Cobalt: Flies "bigger"??

[WrongWay 0]

I currently have put about 200 jumps on my Sabre2 150 loaded at about 1.4. I'm planning on spending most if not all of this season flying my current canopy, but I'm looking for my next already, wanting to get as much info as possible to make a good choice. I was not planning on downsizing, but I read on Atair's website that the cobalt flies "big" and I would need one size smaller to keep the speed about the same as my current canopy. Does anyone here with lots of Cobalt experience have any feedback on this? Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

Wrong Way
D #27371 Mal Manera Rodriguez Cajun Chicken Ø Hellfish #451
The wiser wolf prevails.

[voodew1 0]

Well first off there are 2 kinds of people ones that love the Cobalt and ones that hate it. I personal like it.
I do think that the cobalt flies somewhat bigger than a stilleto of the same size. The problem with the cobalt is you either get a great opening canopy or a slammer and the size doesn't matter. If you get the great openning canopy you will love it.
The material it is made from makes it easy to pack, but it seems to pack 1 size bigger also.
The cobalt has great flare power and great floating ability. It will do an almost no altitude loss flat turn!
Demo a Cobalt and make your own decision
Demo a Nitro/Nitron while your at it - I have heard nothing but good things about the canopy. My demo will be here next month

The pimp hand is powdered up ... say something stupid

[IBTOMP 0]

I have 2 Cobalt 135's. The openings on the canopys are totally different on each canopy. One has sweet smooth openings and the other starts smooth on the first stage then brisk on the second stage. Passed the openings the canopys are awesome in flight. Demo one, I diffenently recommend the Cobalt.

Tom

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely and in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "Holy sh1t...what a ride!"

[PhreeZone 15]

See me at the DZ on this. Or search my posts in the last week...

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[flip2 0]

when you have 2 cobalts with the samr size why they have so difference in the opening??i ask because a friend want to buy a 120.

It is normal that the canopys have differnt openings because the stiletto each canopy opens the same way.I jump 3 different stiletto canopies all the same size 135 and they have all the same nice opening.why the cobalts are so different?

http://www.klick-game.de/5640-Jahre.html

[AggieDave 6]

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I jump 3 different stiletto canopies all the same size 135 and they have all the same nice opening.why the cobalts are so different?

The short answer is it really comes down to quality control at the factory.

The Cobalt I've jumped flew really well, but opened worst then anything else I've EVER jumped (including original Sabres). Opened so hard it almost knocked me out!

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[johnny1488 1]

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but I read on Atair's website that the cobalt flies "big" and I would need one size smaller to keep the speed about the same as my current canopy

I believe this has to do with the way they trim the canopy for a flatter glide. It has a slower decent rate so it might "feel" bigger but it is most certainly not.

Johnny
--"This ain't no book club, we're all gonna die!"
Mike Rome

[diablopilot 2]

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when you have 2 cobalts with the samr size why they have so difference in the opening??i ask because a friend want to buy a 120.

Because Atair's quality control and sport canopy design and productiondepartment ain't worth squat. I'm not getting into it again but do a search around here and findout the B/S behind "flys bigger"

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[cobaltdan 0]

flies bigger:

a few bits of information: not all canopies are measures the same way & not all canopies are accurately placarded for their actual size. next, assuming a 2 canopies are in fact exactly the same size, the one with a higher efficiency, i.e. the one that produces more lift, better glide ratio will be said to flies bigger. when testing the canopies are to be jumped at equal wing loadings and trimed for best glide with brakes or rears. this removes the effect of different trims.

how do you make a canopy that is more efficient? well the most addresable variable has been to reduce the spanwise distortion on the topskin of the airfoil. cross braced canopies reduce this distortion with additional loaded top skin seams, 9 cells like the cobalt reduce this distortion by tensioning the top skin and tapes (the comp cobalt also adds spanwise cross bracing to the nose only). by reducing the distortion it has the same practical effect as increasing wing area. hence why one wing can feel bigger than another of the same size.

below is a good paste from some icarus info which is to the point:

Spanwise Distortion

When a ram air canopy inflates the canopy surfaces bulge between the ribs with the air pressure. This both effects the airfoil shape and draws the ribs closer together reducing the span of the canopy (and therefore the surface area). The more ribs we have, the less distortion and shrinkage occurs but bulk and line drag increase. On a conventional canopy not only do the cells bulge they also zigzag up and down between load bearing and non-load bearing ribs, further distorting the canopy and reducing its span/area even more.

