Aerodyne Solo hard openings?

[pchapman 261]

Anyone notice hard openings on Solos?

Sizes are the DZ I'm at are 270's and 250's. They're OK on static line but in freefall use for PFF (AFF), openings can be hard.

Some of the time the bad openings are likely due to bad student body position, but not all the time. Our DZ rigger was to look into it but I never heard anything more. The Solo sliders are not particularly large looking.

In contrast, the Aerodyne Pilots that are used for rental / downsizing gear, those have a good reputation at the DZ.

(And I wish Aerodyne wouldn't use that soft, untreated Spectra on so many of their canopies. It sure fuzzes up quick, especially on brake lines.)

[faulknerwn 36]

We have solo 270s and 230s and they open beautifully. Often have end cell closure they are opening so soft. This is on AFF jumps. Have you checked the line sets? Perhaps they are out of trim?

I've put a fair number of jumps on our Solo 230s for demos and I have to work hard to get them to open!! Pump risers cuz especially with my light weight and subterminal they open ridiculously slow..

[DougH 270]

Same here, my college club had a Solo, and my DZ has at least one or two in student containers. They opened very similar to pilots when I jumped them, and we never had a trend of students mentioning hard openings.

If it is happening to you on a regular basis I would guess that something isn't right with your particular canopy/situation. Line trim, or maybe something else, like stuck riser covers?

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[aljazm 0]

Yes. We have changed the sliders on all of our solo 270 because of the hard openings.

[pchapman 261]

Update on my original post from last year:

I found out that the Aerodyne Solo's at the DZ I jump at, are different than most others: They are full zero-p canopies, rather than the hybrid design that the Solo normally is. As I understand it, the DZ requested full ZP Solos for longevity and perhaps a tiny bit more performance in the long run. The canopy is marked no different than normal as far as I know, and perhaps the configuration was just a production change at the client's request, and thus perhaps got no testing.

That could explain why my DZ was having hard openings, while others report nice and soft Solo openings. However, there are still a few other reports of hard openings on DZ. (Which can happen with any canopy.)

(I posted at picture of a student's bad opening on a PFF jump I was on, in another thread at
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4659162#4659162 )

Recently we did receive bigger sliders for the Solo 250's, which apparently had the worst problem at the DZ. The new sliders are about the same width, but something like a third longer front to back. The DZ has had instructors (including myself) make a couple jumps on the new system, and we got nice soft snivelly openings. (Still, the instructors were tall lanky types -- we'd want to test it on a more rock-like instructor too.)

Now the DZO is concerned that the apparent 800' openings -- based on just alti readings on two jumps -- will be too much for students, so is going to try the Solo 270 sliders instead, which are somewhere in between the size of the old and new Solo 250 sliders.

[DougH 270]

Surprised they did that for student canopies.

A few years back they found some of the older gelvanor fabric back at the SA factory. I talked to them about making some solo's and some A2's out of the remaining fabric.

They declined, rightfully so, because they didn't want to have canopies used by tandems or students that were different from the original design, and were basically untested.

I did get a really cool Mamba 104 made out of it though.

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P