yet ANOTHER sabre2 vs pilot

[MrBrant 0]

Hi guys,

spent a couple hours searching, didn't find exaclty the info I was looking for. wondering if you guys could help me out yet again.
(Specificly looking for people who have tried BOTH canopies)

Specific info i'm looking for:

Openings: From what I've read this is where the pilot shines. Both with soft openings, and on-headingness. However, i'm a little curious about the length of the openings. My last canopy (Triathlon 220) snivelled for 700-800 feet every time . That was a little long for me . I'm currently jumping a sabre 190 - last 10ish jumps (been demo-ing from a fellow jumper who's trying to sell it - but I dont' think i'm going to end up buying it for a varity of reasons). I've only seen the sabre snivel once, usually it's Throw-snatch-*BANG*. . So, what king of opening lenghs are common for these 2 canopies (Pilot/sabre2) - and yes, i know it will vary with packing technique, but a general idea would be nice.


Flight: Looking for info such as: Turn (rotation) speed, how does each canopy come out of a toggle turn (how much speed/dive is kept), riser (front and rear) turns (speed/responsivness), and pressure, Deep break performance/manoeverability, differences in flat turn abilities, um, floating (getting back from long spot). Any info or comparisons you can give me woudl be great.

*Landings:* How do the landing characteristics vary between these 2 canopies? I like to skim my landings as much as possible . I've mostly been doing just straight-in aproaches. I was starting to do some double-front stuff under my Triathlon before I downsized. (I went down mostly to get the 9-cell platform than anything else). But, I would like to use this next canopy (sabre 2, pilot) as my "intro to HP landing canopy". So, comparisons on riser performance woudl be great too

Um, some background info,

I'm looking at either the Sabre2 190, or Pilot 188.
Would be loaded 1.37-1.38 - depending on how long it's been since a big dump - so I'm looking for performace comparisons as close to this as possible.
Yes, I do know this w/l is quite aggressive.

I'd like to demo both, however, it's a little more difficult to get demo's in Canada.
There are 2 sabre2's on the DZ, but both of them are 170's. (but with an exit weight of about 260, that's a tad small for me to demo ). Nobody on the DZ has a pilot (Or has even flown one that I know of)
I have an opportunity to get an almost-new pilot at a great price, so it's very tempting.

I'm asking this here because, as I said, on my DZ has a pilot - and nobody seems to know that much about it. One guy was telling me that he thinks (just from how the canopy was marketed when it was released) that it's closer to the Silhouette or SabreI than the SabreII, however, going from what I've read on this froum, and other places, it competes more with the sabre2. Which is cloer to the truth?

Anyway, thanks very much in advance to any for taking their time to answer the questions above. I appreciate it!

[thepollster 0]

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I have an opportunity to get an almost-new pilot at a great price, so it's very tempting.

If it truly is a great price, I'd just buy it. Worst case, if you don't like it, you will be able to sell it for what you paid. Otherwise, trying to decide between the Sabre2/Pilot/Safire2 all come to personal preferences, but you would need to fly them to come to a conclusion.

[dharma1976 0]

Having jump both in the 150 size, I will say go for the Sabre2 over the Pilot.

On the Sabre2 the openings can be a little off heading, but I found the Pilot to be a lot less consistent than the Sabre 2 on its input controls.

Overall I like the flight characteristics of the Sabre 2 over the Pilot (and having watched my pilot do some very weird things in turns, decided to sell it very quickly)

I found the Flare on the Sabre2 to be much nicer then that of the pilot.

Packing the sabre2 was easier since it was not made from the South African ZP.

Front risers, I noticed that the pilot was a lot more inconsistent in front riser carving approaches than the Sabre2

Sabre2, have about 300 jumps on them on 150 and 170

About 50 on the Pilot

Cheers

Dave

http://www.skyjunky.com

CSpenceFLY - I can't believe the number of people willing to bet their life on someone else doing the right thing.

[MarkM 0]

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Packing the sabre2 was easier since it was not made from the South African ZP.