To quantify this, bulge distortion alone reduces a 9-cell canopy area by 9% and zig zag distortion by a further 4%. Say you are jumping a PIA measured 100sf canopy, you are actually flying around with 87sf of wing area above your head.

With the EXTreme-FX you still get the bulge distortion (reduced slightly through 21 chambers instead of 18) but zig zag distortion is eliminated completely. On a 100sf EXTreme-FX, bulge distortion will reduce your area by only 8% and that is all. So you still have 92sf of wing above your head (compared to 87sf), 5% more lifting area and no extra drag (less in fact).

Now that you have this concept in mind, consider this.

Dynamic Distortion

When you look at a photo of a conventional canopy flying on full drive the zig zag appearance is obvious, but look at a landing canopy photo and you will see the zig zag appears much more pronounced - IT IS !

During your flare your canopy is both, slowing down and pulling more load, which is reducing the supporting pressure within your canopy and pulling it further out of shape. In fact, during your flare your zig zag distortion will increase a further 7-9%, to around 12%. Add to this our bulge distortion and our 100sf canopy is now giving us 79sf of lifting area when we land.


as to atairs quality control. we keep the highest tollerances on construction in the industry we are 2mm on all match marks and tension our tapes, and we absolutely never end seams off a tape. I sincerely challenge anyone prove we are second best to anyone. The issue of a handfull of canopies with hard openings out of the thousands produced is not attributed to manufacturing tollerances. and btw we have less than 1 canopy in 1000 being returned with any perceived issue.


sincerely,

daniel preston
atair aerospace
www.extremefly.com

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

[diablopilot 2]

You are endangering lives with your "flys bigger" rhetoric. Like I said, I'm done......


http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=691661;search_string=cobalt;#691661

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=700314;search_string=cobalt;#700314

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[johnny1488 1]

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The issue of a handfull of canopies with hard openings out of the thousands produced is not attributed to manufacturing tollerances.

Is it attributed to the design then? Like the 170's being retrofitted with the comp mod?

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and btw we have less than 1 canopy in 1000 being returned with any perceived issue.

I am not the world's skydiver, but I know more people who have had problems with them than didn't.

And I have out "glided" cobalts of similar sizes on more than one canopy with people who had a decent idea on how to fly them. I would question how much more efficient the wing is.

But I am glad the cobalt and all the other canopies are out there for people to fly.

Johnny
--"This ain't no book club, we're all gonna die!"
Mike Rome

[craddock 0]

The Cobalt 95 that I jumped flew very large. I would have thought I was under a 107ish canopy if I had not known better. Best opening canopy I have ever jumped.
The Cobalt 75 I flew again seemed to fly larger. The smaller the canopy the less this effect will have. I have talked to other very capable pilots that have felt the same way. An ex Atair factory pilot jumped a 65 and 75 and now jumps a 79 on a competitors canopy. Regardless of your or my feelings toward Atair USA there is something to this. Having jumped several of their canopies I can attest to this.
I have no attention of ever purchasing an Atair skydiving canopy for many reasons although I may purchase a Troll MDV. I would never second guess the Quality control of this canopy and would also purchase a 245 compared to my 260 Mojo.

I do understand your dislike for Atair USA , but there is more to the company than Dan Preston and they do make some good products.

That spot isn't bad at all, the winds were strong and that was the issue! It was just on the downwind side.

