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Acoisa

Canopy Progression

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I jumped a silhouette 190 up to 200 jumps and have made my last 150 jumps on a pilot 168.. All these jumps have been in the last 18 months...
I like the pilot, it's nice to fly but I'm looking for a canopy with less front riser pressure because I'd like to use them more on canopy control excercises.. which is almost impossible on the pilot 170 due to the extremely high FR pressure..
I just got a very good deal on a stiletto 150 which my rigger/ instructor said would be okay for me to jump..

Are there any alternatives to the stiletto that I should consider?

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Just my personal opinion - If you're looking for a light front riser pressure, I dont think stiletto is what you want. I've made about 200 jumps on ST97 loaded lightly, and FR pressure builds up very quickly during a high performance turn and its recovery arc is very quick. I'm not saying that it's not a good canopy - it's great, very fun to fly and turns quick. Just maybe not the best choice for swooping for most common and modern flying techniques. Have you considered a slightly smaller Sabre2 or again a Pilot? (they might be harder to find a good deal on though, as stilettos seem to be dime a dozen nowadays)

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sabre2-150

what canopy control exercises??? and are you planning to do them more then once ;).

for swooping the sabre2 would be better choice to start swooping I guess because of the longer recovery arc then a stiletto.

had a pilot 168 myself..then switched to a sabre2...I never jumped a stiletto because I wanted a longer revocery arc after my pilot...


_______________________________________

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What are your long term goals? Not the next 100 jumps, but your overall dream for your canopy progression?

Although the Stiletto is a great canopy, I jumped one for quite a few jumps myself, it doesn't really fit into a modern canopy progression all that well. If you don't mind the short recovery arc (compared to other modern high performance canopies) and you enjoy very quick turns, then the Stiletto is a great canopy. Call up Kim and get a demo, or jump the one you have at the DZ. However, understand that it will seem like the greatest canopy ever made since you haven't jumped something in that performance class or size yet. So temper your opinion until you can demo some other canopies.

This opinion of mine is in terms of learning recovery arcs. If you're wanting to possibly end up on a Velo, then sticking with a PD line of products gives you a great progression. Going to a Sabre2 150 for a few hundred jumps then to a Katana 150 and downsizing from there then moving over to a Velo is a great progression. Those canopies step you up in performance and similarity quite well.

If you're more of an Icarus kind of guy, the Safire2, Crossfire2 to a VX works like a champ.

Call up Kim at PD and get a Sabre2 demo. Try it out and see if you like it. Then see what you can do about a Safire2 demo. You'll find the canopy that you like the best. Personally I'm a HUGE fan of PD and have been for quite some time; however, please don't take my word for it (seeing how it is skewed) try it out for yourself.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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When you call down to PD about a demo, ask for a young man by the name of Nick in the PD Tour department.

He's quite knowledgable about all the PD canopies and how they compare to others on the market.

He loves to talk canopy flight and will provide you with a wealth of information.

And when you do.......... tell him I said Hi.

Good luck.
Be the canopy pilot you want that other guy to be.

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When you call down to PD about a demo, ask for a young man by the name of Nick in the PD Tour department.

He's quite knowledgable about all the PD canopies and how they compare to others on the market.

He loves to talk canopy flight and will provide you with a wealth of information.

And when you do.......... tell him I said Hi.

Good luck.




There was a Nick that I went on a tracking dive with in Goshen Indiana a couple years ago. I don't have a picture of him or the video from that jump but I think this is/was his girlfriend. I think her name was Vicki, I do remember that she works at Parachutist, the USPA magazine. Do you know if it's possibly the same guy? I thought he said he worked with PD, he had one of those fancy jumpsuits (Go Fast if I remember correctly) They were on a family trip and happened to stop by on the way home.
"If it wasn't easy stupid people couldn't do it", Duane.

My momma said I could be anything I wanted when I grew up, so I became an a$$hole.

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If you're looking for an eliptical, you may consider trying out a cobalt 150. I had a cobalt 135 at one point after owning a stiletto and I felt like the cobalt outperformed the stiletto in every way. Extremely light riser pressure by comparison. Better dive. Faster turn rate. Really a joy to fly. The thing I didn't like about the cobalt were the openings. really searchy and unpredictable. No chops on it after 150 jumps or so though. Also I've had horrendous luck dealing with atair corp for anything I've ever needed. Their service sucks in my opinion. I wouldn't recommend buying new, but if you could get your hands on a demo or borrow a buddies you may like it.

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Mike, anybody that knows me knows that I'm no canopy nazi, just wanted to mention that flying a Stilleto at 1.5 with 350 jumps is a long, long way from conservative. Have fun, take it slow, stay healthy.
Sometimes you eat the bear..............

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I have a Cobalt 135 and with my WL about 1.4/1.5 it flies great. Love the landings less the openings. Soft and long but quite "searchy" as well. But flying and landing with front risers is a pleasure for me.

In terms of Atair's service, any person from Europe should go to the original factory in Slovenia where Atair is based. I was very well taken care off by Stane when I send my cobalt for reline.

Personally after some jumps on PD's Sabre 2 I'm not fan of it as the glide ratio was too steep, I prefer flat glide though, that's why I moved to Cobalt.

