NV1

The XFire and Crossfire 3 differ in many points. Shape, construction and performance are different. I can only reply on the XFire - not on the Crossfire 3 I fly a XFire 88 (custom size) @ 2.1 WL. The Openings are great - on heading and soft - but slightly quicker than the crossfires. The performance is very close to a crossbraced canopy. The dive is slightly less then the JVX that i jumped before but the XFire is alot more sensitive on every control. Wether it is frontriser, harness or just the Toggles. What i love about the XFire is that you have a very light frontriser. You can adjust it while flying your turn without any big effort. It is fast - a really fun canopy.[:)

You are directly in the middle of the sizing. Both sizes would work. The OP 126 fits in the MX & MX- 1/2 both the same way. There is only a difference in the main container. Your VE90 could be a tight fit in the MX-1/2 but the 79 would fit nicely.

The reserve has to open within 100m wether you are at high or low speed. I personally like to pack the Optimum - and it deploys fast when you open the nose properly. But the fabric is weaker than normal F111. I had a few canopies with slight fabric tears in the center cell - so you should be careful with pulling on the fabric during packing.

I have jumped the VOLT 135 and the VOLT 120.. both with great openings. It has a long snivel phase and it can take about 300 meters until it´s fully open. Sometimes you have closed endcells but they open quickly when you give a slight pump on the rears. Compared to a Sabre 2 it has a lightly flatter glide and the togglepressure is olmost the same if not lighter on the Volt. Flarepower is great on the Volt.

If it´s flatter and slower than the Velo, would you say it´s a good choice for a first xbraced wing?

Has anybody experience on the Sensei by Aerodyne? How is it in comparision to a Velo?

What makes the difference if you build a canopy with bias or block construction? Are there any benefits?

just like riggerrob wrote... the more stiffeners the worse is your extraction time. Kickerflaps are a big issue in my opinion. Mostly when you have a Container that has 6 flaps (or more). The Container designers make the stiffeners too wide, so that the plastic gets in contact with the side flaps when your freebag gets lifted out of the pack-tray.

I know very few rounds that are reinforced with kevlar tapes. Most emergency rounds have type 3 or type 4 tapes as radial reinforcements. Kevlar is great when you want a canopy that is super strong and has to withstand high deployment speeds. Martin Baker uses Kevlar tapes on their ejection seat rounds... Aramida helps to decrease the chance of inversions while deployment. Pioneer had a big problem while testing the K-xx Reserve (a 20 ft. in diameter ). It blew up as they used "normal" tapes as reinforcement, but solved the problem while using Kevlar instead of Nylon tapes. The only downside of Kevlar is, that it´s impermanent against UV light. So when you leave it in the sun it will loose it´s strenth. It´s also quite expensive and not very easy in production. Cheers NV1

The Volt is a great canopy, perfect for somebody who likes hassle free deployments and flight. It´s very stable in high wind conditions and has a lot of range either on toggle or front-rear riser. It can be zippy when you want it but nice and docile when you need it. The qualitiy is just great.. comparable to a PD canopy. You won´t be diappointed with this wing!

hi everybody, iv´e followed this thread for quite some time and i agree with some statements that you guy´s post here.... But in the event of an AAD fire and failure of an in time reserve opening, the "problem factor" AAD is very small in comparision to many other factors that come into account when everything is getting worse. In my opinion the biggest "problem factor" is the design and size of your rig. Many of the actual containers that are used are very tight, tiny and much too often not very well designed. (I´m speaking about the reserve tray now) I bet that every reserve container / rig design works fine until you have a almost functioning main over your head, but still have to cut away and then pull your reserve. But when you have a total malfunction there are not many rigs out there that work nice, smooth and without any delay. Things that cause a delay are: . very tight riser covers . reserve flaps that hinder each other . too large sidewall design that reach far over your reserve container and leave very little room for your pilotchute to launch (especially if your PC has a large "head") . reserve pilotchute design Those are just my 2 cent´s Cheers

Thanks for your answer..

While packing Optimum and Speed reserves i recognized that the material feels way thinner and more fragile than compared to the standard F111 that the manufacturers use... What is the secret behind these materials and do they behave like F111 in permeabillity and sink rate - compared to F111? I hope you can understand what i want to ask here Cheers NV1

The Vortex 2 V4 is basically made for canopies around 150 sqft. We sold quite a few of those Containers in the past.. and i would say that any main canopy that is bigger than 150 sqft. doesn´t fit. (Standard ZP) The reserve is also quite big for this container size. We already put a PDR 143 into this size.. which fitted nice.. but i think PD says that their Optimum packs about one size smaller - compared to the standard PDR. Until now we never put an Optimum into a Vortex.. but i think a OP 160 would be fine. ..sorry for my bad english.. hope i could help