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SSHusky

another stiletto question

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I currently jump a Stiletto 120. I have made about 300-400 jumps on this stiletto and jumped a Stiletto 135 before. I’m a small girl and load it maybe 1.2 wearing weights. I love my Stiletto except for the openings. I have had quite a lot of slammers no matter who packs it, and the occasional spinning diving line twist! :ph34r: I love the flying characteristic of the Stiletto. I love getting back to the dz after a long spot and I love the recovery arch of the Stiletto. I don’t want to swoop but I want a zippy canopy like the Stiletto.

I am looking for a replacement for my Stiletto. I don’t want to downsize, but I want something similar with better more forgiving openings. I have asked a few people at my dz but want to hear the opinions of dz.comers.

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... hmm maybe 200-300 jumps on the lines. Certainly not more than 500 jumps and I had hard openings starting at about 30 jumps after new lines.

I did like the Pilot and I am strongly leaning towards that. It did have a weird flare, like I couldn't stage it but had to "stab" the flare for a good flare.

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... hmm maybe 200-300 jumps on the lines. Certainly not more than 500 jumps and I had hard openings starting at about 30 jumps after new lines.

I did like the Pilot and I am strongly leaning towards that. It did have a weird flare, like I couldn't stage it but had to "stab" the flare for a good flare.




If you like the Pilot and like the glide of the Stiletto, also try the Pulse. I put about 300 jumps on the Pilot and have now put about 350 on a Pulse (and have them in both my rigs now). I like the flare point of the Pulse better than that of the Pilot - of course, others like the Pilot better. I've had great openings from the Pulse - the only bad one I ever had was a pilot chute issue, not a canopy issue. Worth a demo. B|
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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Try a Nitron. I've had soft stress free openings, it doesn't want to dive or spin up even with linetwists from wingsuiting. I've gotten great glide with some rear riser input on long spots hanging with tandems to get back. Short recovery arc, snappy and fun to fly in the turns, lighter front riser pressure but wants to come out of the dive immediately. Definitely a fun canopy imo.

http://www.precision.aero/nitron.htm

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If you like the Stiletto I'd keep jumping one, I think that they're a blast but may not be the ideal swooping canopy. Generally Stilettos aren't known to be hard openers but many open like this: snivel, snivel, snivel-whack! But the whack isn't all that hard. My guess is the lines are out of trim, in particular the brake setting. Get together with your rigger and some beer and check the line specs, they are available on PD's website. Also check the slider size which is also listed. I think you fall back in love with the 120 when it's in trim. BTW if it was mine and was out of trim I'd stretch the lines per Brian Germain's method or similar, you'll be amazed at the result. Brake settings may require some rigger work though if you don't want to do them yourself.
Sometimes you eat the bear..............

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hiya,
its unsual for a stiletto to have continious hard openings. and i would suspect there is another under lying cause for it. have you brought the canopy to a rigger for inspection?
are you sure that the correct slider is on it? are you sure that a correct line change was done? how about your main pilot chute-what size is it? is your kill line ok?
i agree with you that a stilletto is a great canopy,i jump a 120 myself and never had an issue with hard openings, and i am 300lbs fat arse out the door:$>:(
i have heard that a pilot is a decent canopy,although i have seen extremly hard openings on them also.
in my opinion it might be worth sending back to PD for inspection. any issues i have had with a PD canopy they always looked after me with excellent customer service.

my 2 cents worth

rodger

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hiya,
its unsual for a stiletto to have continious hard openings. and i would suspect there is another under lying cause for it. have you brought the canopy to a rigger for inspection?
are you sure that the correct slider is on it? are you sure that a correct line change was done? how about your main pilot chute-what size is it? is your kill line ok?
i agree with you that a stilletto is a great canopy,i jump a 120 myself and never had an issue with hard openings, and i am 300lbs fat arse out the door:$>:(
i have heard that a pilot is a decent canopy,although i have seen extremly hard openings on them also.
in my opinion it might be worth sending back to PD for inspection. any issues i have had with a PD canopy they always looked after me with excellent customer service.

my 2 cents worth

rodger



I just do not understand how anyone could compare a Pilot to a Spinetto.... The Pilot doesn't have near the zip and fun. These two canopies are worlds apart IMHO but that's the thing about opinions.... we all have them and they all vary in some way. :P
Life is all about ass....either you're kicking it, kissing it, working it off, or trying to get a piece of it.
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My guess is the lines are out of trim, in particular the brake setting. Get together with your rigger and some beer and check the line specs, they are available on PD's website.



Her rigger doesn't really like beer all that much... but she has other methods of payment for him...

the lineset was actually installed by Chutingstar and the brakes might be out of trim... I'll check the trim on the canopy when I get back in the country...
Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

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Send it to Pete Swan in Lodi for a reline with HMA.

