Katana vs. Crossfire 3

[Alborne 3]

Just seeking opinions on which is best overall canopy. Preferably from people who have jumped both. 

[base615 77]

Jumped both and enjoyed both. There’s no ‘best’ here.

Katana dives and recovers much longer than the Crossfire 3 and my turn height went up 50% when I went from Crossy to Katana.

Crossfire openings are slightly better I’d say but don’t listen to people who just slam Katana in this area. Katana openings are usually awesome but, on the odd occasion they can go bad. Any higher performance canopy you go on after this will be the same though so just pay attention to the openings and it should be all good. I had to chop both canopies and they were all pretty violent mals, including the one I had on the Crossy.

Katana will fall out of the sky more than the Crossfire so may be less appropriate for long spots or having an AFF student take you into the basement.

Ultimately, it depends what jumping you do and what you want to do in the future along with a bit of personal preference.

If you want to swoop and see yourself on a small crossbraced canopy in the future, the Katana is the only non-crossbraced canopy that truly prepares you for that, IMO. The jump from the Crossfire would be pretty big.

If you don’t see yourself downsizing or changing planform in the future, do AFF, camera or just skydive for fun, maybe a lot of movement jumps with potential for long spots, go for a Crossfire 3.

There’s also personal preference so it’s best to demo both if you have a chance. Just remember that the recovery arcs are very different so don’t go out and turn a Katana 120 at the same height you turned your previous canopy. Do some high pulls or hop and pops and get the data before doing anything close to the ground. Also, I recommend not going to your first canopy in this class and also downsizing at the same time.

Edited November 27, 2022 by base615

[KamilPietrzak 0]

On 11/27/2022 at 5:50 AM, base615 said:

If you want to swoop and see yourself on a small crossbraced canopy in the future, the Katana is the only non-crossbraced canopy that truly prepares you for that, IMO. The jump from the Crossfire would be pretty big.

There's xfire from icarus world as well, pretty agressive, based on Schumann platform, non-crossbraced canopy.

[Deimian 43]

19 hours ago, KamilPietrzak said:

There's xfire from icarus world as well, pretty agressive, based on Schumann platform, non-crossbraced canopy.

I have to partly disagree with that. Xfire is an awesome canopy, great openings, super responsive on harness, very good on rears, very fun to fly. But the recovery arc is quite short compared with Katana or most cross-braced canopies, which makes it dangerous to swoop with it, as you have to turn quite close to the ground. At least that has been my experience in 500 jumps with Xfires of different sizes.