monarch!!!

[traker 0]

What's up everyone....


Can anyone tell me anything about the old monarch canopies? Hard openings, horrible to fly....anything? I have just recently purchased a monarch 155 from Action Air Parachutes. Good lines and great condition. It was inspected before the purchase but I would just like to know what everyone else has to say about them!

Godspeed...

"we can either clmib down...or take the 15 second express shuttle" ---- during a snow storm on a 1000 foot antenna

[bodypilot1 0]

I'd have to say that most of the jumps I have put on one have been slammers.

Packed everyway I could think of to slow the openings down, then handed it back to my buddy and said, thanks I think I'll wait for my canopy to get finished being relined.

Dont look up or down on opening and you'll be fine.

Be safe.
Ed

www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

[riggerrob 643]

A couple of old-school jumpers still jump Monarchs at Pitt Meadows and still like them.
Monarch came out shortly after Sabre I and flies about the same.
As for the hard openings, either your lines were badly out of trim or you need packing lessons, because canopies fromt hat era were "intolerant of sloppy packing."

[thepollster 0]

Whilst I have never jumped a Monarch, I've known quite a few Monarch jumpers, and from what I've gathered, there is a difference between the earlier, and newer canopies. Apparently, the early ones opened hard, but flew brilliantly, and the later ones, opened better, but weren't as pleasant to fly.

[bodypilot1 0]

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A couple of old-school jumpers still jump Monarchs at Pitt Meadows and still like them.
Monarch came out shortly after Sabre I and flies about the same.

Yes, I was already skydiving when they came out.

Quote

As for the hard openings, either your lines were badly out of trim or you need packing lessons, because canopies from hat era were "intolerant of sloppy packing."

I can tell you I was at around 2000 jumps, all packed by me except for my 7 student jumps, my packing was very clean and done very meticulously, as the canopy I had being relined was a Sabre 1, and the Monarch was brand new, so if the lines were out of trim it came from the factory like that.


Be safe.
Ed

www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

[hookitt 1]

Which version of monarch? the original one with the wide open nose... looked like a ZP Falcon... sucked. That opened really hard The newer version opened fine. It had the nose like a sabre (more or less) and flew very similar.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Can anyone tell me anything about the old monarch canopies? Hard openings, horrible to fly....anything?

I owned a Monarch 155 and still have a 135 I use for wingsuit jumps. They're square, open fine, fly fine, and land fine just like they did 10 years ago.

Newer non-square designs open slowly, are more responsive to control input, and have lower stall speeds. Unless you need to be thrifty and are getting a good deal (say $300 with jumps left on the line set) you probably want one of those canopies instead.

I think my 135 got a different slider when it was relined. You might call Precision and inquire about various revisions.

[traker 0]

I guess I should have clarified the DOM. I believe the canopy might be from the late eighties ( has a nose like a sabre)

I had heard that they were notorious for hard openings. First off, I want to know if I should prepare for some slammers ( really nothing I can do about that). If this canopy does give hard openings, what can I do to slow it down ( big slider, pocket slider...)? Or is it all about the way you pack it?

It seems to me that some jumpers have had nothing bad to say about them and some despise them ( could be packing related though..) WHY???




Thanks!!

"we can either clmib down...or take the 15 second express shuttle" ---- during a snow storm on a 1000 foot antenna

[bodypilot1 0]

Quote

Which version of monarch? the original one with the wide open nose... looked like a ZP Falcon... sucked. That opened really hard The newer version opened fine. It had the nose like a sabre (more or less) and flew very similar.

Yes, the original one.....



Be safe.
Ed

www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

[traker 0]

Clarification?

"we can either clmib down...or take the 15 second express shuttle" ---- during a snow storm on a 1000 foot antenna

[bodypilot1 0]

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Clarification?

Read Tim's reaply about the original Monarch.
Yes, the one you have purchased, the original one with the wide open nose, looked like a ZP Falcon, that opened really hard all the time and really sucked.


Dont look up.
Ed

www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

[hookitt 1]

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Clarification?

I can... the orignal Monarch did not have the droopdown nose like the sabre. It was wide open like on a Falcon .. except it was made with ZP. It was like taking a super hard opening canopy and making it open even harder.

The orignal Monarch was not in production long. It simply opened really fast. The re-design was much nicer. That's what you have.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[traker 0]

Does anyone know when Precision stopped making the old version and came out w/ the new ones? Which year....if possible?

