The "Other" Hornet ?

[tbrown 26]

Not the PISA 9 cell that eventually begat the Pilot canopy.

The Pioneer Hornet, a 1975 seven cell canopy, about 185 sq ft. It had a unique trailing edge in that it actually had "flaps", that were seperate from the main body of the canopy. The Hornet wasn't a commercial success, as it disappeared rather quickly. In fact, other than a few ads in Parachutist, I've never actually seen one.

Any of you old timers ever own or jump a Pioneer Hornet ?

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[jonstark 8]

Bill Coe, the brains and drive behind Perofrmance Designs, was especially enamoured of the Hornet. He wanted to develop a single surface squarelike canopy that would perform better but still have as little bulk. It was in the back of his mind for years.

He jumped one more than any other jumper that I know. I think he might have weighed #140 at the time and was living on ramen noodles to spend every cent he made at Eastern Airlines on materials to make canopies. His was a very interesting story to watch.

[riggerrob 564]

This thread reminds me of two other canopies.

Irvin Industries of Great Britain tried separate "trailing edge flaps" on one of their huge ram-air military canopies. The flaps were supposed to slow landings for military freefallers landing on unknown terrain, at night. Never sold very well.

On another dz.com thread, cobaltdan mentioned an experimental 1.5 surface canopy tested recently by Atair. It only had half of a bottom skin while the load-bearing ribs were in a weird "V" configuration. Cobaltdan said that it flew much "bigger" than it looked.
Please tell us more dan.

[cobaltdan 0]

the design was dubbed the V-wing and was a based on a design Greg Yarbonet did for us. Greg Yarbonet btw is the inventor of the slider.

Thje canopy was built in a 95 sq foot size and tested. It was a strange animal and was basically designed to test ideas for lower pack volume cargo canopies. I was not thrilled with the degree of spanwise distortion and due to the high camber of the formed airfoil the canopy was very slow and floaty. our development effort took a different direction and the canopy is now one of my snowboarding traction kite toys.

sincerely,

dan<><>

Daniel Preston <><>
atairaerodynamics.com (sport)
atairaerospace.com (military)

[riggerrob 564]

Quote

the design was dubbed the V-wing and was a based on a design Greg Yarbonet did for us. Greg Yarbonet btw is the inventor of the slider.

Thje canopy was built in a 95 sq foot size and tested. It was a strange animal and was basically designed to test ideas for lower pack volume cargo canopies. I was not thrilled with the degree of spanwise distortion and due to the high camber of the formed airfoil the canopy was very slow and floaty. our development effort took a different direction and the canopy is now one of my snowboarding traction kite toys.

sincerely,

dan<><>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

May I suggest that Atair pay Geg Yarbonet's way to the next PIA Symposium and reserve a lecture hall so Greg can tell us his adventures developing square canopies?

[cobaltdan 0]

greg yarbonet was convicted of a serious criminal offense and i believe will be in prision for may years to come.

Daniel Preston <><>
atairaerodynamics.com (sport)
atairaerospace.com (military)

[riggerrob 564]

Too bad.
I have long wanted to chat with Greg.

[gjhdiver 0]

Quote

Not the PISA 9 cell that eventually begat the Pilot canopy.

The Pioneer Hornet, a 1975 seven cell canopy, about 185 sq ft. It had a unique trailing edge in that it actually had "flaps", that were seperate from the main body of the canopy. The Hornet wasn't a commercial success, as it disappeared rather quickly. In fact, other than a few ads in Parachutist, I've never actually seen one.

Any of you old timers ever own or jump a Pioneer Hornet ?

Yup, I had one. It was very radical. It was a ram air up to about halfway, anf then a single skin from then on. It had special "flare pods" that got lowered when you pulled the steering lines down far enough. It would stall instantly, and turn on a dime. Landing it was fun. If you flared at two feet, you pounded in, if you flared at 4 feet, it stalled in, but if you got it dead on at three feet, you could actually walk away from the landing.

As a postscript to that. It went into a cupbaord for years, until I met Greg Yarbernet, the inventor of the slider, at Z Hills, when I was manager there. He had some input into the design of it, and was really happy to hear that one still existed, so I gave it to him. When I last spoke to him, he has thinking about building a new version of it.

[diablopilot 2]

In the cleaning out of Bill Gargano's Woodland California shop when he shut it down, among other really cool and nifty things, a canopy, and a 3 cell kite much like what is being discused here was found. Cool science.

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