[nicknitro71 0]

Very well said.

The saddest thing is that the real brain of Atair is Stane, one of the nicest persons I have ever met as well as a great visionare and engineer.

Memento Audere Semper

903

[JJohnson 0]

I own a 120 and a 105. Love both of them for their opeings and flight characteristics. I pack both od them to open a bit quicker, as I feel the openings are too slow.
As for the Cobalts flying "bigger", demo one and compare it to somethinjg else of the same size and you be the judge.
I think my original Crossfire (I) 119 flew more agreesive than the Cobalt 120. I would compare the Cobalt 105 more to the 119.....But the 105 landed faster in a straight in and had tons more flare. Just my opinion.

JJ

"Call me Darth Balls"

[diablopilot 2]

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I do understand your dislike for Atair USA , but there is more to the company than Dan Preston and they do make some good products.

You hit the nail on the head.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[lister55 0]

Ive been reading the ealier posts on how you measure differently. Could you give me the square footage of your canopy the way you measure it and the square footage of a competitors canopy the way you measure it? i.e. if yours is a 170 what would a compeitors 170 canopy measure under you measurement guidelines?

[LawnDart21 0]

I have approximately 500 jumps on Cobalts, I currently jump a 105, I have a 120, my fiance is on my 135 and my best friend on the DZ jumps a 150. My fiance has over 100 jumps on the 135, and my friend has over 100 jumps on his 150. Thats approx. 700 jumps in total, and not one bad opening pn four seperate canopies made at four seperate times. My fiance and I are packing/rigging fanatics and as such are meticulous in our packing and follow the Atair recommendations. My buddy is much less proficent and still packs great openings. I know there will always be people that want to bash the Cobalt, or the company, but come on, let up a little, its a sweet canopy and flies great in my opinion. As for flies bigger, I had the opportunity to do back to back video loads all day on my Cobalt 105 and on a Crossfire 107, back and forth all day. The Crossfire is a good canhopy, no complaints, but it definitely flew smaller than my 105 over a 2.0 loading. The 107 was very twitchy and super sensative to oversteer, where as my 105 flew better and was less sensative at that loading. I'm not an engineer, I make noclaims other than personal experience, and with 4 canopies, I have not experienced, seen or heard a single bitch about the Cobalt openings, flying or flaring. C'mon, can't we all get along?

--
My other ride is a RESERVE.

[imdskydiver 0]

I know there will always be people that want to bash the Cobalt, or the company, but come on, let up a little

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There are a few heavy posters here that have been bashing Atair for some time , I don't think they represent the views of most Cobalt owners , There have been a few hard opening Cobalts and i think Dan was trying to Cover up the issues On those few canopies by saying they needed to be opened in a track or by going to a smaller PC , I think that was wrong on that one , He should have just admitted that they were bad canopies and that would have been the end of it , He pissed off a few others by saying the cobalt would be a good choice for beginners under a 1.2 wing loading , I can't really say that i would agree with that but then again i have not ever loaded one that light , At that wing loading who knows , Maybe he is right .
As for me , I love my H-Mod Cobalt , It opens great , Is not twitchy at all , Dives like a bitch and swoops like one too , My next Canopy will be a Competition Cobalt .

• Quote

[diablopilot 2]

Question for you.

Would you advise a novice skydiver that the Stiletto is the right canopy for them as long as it is loaded light?


Would you try to convince a person that has a couple of thousand skydives that a Sihlouette is a higher performance swooping canopy than a Stiletto?


That, in a nutshell, is what Dan Preston is advertising.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[imdskydiver 0]

Would you advise a novice skydiver that the Stiletto is the right canopy for them as long as it is loaded light?


Would you try to convince a person that has a couple of thousand skydives that a Sihlouette is a higher performance swooping canopy than a Stiletto?


That, in a nutshell, is what Dan Preston is advertising.

