Sabre 2 vs Pilot

[snowdude1 0]

hello,
I am in the market for a sabre 2 or pilot 170...what are the main differences and the pros/cons of each? Also what other canopies would you consider?
Thanks
Marc

[billvon 3,063]

They are quite similar. (Safire 2 is similar as well; check that out.) I prefer the openings of the Pilot, but your mileage may vary. I'd recommend you try both and see which one you like better. Also, if you can demo the one you intend to buy, that's ideal - two canopies of the same size and same model can show slight differences in opening speeds, glide, flare etc. In addition, a canopy with 400 jumps on it will often fly quite differently than a new canopy (due to line wear/shrinkage) so a ragged-out demo may not be representative of a brand new canopy.

FYI, the sizings are Sabre 2 170, Pilot 168 and Safire 2 169. They're all basically the same size.

[darkwing 5]

In my area people much prefer the Pilot. We had some Sabre2's and I demoed one from the factory. The pilot opens better (although there are apparently some Sabre2's that open nicely). Sabre2 may fly a LITTLE better, but its a Pilot for me.

PS - Don't waste anyone's time telling me my opening problems with the Sabre2 were due to body position.

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

[Pendragon 1]

A Sabre2 at that wingloading would be too aggressive for you; a Pilot is more docile... besides, if you're buying new, it's probably cheaper.

I put c. 350 jumps on my Pilot 150 before selling it (they hold their value reasonably well too). They open without issue, albeit a little snively for some, and have a reasonable flare.

Most of the talk you'll hear won't be much relevance as you don't have enough experience (yet!) to either realise or care.

--
BASE #1182
Muff #3573
PFI #52; UK WSI #13

[kaerodyne 0]

Marc

There are many great canopies on the market today and they are made by the best in the industry, and like cars the price vs value will be a part of your choice, along with how you find the canopy when you demo it from the manufacturer.

The Pilot is a great canopy and an excellent all round every day jumping canopy, it has a great following from those new to the sport, looking for their first reliable, fun to fly canopy, and then those jumpers who work and jump hard in the sport and want a fun to fly reliable canopy at a higher wingloading, without the added complexities of elliptical or cross braced.

Some of the benefits that come with flying a Pilot are
- Great soft on-heading openings
- Color coded line attachments for easier PRO packing
- Easy to control in all flight modes.
- Designed by pilots for pilots.
- Moderate “planform factor” provides excellent turn response.
- Responsive flair

We have a great demo program running and your more than welcome to get in touch and have us send a Pilot out to you to try for a few weekends.

Karl Meyer
Sales Representative
Aerodyne Research
Office: 1 813 891 6300
Mobile: 1 813 841 2149
karl@flyaerodyne.com
www.flyaerodyne.com

[DougH 270]

If the sabre II is to snappy for him at 1.3 wl, why would the Pilot be any different?

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[phoenixlpr 0]

Quote

If the sabre II is to snappy for him at 1.3 wl, why would the Pilot be any different?

It has a short(er than Sabre2) recovery arc. E.g. I had a not planned 90 turn around 2 smaller trees. The top of the trees were level of my canopy. I had a soft landing after all.

Pictures are here.

I have started to fly my on WL 1.2-1.3.

It is an amazing canopy!

[Kolla 0]

Hey Snowdude!

The Sabre2 and the Pilot are quite different canopies, so if you are looking to compare "apples to apples", I would suggest looking at the Silhouette vs the Pilot, those two are much more related in the way they fly. The Sabre2 is a bit more aggressive in it's handling.

I noticed that you list Cross Keys as your home DZ, will you be coming down for the Invasion over Christmas? If so, I would definitely recommend that you stop by the PD tent and chat with the PD reps and demo a few canopies.

If it isn't too cold (remember us Floridians don't like cold) we'd love to go do a high hop & pop and do some canopy flying instead of just talking about it on a forum

Best of luck finding the canopy right for you!
Blue ones,
Kolla

Blue Skies Magazine

[isaiah85 0]

Exactly! Comparing the Sabre2 and the Pilot isn't fair to either one of them. They both have extremely different characteristics. The Silhouette is the canopy that should be compared to the Pilot. The Sabre2 is just a more aggressive style canopy.

If you’re looking to compare a canopy with the Sabre2 the Safire is in that range.

Best thing to do is try different canopies and see what works best for you, not what works best for someone else.

Isaiah

[billvon 3,063]

>They both have extremely different characteristics.

I would disagree. I think the are more similar than, say, a Pilot vs a Crossfire, or a Pilot vs a Nitro, or a Pilot vs a Spectre. The three canopies - Pilot, Safire 2, and Sabre 2 - are often referred to as interchangeable. Which they're not, but they are similar.

