Icarus World X-Fire line trim

[Binary93 65]

Due to this information not existing on the website/as a service bulletin, posting here for awareness.

As per information from the manufacturer, some early batches of X-Fire had problems when flying on fronts. A friend of mine experienced this issue recently, the canopy was unstable and a few cells collapsed/folded (luckily no incidents). They fixed this by changing the length of A2. They updated their line chart on the website to reflect this change, that is, your lines when measured should be as currently on the website.

Folks who are flying X-Fire should check their A2 length and avoid a possible incident. After contacting the manufacturer, they sent replacement lines for free (A2 on both sides with cascades).

[Deimian 43]

Do you know which serial numbers and sizes are affected?

[Binary93 65]

Nope. My 153ft DOM 2018 wasn't affected (not sure if the previous owner did the reline or if it was produced by the new spec) and my friend's 124ft DOM 2019 had the issue. Measuring A2 should be pretty simple, so if in doubt, you can measure it and compare it to the trim chart on the website, or contact the manufacturer.

[Binary93 65]

archive.org saved a snapshot of the line charts on the 31st of August, 2018.
So the change happened at some point after this date and A2 was lengthened.

[Deimian 43]

Thanks for the info. I can confirm that a lineset produced by paraconcepts in November, for an XFire 102, has also its A2s 4cm too short.

The fingertrap is 10.5cm long. Maybe unpicking the bartack and lengthening the A2 is an option, I am not sure if a fingertrap that is 6cm long is enough.

[betzilla 56]

3 hours ago, Deimian said:

The fingertrap is 10.5cm long. Maybe unpicking the bartack and lengthening the A2 is an option, I am not sure if a fingertrap that is 6cm long is enough.

I think you'd be fine with a 6cm fingertrap (PD's, for instance, are close to that length), but DIYing it would IMO be frustrating, as changing the length of the finger trap would affect the amount of 'shrinkage' in that part of the line, so there will be trial and error involved to get it just right. If it were me, I'd rather avail myself of the free replacement line pair to avoid the annoyance.

Seems like 5cm is a HUGE length difference for a 124 sq ft canopy! I wonder how flight characteristics differ after that change (I suppose not collapsing on fronts is a significant improvement!)...