I think Aerodyne switched over to the same ZP material PD uses a little while ago. It lasts longer than the SA stuff.

To the orig poster, it competes with the Sabre 2. People pretty much love or hate either canopy for whatever reasons, so your best bet is to demo both and see which you prefer. PD has a great demo program, but I don't know if they'd give you a 190 given the WL and your jump numbers.

[aneblett 0]

PD does have a great Demo Program.. .If you are an American.

They won't ship over the American\Canadian Border for demo purposes.

Age

S.E.X. party #2

..It is far worse to live with fear, than to die confronting it.

[Widgeon 0]

Do not decide without trying out a Safire2. It came out after the Sabre2 but before the Pilot so the technology is top notch. All Safire2s are made in Spain these days so there isn't the 'quality control' issues that plagued the safire1 in the past that were US made under license by Precision Aerodynamics. Icarus brings alot to the table with this offering.

[DancingFlame 0]

Quote

Would be loaded 1.37-1.38 - depending on how long it's been since a big dump - so I'm looking for performace comparisons as close to this as possible.
Yes, I do know this w/l is quite aggressive

Yes, it is very agressive at 100-150 jumps, be prepared to be grounded at some DZs.

I would also recommend demoing Safire2 and Fusion. At ~1.3 they all fly the same. From my experience Pilot had more oversteer than Sabre2. But it also had better openings.

[MrBrant 0]

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.
It's been helpful so far.
dharma: When you say that it was doing weird things in a turn, could you elaborate? (what was it doing? toggle or riser turns? etc ? )

As I said, I would love to demo all canopies listed above (sabre2, pilot, safire, fusion, lotus, etc), however my budget won't be able to handle a boogie road-trip any time soon (especially along with a new canopy)..


But, I"m still looking for a bit more info from people who have flown both, specifically on what's listed above, or any thing else that I may have missed, or that you believe pertinent.


Thanks again!

[dharma1976 0]

well I found that it had bad slow flight transition to front riser consistancy...I foudn the Sabre 2 a lot easier to fly on front risers (less pressure, better speed build, nicer carves when steering with the fronts)

and seriously on the flare, sabre2 much nicer.

Cheers

Dave

http://www.skyjunky.com

CSpenceFLY - I can't believe the number of people willing to bet their life on someone else doing the right thing.

[MuffDiver 0]

I can't comment about the other canopies, but I did buy a Sabre2 170 loaded just a tiny bit higher than you at around the same amount of jumps you have. I also live in Canada so I couldn't demo, I ordered a Sabre2 based largely on the fact that I knew it would be an easy sell down the road when I want to get rid of it.

anyhow here is my input.
Openings - generally soft and on heading, usually requires a little input to get the end cells to inflate.
Flight- I'm not informed about the other canopies enough to provide any input here, but I do like the way my Sabre2 flies, I son't really have any complaints.
Landings-Seem to be able to carry quite a bit of speed (compared to my old canopy) but still easy to shut it down.

__________________________________________________
Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out alive.

[jeiber 0]

The canopies are very similar, but which is 'better' depends on what you're looking for.

I owned a Sabre2 190 (1.4) for ~300 jumps, and put a couple jumps on a demo Pilot 170 (1.6) not too long ago. The two significant differences I noticed are the openings and performance. One typically comes at the cost of another, and this is no exception.

The Pilot 170 opened smoothly and on heading, whereas the Sabre2 190 tends to open off heading and/or in a dive.

The Sabre2 190 was a little more responsive on toggles compared to the Pilot 170. I didn't try riser turns on the Pilot, so I can't compare those.

I thought the Pilot 170 landed great. As good as my Sabre2 190.

One last comment about the Sabre2 - it's marketed as an 'all around' canopy, but under higher wing loadings (like you're into), it's performance increases dramatically. I don't know your skill level, so let me just say that if you haven't already gone to a canopy course, I would strongly recommend you do so. Swooping a Sabre2 loaded at 1.4 made me a record holder - the hospital record for number of x-rays in one sitting....

Good luck, have fun, and be careful!!
Jeff

Shhh... you hear that sound? That's the sound of nobody caring!

