lyosha

What do you find works best? (also link please if possible :) )

Does anyone know of an alternative that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? Seems like a cool concept, but not $200 cool...

They're trying to make money off of it. I'm afraid that if they're trying to make money off of it, they would be unwilling to cooperate. :-/

I think an AAD is biting off a bit much for a first effort. Anyone up for trying to make an open source altimeter? I would be very interested in joining forces with someone who has some experience with hardware design, as that is what I lack experience with.

Probably none. They just want you to buy another cypres and are giving you some incentive to do so.

Yeah sure. Especially if you let me fuck with the code for it and make my own firmware :D

For what it's worth - if ordering a new container get an F111 pilot chute. A lot of the "stability" of the snatch is due to the fact that it is a vented pilot chute. A little while ago I spoke to a UPT rep at a boogie who was jumping some crotch rocket swoop machine about his PC. I don't remember the exact size, but it was HUGE and F111. He said in PD's testing F111 PCs performed substantially better than ZP ones - much less oscillation.

I suck too much to be sponsored by anyone. But I do read just about everything I can find starting with manuals and ending in incident reports. And there is a very definite pattern - one manufacturer is substantially more transparent than the other. Vigils and Cypreses have fired on the ground, and in the air when they are not supposed to. One company takes the time to in detail explain why whatever happened happened, the other says "unit fired as designed". Cypres's "our cutters have never failed to activate when firing parameters were met" marketing gimmick to me seems disingenuous. Well duh every time the thing fires the firing parameters were met - it just didn't fire when the jumper expected it to - what are the firing parameters? Noone outside of cypres knows. Unless you worked on a super secret government bid with Cypres and signed an NDA that prevents you from ever commenting publicly on the matter, apparently. I also don't skydive out of pressurized aircraft. I don't know any companies that offer this service so it doesn't appear to be in my immediate future. If you skydive out of pressurized aircraft, you know better than me what your safety requirements are.

Not just newer jumpers. I can't say I have ever seen anyone inspect the risers on a canopy they were demoing... ever. I would like to think that my rigger inspected my risers when he assembled my first set of gear, but odds are he probably didn't either. I have had a canopy go through inspection by two master riggers and both of them missed a patch on its tail in their inspection. It's easy to point the finger at the end user because as skydivers that is what we are trained to do, but there should have been multiple much more informed parties upstream who should have caught this mistake. Glad everything worked out.

By adverse conditions I am referring to specifically mechanical turbulence.

Still dancing I see. I don't know why it is so difficult to say, I did 250 jumps on my Safire II, before putting the next 300 on my Sabre II. I had x number of bad landings under my Safire II that I attribute to it being a less suitable design (less suitable for you) than the Sabre II. It is easy to share with the group, and it helps add weight to your commentary. Your DZ sounds very similar to mine in regards to conditions. I haven't seen a rash of landing injuries due to turbulence and not flying Sabre II's. What DZ that you jump at, which has a big pool of broken jumpers that you can poll for input? I put around 150 jumps on my sabre2, a handful on the safire2 before selling it and somewhere well north of 100 on a sabre1 including a brief period in which I compared the three head to head. I don't know the exact numbers because I don't keep a detailed logbook. I have had zero hard landings attributable to any canopy. I have had the weather conditions change on me to unfavorable too many times to count, and have had to face adverse conditions on all three canopies. I found one of them easier to handle adverse conditions with. All three canopies were in reasonably good shape, brakes were in proper trim, etc. If your experiences are different, I would encourage you to share without making it personal. Thanks.

For all intents and purposes Vigil gave away the pseudocode to their non-speed unit at the latest PIA... after every fire they go through the output from the jump, demonstrate the inputs that led to the firing. Cypres publically says "unit activated cutter at firing parameters". And that's it. Whatever that means.

Two more things that'll paint some more color: Cypres's explanation for Jeff Nebelkopf's cypres fire (or lack thereof) and their promotional literature during their "our units are too smart to fire during a swoop" days (back before they caved and made the speed cypres). Glue that all together and you will find my opinion has a solid foundation.

As I am at work my participation is limited to things I can type in 30 seconds, and I don't have time to do your research for you. But this is the url for google: www.google.com A good place to start would be "Vigil manual" and "Cypres manual". Then you can proceed to Vigil's recent PIA talk.

Conditions change. In my experience a Sabre2 is more forgiving. That is all. For most jumpers it doesn't matter because few DZs are narrow fields surrounded by trees. It is important to speak to experienced jumpers at your DZ for local advice.

That sounds like a lot of politics I'm not buying into the hype. I like that it is possible to download and review the data. That is very instructional in keeping me safer.

Yes, hypothetically speaking the blame is on the skydiver for fucking up. But we live in the real world and a bunch of my friends have injuries from crappy landings from getting unlucky with winds that got worse, and with a Sabre2 your safety margin is greater. In my opinion.

What did I miss?

My Sabre2 had 50% more flare power than my Safire2. Namely, I could land my Sabre2 safely three times before I ran out of flare. I only have two safe landings in my Safire2. My Safire2 flies most like my Sabre1. Their both skydive canopies if you can't land them you suck, not directed at you just everybody This matters a LOT if your dz is prone to gusty conditions or mechanical turbulence. It becomes the difference between stabbing out a landing and a lumbar fracture.

Educate me. Why does having 10 year old software matter? Does something happen to software over time? This is mainly relevant for AAD firmware in the advent new features are added to the firmware. This happened only once in the ~20 year history of AADs though. Cypres added altitude offset (raise/lower fire altitude) to its units recently, and have been updating them whenever they get sent in for their four year inspection. But that's been the only change to the firmware on any AAD that I know of since inception. Philosophically, I would not want an AAD that would *need* its firmware updated every four years. That is a sign of very very shitty software design and implementation, and fuck that I'm not trusting my life to that.

Incorrect on both. Age has virtually no bearing on cost of a canopy so long as the design is still modern. You have a Pilot, a canopy with worse-than-average resale value. In my personal opinion I'd say yours is worth 1400-1500, his is worth 1700. So you're getting a killer deal. Until the Pilot2 gets announced... that's when your canopy will halve in value overnight.

My Sabre2 had 50% more flare power than my Safire2. Namely, I could land my Sabre2 safely three times before I ran out of flare. I only have two safe landings in my Safire2. My Safire2 flies most like my Sabre1.

just had my cypres maintained, cost me CHF 220.-, that is roughly EUR 200.-, shipping included. you're being ripped off by jack the rigger. as to the OP: the cypres may cost more, but i'm pretty certain it will ALWAYS fire when it has to and wont when it's outside the parameters, e.g. slamming the trunk closed in your car while still turned on. with EVERY other AAD, i would not be so certain. The problem with the Cypres is that noone outside of cypres knows those "parameters". Cypreses have fired both too early and too late, with absolutely no explanation from Airtec aside from "it fired when it was supposed to". People have died. Vigil, on the other hand, in detail explains how their device works, what factors affect when it will fire and allows you to download the data yourself. Complete transparency. Go with Vigil in my opinion. Transparency matters. More than you would think.

Just want to say that Peregrine actually supports the Dolphin very well. They no longer make them exactly, but they do make the renamed Triton. Which is nearly the same thing slightly updated and filling the same market niche, (basic, inexpensive, few options) as the Dolphin did. Mike Furry's creation lives on and is still supported. Although there may be other good reasons to retire the older ones. They seem to be hit or miss. Very hit or miss. But their new Glide container is very sexy! Although they're still trying to work the kinks out of it as well.

255 lbs for half the sizes. Lower than 300 lbs for Optimum, but hardly "low".