I'll try my best to give you my honest opinion of your Batwing 116. First of all, you should know that I've been jumping my Batwing 134 for 7 years. I also have a Batwing 116. Needless to say, my opinion is a little biased because I love these canopies. My exit weight is 200 pounds, so I'm loading my canopies 1.66 and 1.84. Please pardon me for writing this review in leyman's terms. I found that the front riser dive speed was very similar to the st as you did. I feel that when executed properly, the batwing can give you a much smoother dive transition with less counter input than a similarly loaded st. Even in full flight the ST's seem to be squirrelly. My batwings are solid, fast, and have lots of low end lift. My only trick is that I do set up for a 180 front riser hook, but as I am quickly approaching I slowly and smoothly let the riser come back up. At that point, I level out using either toggles or rear risers. I guess my point is, don't pull your riser down to make your turn and just let it go. Ease the riser out of the turn. As far as everything else goes, the Batwings and the St's are great canopies that have withstood the test of time. The Batwing just got a bad name early on... That's a shame, because they can be as tame or as aggressive as your skills will allow yourself to fly. My email address is
[email protected] if you have any more questions.
