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p3h

Safire 2 Slider Hangup/End Cell Closure

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Hi,

I was testing two safires 2 - 189 and 169 (rental gear). My exit weight is 190lbs and on both of them I experienced slider hangups + end cell closures resulting in spin / line twists on openings (I made 15 jumps and had slider hangups on every one of them)

Is it normal or this gear was in bad condition ? My friend was jumping the same safire 2 189 after me and had slider hangups as well

I'm thinking about buying safire 2 over Pilot but if safire opens like that then buying it is out of question

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Did the lines look fuzzy? Mine did, and did the same thing, (but not as bad,) till I got a reline. Since then, no problem at all.
Safire2 189, loaded 1.2
The new lines look a lot more slippery than the old ones did, and it flies better too.
But what do I know?

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Lines looked old but not extremely fuzzy, they weren't very slippery though as new lines are. The main question is whether it is possible that this problem comes from old lines and not from low w/l or design

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I have about 100 jumps on a new safire2 149 loaded at 1.3
Never had any issue with slider hangups or end cell closure. %95of the time it has nice slow on heading openings. I think I've had line twists once or twice and few off heading openings all of which I attribute to body position.
Have you seen my pants?
it"s a rough life, Livin' the dream
>:)

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The quickest way to measure the "life" - of a line set - is to stretch out all 5 A lines (on one side of the canopy) and measure the difference.
When the difference across A lines reaches 3 inches, the lines are due for replacement.

Your story reminds me of my experience with a second-hand Stiletto 135. The first opening had nasty line twists and it did not turf-surf very far and I did not enjoy jumping it very much.
Over the winter, I replaced all the suspension lines (courtesy of Performance Designs). Line twists almost disappearred and I soon got decent turf-surfs. The second season I understood why so many people love flying their Stilettos.

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I have a Safire2 159 @ about 1.13 wl. Have only had ~2 slider hangups after what were very nice openings. Never once have I had end-cell closure issues on it. There are quite a few others at my dz that have Safire2s as well, never heard any complaints. I'd recommend buying one.
*I am not afraid of dying... I am afraid of missing life.*
----Disclaimer: I don't know shit about skydiving.----

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I have about 550 jumps on safires, they open slow which i like, sometimes my slider gets hung up halfway down cuz of the slow opening, same w/an end cell being partially closed. never thrown me into line twists but will sometimes cause an off heading opening. I'll post a vid tonight of a slider hang up this weekend, no big deal. if the openings are hard and this stuff is happening, may be lines, but also be conscious of body position on deployment.

saf.2 149 @ 1.6
So there I was...

Making friends and playing nice since 1983

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I jumped Safire 2s from 189 (1.1 w/l) down to 149 (1.4 w/l) and found the slider/closed end cells happened more often at the lighter wing loading end of the spectrum. As for the line twists, most likely body position or packing is what I found to be the cause most often when I've had them.

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I've owned 4 Safire II's from 189 to 149 and I still use the 149 for wingsuiting. I put about 800 jumps on these canopies. 3 of these canopies I bought new. All of them opened with end cells closed almost every time. It did not seem to depend on packing method. I just got used to it. Slider hangup was not a problem. Also, the openings were mostly soft and on heading. It just took a couple of seconds for the end cells to inflate.

All of my Safire II's came with vectran lines. That means you can't tell how old they are by measuring because they don't shrink. They just start to look old but old lines will not affect the way the canopy flies.

YMMV

Art

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