[LittleOne 0]

I flew a SA2 170 (0.95) for 150 jumps and just purchased a Pilot 150 (1.08) after demoing it. I wanted to demo the SA2 150 but they are not available due to popular demand. I am a conservative pilot with no high performance goals.

I find the openings on the Pilot to be more consistent than the SA2 in terms of both speed and being on heading. The opening on the Pilot takes a second or two longer than the middle range of the SA2 but was about the same length on every jump regardless of who packed it. On the SA2, the opening speed ranged from Hello up there, please open to BLAMMO. Off heading openings were quite common on the SA2 but non existent on the Pilot.

My landings on the Pilot were excellent. Landings on the SA2 were inconsistent but that could be attributed to a combination of inexperience, improper brake line length and improper riser length.

I was informed by the Aerodyne rep that the Pilot is trimmed flatter than the SA2. This works well for me since there is less ground rush. Also, the Pilot is generally considered more docile than the SA2 (according to the rep) even though they market to the same class. Hope that helps.

[Pendragon 1]

I'd agree with all that you said on the Pilot. I put ~330 jumps on mine at WL 1.35 (Pilot 150) before downsizing to a Safire2 129.

Certainly, the openings are great. Doesn't flutter around and is very reliable in terms of alititude loss and heading. I also found it very stable in line twists - never dived at the ground, which was perfect for my first few wingsuit flights!

You'll find that the Pilot dives the least of the Pilot/Safire2/Sabre2 bunch, although from experience the Safire2 is fairly similar. From conversations with people (and with my own, albeit so far limited, experience with the Safire2) the Pilot is certainly the most docile. Again, the Safire2 compares well (on-heading openings etc) to the Pilot.

Front riser pressure is heavy - I was in the habit of depressurising my 150 before making a 135 degree approach; certainly I don't think I would have had the strength to commit to anything over 180. However, advanced swooping is not what this canopy is for.

To be honest, for a lot of recreational jumpers, a Pilot would be the only canopy one would ever need.

Richard

--
BASE #1182
Muff #3573
PFI #52; UK WSI #13

[jacco 0]

I have put 150 jumps on a sabre2 170 and the same amount on a pilot 168 both loaded @ 1.3

Openings: The Sabre would hunt and generally open offheading even if I packed it using an iron and really focused on body position during openings. Most of the times it would open within 600 – 700 ft. I had one slammer and 2 openings that were 1000+ ft, those long openings were due to packing.
The pilot opens very consistently, snatch, snivel, open in about 600 ft and on heading every time. It didn’t matter how I packed it, nice concentrated packjobs or “You got 5 minutes to get on the sunset load” packjobs. The biggest surprise would be a 30 degree offheading once in 50 openings.

Flight: The Sabre flies at a steeper angle than the Pilot does. The pilot has a flatter trim and will get you back from a long spot easier. The turns on a Pilot a more docile and will level quickly once you let up.

Landings: In a straight in landings the Pilot was easier to get to a complete stop than the Sabre. This could be a result of my skills under canopy but somehow my arms didn’t seem long enough to get everything out of the Sabre. With frontriser approaches the Sabre builds up more speed and loses more altitude than the Pilot. At that time my swoops were crappy to say the least, but I’m sure by now I’d get better and longer swoops on the Sabre.

This was not your question but I also jumped a Safire 2 and liked it better than the Sabre2 and the Pilot.

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I'm looking at either the Sabre2 190, or Pilot 188.
Would be loaded 1.37-1.38 ....... Yes, I do know this w/l is quite aggressive.

Somehow this is an invitation to not say anything about your wingload, but I can’t resist. For somebody who has made 50 jumps per year, my opinion is that you are choosing at least one size too small. If you were to choose a 210 your WL would still be at 1.24.

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I have an opportunity to get an almost-new pilot at a great price, so it's very tempting.

Like everything in this post, it’s just my opinion, so here’s another one: don’t choose a canopy solely because it is cheap. Choose the canopy that will get you back on the ground safely in all circumstances, once you know which one, then get a good deal.