[PhreeZone 15]

It reacts the same as a lightly loaded Stiletto. I had a Cobalt 150 at about 1.2 for 200 jumps and also sometimes jumped a Stiletto 150 at the same loading. I've got jumps on 135's of both canopies also. They reacted the same (for each design) only a bit slower on the lighter loadings. I thought the Cobalt was a good canopy... but Dan and his advertising pissed me off to the point that I looked only at other manufactors to replace it (and found the opposite in Brian and his company).

Giving a new jumper a Cobalt should be treated the same as giving them a Stiletto or Crossfire. If you would not tell them to get one of those canopies a Cobalt should not be on the table either.

A Cobalt is not tapered quite as much so it should'nt be as twitchy as a similar Crossfire.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[cobaltdan 0]

phree: i honestly think your reaction is based on preconceived misconceptions.

i.e. the predecessor to the cobalt was the alpha (also called an impulse in europe). we manufactured them under private labeling for another company. the exact canopy was produced in 2 versions: one labeled alpha and the other labeled space. the difference: the alpha was marketed for use at high wingloadings to swoopers and the space at light wingloadings to beginers and intermediates. there was absolutely no difference in the design of the canopies beside the name. the same canopy that jim slaton was wining swoop competitions on befor x braced canopies , also had a flawless record across 6 years as a beginner and intermediate canopy. the canopy design has a wide loading range. the same people who balk at the suggestion to let a novice go near a cobalt at light wingloadings, have no problem with the space. the space and cobalt are the exact same planform, airfoil and even trim. (differences are in construction improvements).

i am very surprised that your assesment of a cobalt at 1.2 was as of that of a stilletto. All experiences from our instrumented test jumps, test pilots, customers and my own personal experience puts the canopy in the exact same class as a sabre 2 or safire. the cobalt from the way tension is spread on the topskin can load heavier than a sabre/safire with less distortion, thus it extends nicely into wingloadings suitable for high experience pilots. some people are predujiced aginst the possibility tha a single design canopy can be suitable for beginners to experts by varying the wingloading. the cobalt btw is a tapered canopy: it has 5 square center cells with a a slight linear taper of the 2 outer most cells, both nose and tail. (without getting into a discussion on terminology I refer to any canopy with more than 1 size rib as elliptical).

i would appreciate if the personal attacks are kept of line.

sincerely,

dan<><>

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

[johnny1488 1]

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some people are predujiced aginst the possibility tha a single design canopy can be suitable for beginners to experts by varying the wingloading.

I am prejudiced against the possibility that a beginner should have to load their "beginner" canopy at 1.2 in order to be safe.

Johnny
--"This ain't no book club, we're all gonna die!"
Mike Rome

[Jimbo 0]

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I am prejudiced against the possibility that a beginner should have to load their "beginner" canopy at 1.2 in order to be safe.

Where was it said that a Cobalt had to be loaded at 1.2 to be considered safe? I've been here long enough to read pretty much every one of Dan's posts, I don't recall him ever saying that.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[jmfreefly 0]

Throw my .02 cents in as before:

I demoed a few cobalts, in a few sizes. The canopy was a nice canopy, but there were others out there that I enjoyed flying more, so I never bought one.

However, the phrase 'flies bigger' annoys me. To an experienced canopy pilot, the phrase may have some reasonable connotation. But inexperienced jumpers don't really know what that could mean.

If I were to re-phrase that idea of 'flies bigger', my impressions were that the canopy had a strong flare, throughout the stroke, and a fairly quick recovery arc (compared to other canopies of the same size).

However, the word of caution that I give folks (who ask me about that phrase) is that a 135 will act exactly like a 135 in a dive -- not a 150.

What that means is that last minute toggle/riser input that you give it (to maybe avoid that jumper you didn't see, or to maneuver in a tight landing area) will show its true size. If you aren't ready for all the 'safe your butt' maneuvers on the smaller size canopy, you probably shouldn't be jumping any canopy of that size.

j