PS
I have a SA2 150 for sale and friend of mine is looking for a Pilot 168 ;-) if you want a trade off give me a buzz.

Janusz
Edit:
I do not try to convince you to go for elliptical or any smaller size canopy. Above is my opinion based on my experience.
Back to Poland... back home.

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PLEASE take your time learning on a sabre2 before even thinking of a katana of the same size. the katana has extremely high harness input and dives very deeply with a long recovery arc...if you don't take it easy for the first several dozen jumps on one you will find yourself in the hospital and then buying another sabre2 when you get back into the sport.
Blue Skies Filled with Birdies,
Jeremy R. Marston

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PLEASE take your time learning on a sabre2 before even thinking of a katana of the same size. the katana has extremely high harness input and dives very deeply with a long recovery arc...if you don't take it easy for the first several dozen jumps on one you will find yourself in the hospital and then buying another sabre2 when you get back into the sport.


Its really subjective how you feel the canopy you have.
Ask yourself did you really helped him with the advice you gave? FYI fear is the dark side.....

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perhaps you are misunderstanding what i have said. first, i do not own a katana (have only demoed one) and based on that experience i know exactly how the canopy flies. second, i only offered my opinion because he is progressing very quckly like i am and i dont want him to make the vewry common mistake of becoming over confident. finally, i don't encourage fear at all, i simply want to make it clear that the Katana WILL hurt you if you are not ready for it and the margin for error is much more slim than the sabre2 or similiar platform. aside from that, the only subjective "feeling" i have stated is the "several dozen jumps" which is merely meant to be a suggestion not a statement of fact.
Blue Skies Filled with Birdies,
Jeremy R. Marston

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i simply want to make it clear that the Katana WILL hurt you if you are not ready for it


Its not the arrow, its the indian...

Can you decide if he ready or not?

One friend of mine got serious injuries under a collapsing Katana. Does it mean anything for me, you or anyone else?
I don't think so.

Quote

aside from that, the only subjective "feeling" i have stated is the "several dozen jumps" which is merely meant to be a suggestion not a statement of fact.


You subjective feeling is based on the size, WL and the line trim and density altitude.
Can you replicate all of above? I'd like to see that.B|
Even if you could the pilot is different.

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Okay.. a bit more detail..

since jump 350 I did some jumps with demo canopies (about 5 each on the katana 150 and storm 150) I just used only toggles and RR on both. I found both glide angles to be very steep in comparison to the Pilot, Stiletto and Spectre, which I didn't like at all- I like flatly trimmed canopies more. I continued jumping my Pilot 168 until my Stiletto had a new line set. (up to jump 400 aprox.)

I then started to jump the stiletto 150.. I hated the openings but admit that I was also quite used to the pilots very soft and consistent openings. I jumped the stiletto for another 30 jumps or so. The openings were really hard each jump, so while jumping the stiletto I was already looking around for a new canopy..

Other than the openings I found the stiletto to have a nice glide angle, trimmed quite flatly.. I had almost no problems getting back to the dz after a long spot. The toggle control range is more in height your ears as opposed to the pilot and Crossfire where the toggle input rage is more at elbow height. I found the stiletto to be a bit more responsive than the pilot but I need to say that I was still just getting used to the stiletto and was not yanking it around a lot, I was flying it the way it felt like to fly the pilot.

The stilettos flare was nice. I felt I had a bit less- but enough flare at the end than with the bigger pilot. Shortly before buying the Crossfire2 I found out how to make the stiletto open softer.. but I already had commited myself to flying a different canopy. I decided to go for an Icarus canopy because it came highly recommended from other jumpers- with special emphasis on the openings. I always jump with a camera and often with a still as well so that was important to me.

I fell in love with the Crossfire right after the first opening.. The openings are long.. approx 1000ft+ with mine.. but also very, very smooth. Since changing to the Crossfire I always pull around 300ft higher than with other canopies.
I really like the Crossfire's responsiveness, trim, and flare characteristics.. Sometimes I am still surprised at how fast it is on a no wind day.. I feel very very comfortable with the canopy after 70 jumps (all in this year) and am now starting to use double front risers on landing and am practising 90° and 180° FR turns at altitude.. At altitude I have the feeling that it recovers from a dive quite quickly, which may be due to my wing loading being at the bottom range of icarus's recommendation. On a slow FR 180 with 2sec recovery I lose about 600ft..

I would always recommend to not do quick and hard toggle inputs when changing to a smaller elliptical canopy.. there is one video of a guy who did that with a sabre2 150 and got himself into a line twist at a low altitude resulting in a low cutaway and skyhook reserve deployment. This also happened to a good friend of mine a month ago under a 150 stiletto and at a low altitude leading to a very low cutaway.. Luckily nothing happened.

I would recommend to first try to imitate the flight characteristics of your larger and maybe less elliptical canopy with the new one rather than using the same toggle inputs you were used to on the larger canopy and appling them to the new canopy..

Last but not least all my landings since jump 120 have been stand up landings (or running) and I have always felt very comfortable under each canopy up to now.. I also always try to get away from my home DZ a lot and ask people about their gear and opinions on gear at other DZ's.. It's amazing how people's opinions on gear and procedures change once you're away from home..

Hope that's better :)
Blue Skies,

Mike

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