Why did PD stop building the Vengeance?

[tristansdad 0]

I searched the forums and couldn’t anything. Just wondering if anyone knows why PD stopped building the Vengeance. A friend of mine purchased rig with a 120 in it and it’s to small so I was thinking of buying it from him and keeping it until I downsize.

[DBCOOPER 5]

I bought a 150 used once. I jumped it once. It was the wildest opening I ever had. Sent it to PD for an evaluation. They test jumped it and they wouldn't send it back to me. Gave me a credit for what I paid for it towards any new canopy. Great customer service. There must have been something inhearantly wrong with the design or they probably would still be selling them.

Replying to: Re: Stall On Jump Run Emergency Procedure? by billvon

If the plane is unrecoverable then exiting is a very very good idea.

[tristansdad 0]

I've done some research and read the reviews and I found mostly nothing but good things about them. Some people compare them to the Samurai because they're both airlock. I'm flying a Sam now and I would love to have something available to me immediately when I feel ready to downsize. Maybe your Vengeance was a rotten apple. A friend of mine had a bad Sabre 2 that was slamming him and sent it to PD for them to check out. Apparently the opening on it put the test jumper out of commission for a while.

[RiggerLee 61]

I remember when they came out a guy at the DZ had one. It was an ok canopy but then he had it relined with vectran. I guess it was that little bit of extra drag on the slider but he had the worst, wildest off heading openings. the canopy is less stable when it has the ends towed down like when you have line twist or in this case when the slider is part way down. It's like it hesitated just long enough for the canopy to try to spread and start flying with the slider still part way up and it would spin off and dive like a bitch. It was fine with the old specter lines. and yes the trim was right. it was just an odd quirky little thing.

They were ok canopies but they weren't the next sliced bread so other designs just surpassed them. It was part of the air lock craze that went around for a while till people realized that a canopy is ether a good canopy or a bad canopy regardless of whether it has airlocks or not.

Lee

Lee
lee@velocitysportswear.com
www.velocitysportswear.com

[davelepka 4]

Quote

Maybe your Vengeance was a rotten apple. A friend of mine had a bad Sabre 2 that was slamming him and sent it to PD for them to check out. Apparently the opening on it put the test jumper out of commission for a while.

Did PD turn around and discontinue the Sabre2?

Like many gear purchases, it's not a 'good' deal unless it's the right gear for you, first and foremost. What you're doing is letting the previous owner of your friends rig chose your next canopy, and I can't see how that's a good idea.

Wait until you feel ready to downsize, and then demo some different models in that size and see what 'floats your boat', then pick your next canopy yourself.

[tristansdad 0]

I asked someone a while back why they stopped making them and he basically said they were shit canopies. Opinions do very but the forums and the gear reviews give them a pretty favorable report. I guess if the canopy was making PD money they would still be building them.

[dragon2 2]

I think there are pretty large differences between vengeances, and I believe they are a canopy for experienced jumpers, ie 500-700+ jumps.

I put a couple hundred jumps on mine, still love it. Only had to chop it once, due to the lineset needing replacement a good while back Not even came close on the other hundreds of jumps. Great lift, will float with the best in brakes or rears. Ground-hungry in full flight/front risers. Have had some difficulties with the airlocks after landing, in winds.

I did a couple of jumps on some other vengeances, one had a built-in turn and the others were smoooooth canopies, like mine.

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[ctrph8 0]

This is entirely guesswork on my part.

I owned a Samurai for a little while that I was jumping in a second rig. I didn't put very many jumps on it but it was a decent canopy. I sold it because my Crossfire just did things better. The openings were more consistent. I preferred the flight and landings.

My thought was that the Samurai (and by extension, the Vengeance) were decent canopies at the time but the designs that are out now have better opening characteristics, flight characteristics, pack smaller and are not as complicated to sew and maintain. I suspect that the technologies that are built into newer canopies are just more refined. The fewer little parts, the better.

I'll also say that my openings were perfectly acceptable but I've known people who got seriously spanked by them and I was always a little nervous about it.

tristansdad

I've done some research and read the reviews and I found mostly nothing but good things about them. Some people compare them to the Samurai because they're both airlock. I'm flying a Sam now and I would love to have something available to me immediately when I feel ready to downsize. Maybe your Vengeance was a rotten apple. A friend of mine had a bad Sabre 2 that was slamming him and sent it to PD for them to check out. Apparently the opening on it put the test jumper out of commission for a while.

[diablopilot 2]

I loved how they flew, all the ones I jumped opened like hand hammered shit. Aprox 200 jumps on them.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[DSE 5]

diablopilot

I loved how they flew, all the ones I jumped opened like hand hammered shit. Aprox 200 jumps on them.

This was my experience jumping a borrowed Vengeance for half a dozen jumps.

Why would anyone want airlocks in the modern age of Xbraced canopies anyway?

[likestojump 3]

DSE

***I loved how they flew, all the ones I jumped opened like hand hammered shit. Aprox 200 jumps on them.

This was my experience jumping a borrowed Vengeance for half a dozen jumps.

Why would anyone want airlocks in the modern age of Xbraced canopies anyway?

Vengeance is not a crossbrace. Just a highly elliptical airlocked 9 cell.

I have about 50 jumps on various sizes. I like them, but they are not for everyone.