"we can either clmib down...or take the 15 second express shuttle" ---- during a snow storm on a 1000 foot antenna

[brettpobastad 0]

I've got a Monarch 135 that was built in 1991. It was a factory demo canopy when I got it in 1994 and I have put well over a thousand jumps on it. Since it was a demo, There's no way of knowing how many jumps were on it before I got it but it's safe to assume that there are over a couple thousand jumps total on the canopy. I finally had it religned about two years ago. It was my main canopy up until about a 8 months ago when I downsized to a Batwing 116. For reference purposes, I'm about 5'10" and weigh just over 200 lbs out the door. I have several thousand jumps on a lot of differant parachutes including rounds, triangles, 5 cells, 7 cells and most types of ZP and semi- elliptical parachutes out there today. The smallest, fastest canopy I have jumped is a Jedi 105. I am not a swooper in the Andy Farrington sense but I enjoy a good high performance landing and I understand the concept.

The Monarch series canopy is a non-elliptical, 9-cell all zero-porosity canopy with micro lines. I believe the smallest size they made was a 105 and the largest was over 200 square feet. The canopy roughly compares to the PD Sabre in design and in flight characteristics. I feel that it has slightly less forward speed in full flight and is a bit less responsive then the Sabre. I also feel that landing the Monarch is a bit more manageable and there is a bit more 'ommph' in the flare when it's time to shut it down.

(As a side note, my experiences over the years with Precision versus PD products tell me that PD canopies are a bit zippier then their Precision counterparts. The average jumper would probably never notice the difference.)

The Monarch, along with the Sabre and the Para-flite Robo series were among the first ZP high performance canopies made in the United States. I believe the only other of the type out there at that time (late 80's, early 90's) was the Blue Track series of canopies made in France.

I have no facts to back up this next statement but I believe that what the manufacturers did back then was to take an existing design and change the materials. Thus, a PD Sabre 150 is really just a PD-150 and a Preciscion Aerodynamics Monarch 155 is really just a Falcon 150, with zero-porosity material and micro-lines. I should also mention that I tend to favor Precision products. Just personal taste and no reflection on PD products of course.

So what do i think about the parachute? I think it's a great canopy! Back in the day Only ten or so years ago, it was considered among the hottest canopies out there and only experienced jumpers (I believe the call them 'canopy pilots' now) were considered able to reliably handle them. They are considered docile now and you can get 'em pretty cheap.

THE PROS: Solidly built, fun and easy to fly. predictable and easily manageble landings with a wider margine of error, comparativley. You can still move it through air pretty quickly and wow the crowd if you know what you are doing (as long as Andy isn't around, I guess)

THE CONS: They tend to open hard. Particularly as they age. When packing, roll the nose (but not too much). Make your line stoes neat, even and a bit on the longer side. Use mini rubberbands for everything but the locking stows (use regular size rubbers for those. DO NOT use tube stoes and DO NOT double stow. Stay away from small pilot chutes with long bridles and consider having your rigger add pockets to your slider. The other bad thing is that like anything else out there, the Monarch can kill you dead just like that ICKY-BOB 63 you saw last month on the cover of Parachutist. These days, jumpers with realitivley little experience with high performance canopies are starting out on Monarchs and Sabres. These are the same parachutes that puckered some butts of very experienced jumpers back a few years ago and now they are considered slow. They are not. They are high-performance canopies so be carefull.

Brett

"It's only arrogance if you can't back it up"

[traker 0]

O.k.......that was the kind of reply I needed to get. You the man Brett. If I ever meet you, the beer is on me. Thanks man!

Godspeed!

"we can either clmib down...or take the 15 second express shuttle" ---- during a snow storm on a 1000 foot antenna

[brettpobastad 0]

No worries, little brother! Have fun and be safe and the beer will be on ME!

"It's only arrogance if you can't back it up"

[skyblu3 0]

You want to jump a Monarch? Check this out:
http://www.angelfire.com/il/nickdancona/Monarch.html

[peckerhead 0]

The Monarch was a piece of shit Brett and you know it. You were just too cheap to buy a new canopy

I made about 5 jumps on one and it flew great but the openings were so damn hard It was not something I would ever consider buying. Back in the day when I was Ralphs test-jump dummy that was my least favorite canopy.

Hey what's up with the poopsheet? I can't get on without answering a bunch of personal questions.

What else do you need to know?

[brettpobastad 0]

Hey Scott.

...good to see you're still around and that you still don't know what your talking about.

See ya's in Madras this fall!

Brett

"It's only arrogance if you can't back it up"