rockdragon, clean and very good on-heading performance, even though the DBS was a hair on the deep side for me and the openings on short delay slider off antenna jumps with high tailwinds were sometimes feeling a little stally. (symptom of too deep DBS).

It was never enough of an issue for me to tune them, as I had one 160 degree offheading with it and managed to turn it just fine on the rear risers (brakes stowed) without stalling out the canopy.

That off-heading was in no way due to the canopy, it was caused by the wind.

I know because my friend jumped first using my Blackjack and we both got the exact same offheading opening, into the cross/tail wind and I have seen many short delay slider off loads on antennas suffer that kind of offheading in high cross/tail winds, so I am certain based on those observations.

I don't have that logbook with me now, but I remember doing at least one slider-up sub-terminal antenna jump with the Rockdragon and after a 5 - 5.5 sec delay it opened very nicely and perfect on-heading even though I was stupid enough to jump from 750ft with winds straight down the wire.

Not that one jump means anything, but you did ask for any comments at all and that specific deployment was one of the most satisfying ones I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

I liked the Rockdragon's turn response on toggles and on risers.

It felt to me that the Rockdragon did not have as high a glide ratio as my Blackjack. Close, but it just wouldn't go quite as far.

I did not like how it felt around the stall point and in deep brake sinking.

Keep in mind my only reference was the Blackjack and I will point out that a far more experienced jumper than me sold both his Aces and bought Rockdragons because he did not like the Aces' behaviour around the stall point and in deep brake sinking.

I believe he flew a Fox/s before he got the Aces, so this might just be a case of being used to canopies that behave a certain way around the stallpoint and in deep brake sinking and when flying canopies that behave markedly differently, the jumper dislikes that. (this was the case with both me and this experienced jumper, albeit the canopy prefrences were switched around)

I only have a handful of jumps on Aces but believe from other jumpers' experiences that the Ace and Blackjack behave very similarly around the stallpoint and in deep brake sinking, so I think my point is somewhat valid.

I found the Rockdragon to be more difficult to get as soft a landing on as my Blackjack and it felt like it had a little less lift available on the flare.

A lot of the things I did not like as much about the Rockdragon's flying characteristics could probably be attributed to it being a 4 upper control line canopy and me being used to jumping a 5 upper control line canopy.

After 13 jumps on the Rockdragon I contacted Apex Moab because I was not entirely happy with the Rockdragon. There was a slight issue with some material and between me, Apex Moab and Precision we could not agree if this was purely cosmetic or if it was cause for concern.

I kept jumping the Rockdragon and monitoring the issue and after another 4 jumps I felt more concerned, so I let Jimmy know that.

Jimmy contacted Precision again and they said it was purely cosmetic.

Jimmy knew that I was very concerned about it though and he wants all his customers to be 100% happy with their gear, so he offered me a new Rockdragon or my money back.

That is about as good as customer service gets and as much as anyone can stand behind their product.

The issue with the canopy and Precision is neither here nor there, nothing is perfect and we are talking about man made items after all.

The important thing is customer service and back-up for their products and Jimmy (and everyone else I have dealt with at Apex) really do go above and beyond.

If you are curious, I took the refund, not because I had any reservations about getting another Rockdragon (I have none), but because I felt it flew significantly different to my Blackjack and I preferred the way the Blackjack flies (probably because I am so used to them).

I decided I wanted all my BASE canopies to fly exactly the same, so there is never any time/thought wasted as to how the particular canopy I am jumping now will react, they will all react the same and the only way for that to happen is to have all your sets of gear identical, which is the way I went.

I hear/read (haven't jumped one yet) that the Flik flies more like the Blackjack than like the Rockdragon, so if you are like me and you like those flying characteristics, you will probably like the Flik better, if you are like the experienced jumper who preferred Fox/Rockdragon type flying characteristics, you will probably like the Rockdragon more than the Flik.

You mentioned low stuff - I understand that Jimmy built a very special Rockdragon (for someone who posts on here regularly) exclusively for low jumps and that he was super impressed with this canopy when I asked him about it. I believe it featured a ZP topskin, which brings me to my next point, I have moved on from Blackjacks to Blackjacks with the ZP on the front 3rd of the topskin and I have found that the ZP improves the glideratio, gives greater forward speed (but not at the cost of good lowspeed flight), gives a little more flarepower and opens a little bit quicker. It also seems to make the canopy turn quicker and dive and surge more. Kind-of reactive like a canopy one size smaller, but still retaining the slow flight behaviour of a same size non-ZP canopy. Might be an advantage on low jumps if flown correctly.

Phone Jimmy up and talk to him about it, he is always super helpful.

As always, try and demo any canopy you are curious about, it is really the only way to know.

[petemac 0]

Thanks for the replies, guys much appreciated.

Yeah it low and dirty in the UK most of the time, so was just doing some research into a second canopy for some really quite tight and low adventures in town.

Found a Rock Dragon in the UK and I‘ll try some jumps on it at the Crane Boogie weekend.

Need to do some Fox jumps for comparison, especially with the ZP top skin.

If it improves the landing without increasing the glide too much might be the answer.

Thank again

Pete Mac

[greeny 0]

Pete,

i am 50 / 50 if I will make the crain boogie
but if I do you can jump my ZP fox

Greeny

[Tornolf 0]

I absolutely love my Fox (vtec, nothing else) for crappy landing areas and low (<150) static lines.

Also, I found a very noticeable positive difference in these areas when my wingloading changed from .7 to .6

A waddling elephant seal is the cutest thing in the entire world.
-TJ

[DaveO 0]

Quote

I absolutely love my Fox

Thats because you can walk on walls with your FOX.

"When it comes to BASE, I'll never give advice, only my opinion"

[katzurki 0]

For me, Rock Dragon landings are always about the same degree of hardness. Landings on a same-size Flik are either very soft, or harder than RD (varies with landing conditions I guess).

(very subjective) Slider down heading performance is worse on the Flik.

Caveat: Very limited experience on both canopies (70'ish on RD, 20'ish on Flik), plus you have about 10 times the jumps I do.

[greeny 0]

Quote[(very subjective) Slider down heading performance is worse on the Flik]

20 jumps doesn't seem to be much for comparison.

How were conditions?
How was your body position?
How was your packing?

What are you basing your opinion on?

Greeny