maretus

"A Spectre 97 flown at a fairly light loading by a female pilot kicked the boys rears at last years Pond Swooping nationals. She was able to out swoop Stilettos, Cobalts, Crossfires and crossbraced stuff loaded much higher." -------------------------------- Did she really ? That sounds like awesome piece of canopy flying. Do you happen to remember any results for her, example in distance ? http://www.ufufreefly.com

The Z1 alpha and Gath are both quite "light" and have not so good protection than Mindwarp or NvertigoX. Also if you plan to mount camera I'd look towards Mindwarp and NvertigoX because of tighter fit and more suitable structure. http://www.ufufreefly.com

Quick search through the net gave me only this one incident report where "He was jumping an AeroGlide Griffin 120.". So the canopy is propably manufactured by AeroGlide. Google gave me aeroglide Corp. and their homepage www.aeroglide.com, but they only sell driers not canopies. Weird... http://www.ufufreefly.com

I've stopped rotating my D-bag with my Stiletto 120 - wings combo. I initially started packing without rotating for bird-man jumps but now I pack that way for any kind of dive. In my abt. 15 "normal" (freefly) jumps with non-rotated D-bag I've experienced significantly less off-heading openings. Don't know if it's the packing or just me but its seems like that non-rotating is the way to go for me. http://www.ufufreefly.com

Or you might ask from finnish wingsuit instructor Vesa, he goes by the username vesatoro here at dz.com. He jumps a mirage and has done the mod. He uses the same rig for freeflying also and says it works great. http://www.ufufreefly.com

Yep, Spectres seem to generally get the job done. One of my friends jumped a spectre, 135, loaded at 1.4-1.5 and he loved it. He also got very nice swoops out of it so it really looked to perform very nicely indeed at those loadings. http://www.ufufreefly.com

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Hmm... Wierd. As Erno said, it's a different animal (than for example similarly sized Stiletto) and you have to get used to it. Only comment (considering major differencies between the two) I've heard from people who've jumped both has been the phenomenally lighter front riser pressure on Springos. http://www.ufufreefly.com

I haven't jumped one, but many jumpers at our DZ jump a Springo and they seem to be having no problems with the landings. What kind of "less than perfect" landings have they had ? http://www.ufufreefly.com

In Finland it's required that on your first five wingsuit flights you use non-elliptical canopy. I used Sabre on my first five and now i have started to use my stiletto (loaded 1.5). I have currently 3 flights with it and have had no problems. I'd figure that once you feel comfortable with the (odd) opening position, you are good to go with stiletto (or any other elliptical). (So little experience though, that i could be so badly wrong...) http://www.ufufreefly.com

Just out of curiosity, what kind of excperience limits there are to participate on a intermediate event ? How is it defined that who is allowed to compete ? Is it number of total jumps, jumps / last 12/6/3 months, jumps with HP canopy, any other limits ? Or is it just an issue of each skydivers individual evaluation of wheter he/her has the skills required to participate ?

Congrats on new canopy ! I jump regularly Stiletto 120 and I've jumped a friends Cobalt 95. My exit weight is about 180 pounds so I load those canopies quite similarly as you load yours. I found that Cobalt was very nice to fly and very easy to land. The Cobalt's turns were fast and sharp but it handled greatly and I had no problems what so ever with it. I took very conservative straight in approach with it and it still gave me nice surf in the end and the flare felt much more powerful than the Stiletto's. Overall, I liked the Cobalt very much and I think you'll like it too !

Way to go guys ! Good work on that. Maybe if I start to work on PD's manuals they'll ship me brand spanking new Vengeance... ;)

The amount of speed you are gaining (obviously) depends on how much you are risering it. Are you doing front riser turns or practising straight double fronts approaches ? Especially when pulling double fronts you should notice the extra speed you're gaining. And flow, say that you are doing those front risering experiments up high. Be patient with that hornet... See you at dz next weekend...

I have jumped every size of Crossfire from 149 to 99 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have you ? That's funny, since "As with all our canopies the Crossfire is available in any size you choose." (quote from http://www.icaruscanopies.com/canopies/Crossfire/). Ok, you propably meant "every standard size". ;)

The current recommended beginning skill level is 500 jumps or 200 jumps made in the last 12-months before strapping on a wingsuit. ---------------- The recommendation depends on where you live or is that 500 jumps / 200 in 12 months bird-man inc's recommendation ? In Finland (where I live) it's 250 jumps and you have to receive training from qualified instructor and jump your first jumps according to predifined training program. If you have over 500 jumps you can jump without the instructor but you still have to follow the training program.

"the fabric they make it from wears out after about 300-400 jumps" ------------------------------------------------- Don't know what you excatly mean by "wearing out", but in our club there is at least one Springo with well over 600 jumps and it works just fine. Springos are quite popular here in Finland and guys who jump them love them. They've said that it has extremely light front riser pressure.

Anywhere a picture about the new mindwarp with internal audible pocket(s) ? Bonehead's website http://www.boneheadcomposites.com/2002/standard.htm still shows midwarp with external pockets. Btw. That's the reason I went with Gecko...

Couple of friends of mine jump with Boeri snowboarding helmets. The use the Boeri Axis though, but i don't think that's much of a difference. They have bought two sizes too small helmets and then scraped off half of the styrox filling inside the helmet, cause it's really thick. When talking about audibles, they have had no problems in cutting place for the audible to the helmat liner.

Stiletto 120 loaded little under 1.5. 400+ jumps.

GrumpySmurf wrote : "The Stilletto is a very good canopy but always respect it." IMHO you should pay certain amount of respect to ANY canopy, not just Stiletto. Especially when talking about high performance, highly loaded, ellpiticals.

Finnish company, Suunto, makes high-quality "wristcomputers", designed for mountaineering etc. They are equipped with altimeters, barometers etc... A couple friends of mine have them at our dropzone and have also used them in skydiving. Don't think it's capable to work as a altimeter in freefall but it sure is a funny gadget to check in plane while climbing to altitude. Check them out: http://www.suunto.com/pls/demogw/suunto.pubmainpage.frameset?in_direction=SEARCH -> wristop computers

Apoil : You are jumping your first elliptical at 1.7 loading ? What canopies have you jumped before and at what loadings ? How much jumps do you have ? I mean that 1.7 PSF loading is considered to be expert wingloading and generally it is not considered to be a proper wingloading to a first elliptical. If you previously have few hundreds of jumps under, lets say Sabre loaded at 1.3, and you feel totally comfortable under 1.7 loaded elliptical, then Nitron must be one hell of a canopy! Have you jumped any other ellipticals (Stiletto...) at same loading ? I'd be very interested to hear how Nitron performs compared to them.

Have you tried out the "Wolmari pack" ? Its a packing method developed by a finnish master rigger and he says that while it gives much more control over your canopy than the ordinary pro pack, it greatly reduces the risk of a line over. http://www.parasale.com/wolmari/windex.html

Or why dont you check straight from PDF: http://www.parachutes-de-france.com/us/parachutes/info_contact.htm