According to the PD rep who I asked in 2004 (shortly after they were discontinued), the canopy just did not fit into PD's product line.

My best guess is that it wasn't all that popular, and the added cost of airlocks and the licensing to Germain wasn't making fiscal sense.

[diablopilot 2]

Depends on the Airlock design. The type used on the Vengance opens poorly in my opinion, including the other canopies I've jumped utilizing the same design. On the other hand there is a design I've jumped that is one of the nicest opening canopies I've ever experienced, the Paratec R.A.G.E. not a very popular canopy and has some other design features I don't like so much.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[peter.draper 0]

I put a couple of jumps on a R.A.G.E. and loved it......

[DSE 5]

likestojump

******I loved how they flew, all the ones I jumped opened like hand hammered shit. Aprox 200 jumps on them.

This was my experience jumping a borrowed Vengeance for half a dozen jumps.

Why would anyone want airlocks in the modern age of Xbraced canopies anyway?

Vengeance is not a crossbrace. Just a highly elliptical airlocked 9 cell.

I have about 50 jumps on various sizes. I like them, but they are not for everyone.

According to the PD rep who I asked in 2004 (shortly after they were discontinued), the canopy just did not fit into PD's product line.

My best guess is that it wasn't all that popular, and the added cost of airlocks and the licensing to Germain wasn't making fiscal sense.

I realize the Vengeance isn't a crossbraced canopy, it's an airlocked canopy. My point was "why would someone want an airlocked canopy with crossbraced canopies available?"

Since JP has a great deal more experience with both Xbraced and airlocked canopies, I'll defer to his expertise.

[diablopilot 2]

Simply put, airlocks and cross bracing do very different things.

Airlocks inhibit airflow out of the canopy once pressurized reducing the likelihood of collapse and making a firmer wing.

Cross bracing reduces the distortion of the airfoil caused but the suspended weight which is most evident at high wing loadings. It does nothing to decrease airflow in or out of the canopy.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[yoink 321]

DSE

***I loved how they flew, all the ones I jumped opened like hand hammered shit. Aprox 200 jumps on them.

This was my experience jumping a borrowed Vengeance for half a dozen jumps.

Yup.


They flew like an angel, opened like a bitch, varied from canopy to canopy and probably cost more to produce than a standard ram air wing.

[yoink 321]

diablopilot

Depends on the Airlock design. The type used on the Vengance opens poorly in my opinion, including the other canopies I've jumped utilizing the same design. On the other hand there is a design I've jumped that is one of the nicest opening canopies I've ever experienced, the Paratec R.A.G.E. not a very popular canopy and has some other design features I don't like so much.

Is that the one with the completely closed nose and inlets on the bottom skin?

[diablopilot 2]

I think we're thinking of the same thing.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[crotalus01 0]

I had a Vengeance 170 that I put about 20 jumps on. I got rid of it because it was way too high performance for me - but honestly a big deciding factor in that decision was the openings. It flew great and I never had problems landing it, but every single opening on it was pucker factor 5.0+. It would take off in a spin every time.

As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

[mattjw916 2]

sounds like my old Jedei 150... the consensus seems to be "if you want airlocks, get a modern Samurai or a Lotus"

time marches on I guess

NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

[crotalus01 0]

I was told by a rigger and a couple of other 5k+ jumpers that the opening spin was a problem inherent to the airlock design of the time (on some canopies more than others, even within the same canopy type) - one side would partially pressurize before the other during the snivel and then you were off to the races. I know one time on a solo high pull I got on the rears to keep it from spinning up and waited to see if it would correct itself. It took about 4 360s before it planed out and started flying straight (about 1100').
Once it was flying straight it was awesome.

As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

[likestojump 3]

crotalus01

I was told by a rigger and a couple of other 5k+ jumpers that the opening spin was a problem inherent to the airlock design of the time (on some canopies more than others, even within the same canopy type) - one side would partially pressurize before the other during the snivel and then you were off to the races. I know one time on a solo high pull I got on the rears to keep it from spinning up and waited to see if it would correct itself. It took about 4 360s before it planed out and started flying straight (about 1100').
Once it was flying straight it was awesome.

I may not be a 5K+ jumper, but I do know a bit about parachutes, and have jumped quite a few of them.

Common sense and personal experience tells me that being a highly elliptical parachute, the Vengeance was just much more twitchy, and thus more likely to spin up.

here's the 2D airfooil design of a Vengeance :http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/linetrims/VN_089-170LT.pdf

and here's one for a Sabre2 : http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/linetrims/SA_097-170P02LT.pdf

see the difference ?

[diablopilot 2]

Everyones mileage varies but I rarely had line twists (on any canopy for that matter) but the Vengeance was just a hard opener in my experience.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[crotalus01 0]

It never spun up on me, just always opened briskly and in a diving turn every time. The turn was never enough to throw it into linetwists as long as I flew through it with the rears. I really didnt find it to be particularly twitchy either - but the trim was extremely steep and it was faster than I needed (or wanted).
At any rate I was told by a few people that the opening issues were caused by the airlock design (I was not the only person to have issues with this canopys openings).

As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

[BMFin 0]

tristansdad

I searched the forums and couldn’t anything. Just wondering if anyone knows why PD stopped building the Vengeance.

PD had to pay royalties to Brian Germain for every airlocked canopy they sold, so they couldnt make as much profit from selling this design.