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funkasauresrex

PISA Pilot?

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I recently got a new (to me) canopy off the forums. The guy I bought it from said it was a Hornet but the mfg label says it is a pilot. But someone at my DZ, who used to jump hornets, thinks it is a Pilot (like the label says). It has a hornet logo sewn onto the bottom skin of the canopy. The mfg label is a PISA label and says Pilot 170. The dom is 2000. and it is made from the old galvenex material or whatever it is. I called Aerodyne since the took over PISA and asked them about it and they said they would look into it. All they could tell me at the time was that it could be a transitional canopy... That was last week, so I am giving them another couple of days before I call them back and see if they know anything more about it. I was just wondering if anyone knows anything about the transitional period of PISA into Aerodyne, or if anyone else has ever come across a similar situation with very misleading labels on a canopy. Or if they know a surefire way to tell if its a hornet or a pilot. Any info would be great. Thanks a lot.

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if it was built in 2000 is NOT a Pilot. The Aerodyne Pilot was not made until a few years later. I started jmuping in 2002 and my 1st canopy was a PISA 150 Hornet, PISA was still a stand alone company then.
You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

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Does the label appear to match the canopy, or does it look newer? There's a chance the canopy was sent to Aerodyne for some sort of service, and the original label might have been old/damaged/unreadable, so they replaced it, and the Pilot label was the closest thing they had available.

The easy way to find out, is to measure the canopy. The Pilot is semi-eliptical, and the Hornet is square. So measure the chord (the distance from the nose to the tail) at an end cell and at the center cell, and compare the two. If they are the same, the canopy is a perfect rectangle and is a Hornet. If the end cell is smaller than the center cell, then the canopy is semi-eliptical, and is a Pilot.

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Does the label appear to match the canopy, or does it look newer? There's a chance the canopy was sent to Aerodyne for some sort of service, and the original label might have been old/damaged/unreadable, so they replaced it, and the Pilot label was the closest thing they had available.

The easy way to find out, is to measure the canopy. The Pilot is semi-eliptical, and the Hornet is square. So measure the chord (the distance from the nose to the tail) at an end cell and at the center cell, and compare the two. If they are the same, the canopy is a perfect rectangle and is a Hornet. If the end cell is smaller than the center cell, then the canopy is semi-eliptical, and is a Pilot.


the Hornet had a slight taper on the trailing edge. Unless they really screwed up the cutting of mine.
You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

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Thanks for the input. The mfg label does not look that new, so I doubt they swapped it. Im not too worried about it, as I wanted a hornet, and if it turns out to be a Pilot, thats fine by me. It is tapered on the ends, but I will measure the chord lengths once I jump it. And everything I have read about Hornets says to roll the nose, which I didn't do, so I will see how it opens. If it hurts a lot, then it is a Hornet. And call Aerodyne again and see if they have figured it out.

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My understanding is that only the early production batch of Hornets opened hard. They put a bigger slider on, changed the trim, or something on the later models. Anyway, I put 200 jumps on mine and just did a normal pro-pack. The openings were positive but not hard.
"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

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With the stock slider they have the propensity to slam the shit out of you here and there. I got rid of mine before I starting jumping stills and other heavy stuff, but I would probably do something with the slider if I still had it.

I tamed it by rolling the out nose cells and stuffing them inside the center cell.
"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

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With the stock slider they have the propensity to slam the shit out of you here and there. I got rid of mine before I starting jumping stills and other heavy stuff, but I would probably do something with the slider if I still had it.

I tamed it by rolling the out nose cells and stuffing them inside the center cell.



I just went back and re-read some older threads (more for my own edification than anything) and they all say that at some point PISA upsized the slider on the Hornets. So whether his will smack him with the stock slider or not depends on when he got it. Like I said, I had a late model, I think the last year they were made, and did not have any problems. I did not stuff the nose. I sometimes had to use rear risers to get the slider all the way down.
"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

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No shit? In that case, the Aerodyne website will have specs for the Pilot 170, and he can measure his canopy against those specs.



Same here, Dave. I've had 2 Hornets. They are "lightly elliptical" like the Sabre2 and Pilot.
Owned by Remi #?

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Pornet. That's definitely what I'm gonna call it for now. I spoke with Aerodyne; they told me it's gonna be a while before they can figure it out. And its been crappy here for a while so I still haven't jumped it so I can't measure the chord lengths. I suppose I could open it up, but it just seems like a waste of a good pack job.

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Pornet. That's definitely what I'm gonna call it for now. I spoke with Aerodyne; they told me it's gonna be a while before they can figure it out. And its been crappy here for a while so I still haven't jumped it so I can't measure the chord lengths. I suppose I could open it up, but it just seems like a waste of a good pack job.

well if you're not jumping why would you not open it and check it out. the more familiar you are with your gear the better for you. Pull it out, and check it over closely, see if there are any questions raised by giving it a thorough inspection.
You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

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My understanding is that only the early production batch of Hornets opened hard. They put a bigger slider on, changed the trim, or something on the later models. Anyway, I put 200 jumps on mine and just did a normal pro-pack. The openings were positive but not hard.



The slider thing sounds right, I had a Hornet 190 with a near tandem sized slider, it opened slow as balls, actually packed it for faster openings by folding the front edge of the slider in.
"Do you really want to take advice from the guy we call Tarmac?"

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