Generally I find openings on the Pilot softer, but its recovery arc is pretty short. The arc on the Sabre 2 is longer. Early Sabre 2's had built-in turns on opening (I jumped a S2 120 for a while that always dove to the right) but that's since been fixed.

I agree that the Silhouette is a good canopy as well; I have several hundred jumps on one as a wingsuit canopy. I would consider it more docile than the Sabre 2/Pilot/Safire 2 canopies, but it's a great intermediate canopy. Nice openings, decent landings and much easier to pack than a new all-ZP canopy.

As you mentioned, the key is to try each canopy and decide for yourself.

[snowdude1 0]

Thanks everyone for the advise....the reason that i am considering those two is beacuse i have jumped both. What i really like about the Pilot is the soft openings...but the Sabre2 seems to have a better glide and landing....i will have to look into jumping some other canopies as it does make sense to try a few and see which feels the best. Thanks again and any more advise would be greatly appreciated...
Marc

[squarecanopy 0]

Hey Marc,
You have already gotten the best advice- Demo the canopies you are considering-winter is a great time to do that as the demand for the available demo canopies is lower. I personally have settled on the Sabre 2 because I like the way it flies and I have gotten help to get it to open nice. I have a pocket slider on my new 210 ( used but new to me) and it came from the previous owner like that-really eases the opening. Also, the packing trick to soft Sabre 2 openings is to roll the nose on the outside three cells on each side inward about one roll, but leave the center three cells completely exposed, and make sure the nose side of the slider in particular is well exposed before you fold up. This will make for good openings as well if you decide on a Sabre 2. Good Luck, Blue Skies,Safe Landings!

Just burning a hole in the sky.....

[EAerodyne 0]

Comparing apples to apples would mean comparing the canopy in all aspects.....

The Pilot has both a zero porosity top skin and bottom skin, the Silhouette has a zero porosity top skin and a F1-111 bottom skin. F1-11 typically has a shorter life span than Zero Porosity.

Having jumped both I would have to say that they have distinctly different characteristics. The Silhouette doesn't come in the same range of sizes either, this due to the higher stall points that start manifesting themselves on higher wingloaded silhouettes. Whilst the Pilot is sold in as small as a 104. The Pilot also offers you a wider variety of sizes to choose from than the Silhouette. Meaning you can choose a canopy more suited to your ideal wingloading.

Despite the above facts the Pilot is built out of more expensive materials (Zero Porosity is almost double the price of F1-11) The pilot is both cheaper to the customer and the distributor than the silhouette. ='s more skydiving


Bill Von, is probably one of the the most respected people on DZ.com when it comes to his knowledge of different canopy models, and he has usually jumped them before passing comment. His opinions are worth taking note of.

However I would still suggest you demo both canopies and make your own mind up. No matter your experience, you'll definitely benefit from jumping them both and working out which one you feel most comfortable with.

Please feel free to contact our offices should you wish us to send you a demo canopy and I am sure they'd be pleased to take care of you.

Kind regards and blue skies

[Fab 0]

I have jumped both. I found that the pilot has a better glide then the sabre2...sabre2 has a bit more power during landing.

Quote

Thanks everyone for the advise....the reason that i am considering those two is beacuse i have jumped both. What i really like about the Pilot is the soft openings...but the Sabre2 seems to have a better glide and landing....i will have to look into jumping some other canopies as it does make sense to try a few and see which feels the best. Thanks again and any more advise would be greatly appreciated...
Marc

_______________________________________

[peckerhead 0]

Quote

The Silhouette is the canopy that should be compared to the Pilot. The Sabre2 is just a more aggressive style canopy.

I totally disagree with that. The Silhouette is half f-111 and the Pilot is all Z-P. I used to own a Silhouette and it lost it's flare after just a few hundred jumps. They are easy to pack but I would never buy another one.

Having jumped both the Pilot and Sabre 2 I thought they were very similar but I prefered the openings with the Pilot. I would hardly consider them to have "extremely different characteristics"

I think it is fair to compare the Pilot to a Hornet because they are identical
Too bad they don't make the Hornet anymore, the fabric was way better than that new slick crap.

[tdog 0]

Quote

Having jumped both the Pilot and Sabre 2 I thought they were very similar but I prefered the openings with the Pilot. I would hardly consider them to have "extremely different characteristics"

I agree after jumping both... They are in the same class, from my perspective.

[DougH 270]

Quote

Too bad they don't make the Hornet anymore, the fabric was way better than that new slick crap.

You're not the only one that feels that way!!! My first jumps were on a hornet, and I would buy one in a heart beat if some one had a new one in a back room somewhere.