My Stiletto always opened pretty well until it went out of trim. After only a few hundred jumps, the brake lines will shrink several inches. That means when you set the brakes, the tail is pulled down quite a bit farther than it should be. that can effect the opening speed.The outer lines also shrink at a faster rate than the inner lines too so the slider doesn't sit exactly where it's supposed to when it's packed up.

Set the brakes, hang it over your shoulder and check the line offset from the outside A-B-C-D lines, to the inside. When the lines were new, the line attachment points were even. I'll bet they the outer lines are quite a bit shorter than the inner lines.
My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

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If you like the Stiletto I would keep the Stiletto. There really isn't any other alternatives that perform like that does. B. Germain had a couple designs that were similar (Vengeance ect). Get with a rigger and make him slow the openings down. (Reline, different lines, longer break lines, pocket slider, ect.) Any canopy can be made to open slower with some work! And a pilot, pulse, and x-fire are nothing like a Stiletto. It may not be a good canopy for modern swooping, but there is a reason PD is still building them after all these years.
BASE 1384

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There are several factors that could be causing your opening issues and not all of them are related to the canopy.

There are some things you can try and if you find no resolution, then I'd suggest you contact PD and speak to their maintenance department, and have the test jumpers do some jumps on your canopy and get some feedback to you. Also like most have suggested, get PD to reline your canopy with either HMA or Vectran. Reason being is these type of lines are more dynamically stable over the long term, and don't go out of trim due to friction on the lines and lower controls.

Here are some things to look into.

Packing: Dont shove the nose or roll the nose, leave it flush with the rest of the rest of the fabric. When you quarter your slider, make sure that you push it down onto the bottom skin, and leave the slider sticking out above the nose, about the height of the binding tape on the slider, just before you roll the tail.

Gear: What size PC are you using? Is it ZP or F111? .... Get a F111, 27" Pilot Chute. Doing this will help avoid a faster than desired extraction speed of the bag off your back.

Replace your kill line, if it is worn.

Use large rubber bands and double stow all of them, yes all of them, even the locking stows

Deployment: Dont look up at your canopy, and keep your hands off the risers during inflation. Throw out your Pilot cute, and keep flying your body, wait for the canopy to pull you up, continue to fly your body, feet and knees together, and push your heels down.

Hope this helps, I sued to jump a ST-120 and much of what I have written sorted out my opening issues.

Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there.

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Hookit hit the nail on the head, it's a line trim issue. I jumped Stilettos for years, and this was the time in my life when a reline wasn't in the budget, and the openings were the first thing to go.

Check the trim, mainly the brake lines. You might just need some new uppers, from the cascade down to the brake setting loop.

It's worth tuning up the Stiletto, you won't find a canopy that compares to it. I jump a Velo now because I got hooked on the speed you get from an 800ft dive, but I'll go back to the Stiletto when I get 'old' and can't go that fast anymore, it's a great canopy.

An alternative would be to look for a 107 that opens ncier. If you're only at 1.2 with weights, the 107 shouldn't be too high of a loading, and Stiletto's remain big and 'floaty' at anything below 1.5/1.6. Borrow one or get a demo and see what you think.

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Call PD. I have been jumping stiletto's for years and love them. I'm in my 60's and have osteoporosis. also fly a camera. changed to dacron. went with a slider in the next size canopy group up. don't roll the nose. snivels like a 5 year old with a cold and perfect on line headings. hope this helps.

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I loved my Stiletto. I moved on to Crossfire 2s and won't ever look back but I still think the Stiletto is a good canopy. My openings were getting ugly. They canopy was on it's last legs and I blamed it on that but when I got my Crossfire I was still occasionally getting erratic openings. When I changed pilot chutes (by moving it to a different rig) everything clicked.

My pilot chute looked fine and the kill line was still in great shape but the mesh had elongated in places and the pilot chute wouldn't hold it's original shape under load. My theory is that the openings were not as staged because the pilot chute was not holding the load evenly.

When I got another one (Jim Cazer actually traded my old one in on a new one) everything smoothed out.

I bring this up only to say that you should check your pilot chute when you go through it with your rigger. If you get it relined, I just got great service and an excellent reline from MEL at Skyworks Rigging. Sending it to PD has it's advantages too. ;)



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I currently jump a Stiletto 120. I have made about 300-400 jumps on this stiletto and jumped a Stiletto 135 before. I’m a small girl and load it maybe 1.2 wearing weights. I love my Stiletto except for the openings. I have had quite a lot of slammers no matter who packs it, and the occasional spinning diving line twist! :ph34r: I love the flying characteristic of the Stiletto. I love getting back to the dz after a long spot and I love the recovery arch of the Stiletto. I don’t want to swoop but I want a zippy canopy like the Stiletto.

I am looking for a replacement for my Stiletto. I don’t want to downsize, but I want something similar with better more forgiving openings. I have asked a few people at my dz but want to hear the opinions of dz.comers.

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