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[phoenixlpr 0]

Quote

Too bad they don't make the Hornet anymore, the fabric was way better than that new slick crap.

HiPer Nitro and Altair Cobalt are made from that glevenor fabric.

I love my Cobalt. Diamonds are forever!
I hope my Pilot wouldn't be jealous.

[tbrown 26]

You're not the only one that feels that way!!! My first jumps were on a hornet, and I would buy one in a heart beat if some one had a new one in a back room somewhere.

[darrenspooner 0]

I'm no authority to comment on this, but I did 50 jumps on a sabre2 150, and ended getting rid of it. Did quite a few demos then on pilot 150 and safire 2, and chose the safire 2. Main reason - my s2 openings were horrendous, all over the place, hard diving openings. There was nothing wrong with the canopy, it was all my inexperience. I even had PD check it out. They were great, the canopy was fine. But on opening it just wasn't forgiving of bad body position. In fact, it seemed extemely sensitive to body position, where the other canoies weren't. Ended up with a mal and it freaked me.

Pilot was nice, very quick turns, similar flight characteristics, great openings. But the safire 2 just seemed better for me. Slightly less zippy but rock solid from pulling the pud to picking it up off the ground once I landed.

[justchrisdsp 0]

i've had 2 pilots (188 and 140) and 2 sabres (210 and 170), all different sizes, i have to say that i liked the pilot better, but it kinda depends on where you are wanting to take your canopy flight. the reason i like the pilot is because it works really well at both extremes of flight, fast and slow, i used my 188 for filming CRW and at the same time learned how to swoop under that canopy, the short recovery arc was exactly what i needed to fine tune my skills with a canopy that would help me out in the corner a bit if i did something stupid. the openings on my pilots were way better than my sabre2s and way more on heading.
i think that the pilot is a great canopy for novice jumpers and what i really love about them is that you can load them up a bit and really get some speed out of them. but even at 1.9 under my 140 i found that i had the ability to stay up forever in brakes or on the rears if i needed too, i was still able to film CRW with that one and at the same time take it for 200' on the landings.
i can safely say that if i were looking for a semi-elliptical main right now i would only look one place and that would be the pilot. i think it is definately the best all-around canopy and being a poor college guy its got a great price tag as well

The only bad skydive is your last!
chris "sonic wookie" harwell
Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

[katiebear21 0]

After my A License, I made my first 350 jumps on Sabre 2's. I've got my last 300 on various size Pilots and I prefer the openings of my Pilots ten-fold. No complaints about the flight characteristics either!

Katie
Get your PMS glass necklace here

[kaerodyne 0]

Chris, Katie

Your guys ROCK!! Thanks for the positive feed back on our products. Good to have you FlyAerodyne.

Blue Skies

Karl Meyer
Sales Representative
Aerodyne Research
Office: 1 813 891 6300
Mobile: 1 813 841 2149
karl@flyaerodyne.com
www.flyaerodyne.com

[deathtrap 0]

Bushman, I just lost all respect for you.
Long time ago when you were working for the marketing department at Performance Designs, you said that hybrid canopies were a good idea, by putting ZP on the top skin you get longer lasting canopies, because the ZP is stronger.

The Sabre2 and the pilot are 2 different canopies. Sabre 2 has a steeper glide ratio which makes the wing more stable and you have a wider range of flight characteristics, while the Pilot is a really flat canopy. I have not much experience but if my control range goes from my ears to the middle of my chest then I will take a Sabre 2 where I have a longer control range and the canopy doesn't stall rapidly like the pilot.

Getting back to hybrid canopies, your A2 is Hybrid that you copied from the PD/RWS EZ 384 that is a canopy that gets jumped a lot by most DZs because it is easy to pack and it lasts longer. the Navigator, another hybrid canopy (you know all this you worked at PD) its a great canopy, same characteristics as the EZ384 in packing and life. So the actual question should be made to the DZ operators, the people that buy the canopies for a business.

Bushman, nothing personal, but don't backstab people, you worked for PD so you know more than most people do about materials.

[billvon 3,063]

>and the canopy doesn't stall rapidly like the pilot.

I have about 500 jumps on Pilots sized:
210 (a few, just to see what they're like)
168 (same)
150 (bigways and wingsuit jumps)
140 (bigways, now Amy's primary canopy; it's coming up on 1000 jumps/third lineset)
117 (my second rig now)

Out of those several hundred jumps I have never had one "stall rapidly." The larger sizes won't stall at all at my (and Amy's) loading without taking a wrap. You can force them to stall if you try, and they recover like any other canopy. Stall break is a bit less violent than, say, that on a Nitro.