andrewstewart

Okay then, let's keep the discussion purely in the domain of customer service... My personal experience has been that it is *impossible* to get someone from Icarus on the phone. Over the last several months I've called Icarus several times and left several messages and not a single one of those phone calls has been returned. When I phone Atair someone calls me back or they tell me when to phone back. The difference is like night and day! (And several people on these forums have made remarks to a similar effect). My point is that whatever aspect you wish to discuss - customer service - product quality - product satisfaction - these are all parameters which will vary for each person and as has been proven there are many manufacturers who people are unhappy with for certain reasons. To portray Atair as being the "worst" manufacturer in some way is both a misnomer and disengenuous. - A PS: I've had a demo from PD that didn't have packing instructions or rubber bands, nor was it flaked, so there goes you're theory on that one ;-)

Taken from Dwain's post on BLiNC after his 1000'th BASE jump: ------------------------------------ I've known jumpers that did everything right and still got hurt again and again. I've known jumpers that repeatedly do everything wrong and still walk away smiling. I've seen hellish situations crack strong people and amazing strength emerge from others. I've seen people die who should have survived. I've seen people survive who (according to the laws of physics) should have died. My objective in BASE from the very beginning has been the pursuit of the envelopes. While longevity in this pursuit is questionable, and time and time again I've tried to back off or slow down in my jumping style, I've always been drawn back. Considering the laws of statistics I guess my future is somewhat written in this respect. The thing that still scares me the most about BASE jumping is the possibility of object strike. Bad offheadings on vertical walls slider down happen to everyone eventually and no one is good enough to successfully deal with it everytime (given the current technology). So anyway enough of this introspective babble. Here's looking forward to the next 1000 jumps - to more experiences with the friends I've made, and to jumping with the people I've yet to meet and to those pure solo moments. ------------------------------------ Link: (someone else can make clickly...) http://www.baselogic.com/forum/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=7&topic_id=7877&mesg_id=7877&listing_type=search

I think its perfectly fine. I bashed the Sabre2 since the demo I was sent was opening so hard it was hurting. PD took the time to follow up on my return demo card and tested it themselfs. PD then took the effort to inform me the demo jumpers gor slammed under the canopy and they later retired the almost new canopy from their fleet. PD (Kolla) then offered to get me back on the demo list for another Sabre2 if I wanted one. Atair never followed up on my complaints and it took me calling them a few dozen times to get a story of "wrong sized slider" was the cause of the hard openings on the demo I had. At the time they never even had demo return cards in their demo containers. I've seen Atair ship out a demo canopy (After inspection) with a line so frayed it would have snapped on opening. I've also heard of them shipping out a demo canopy that did'nt have all the lines bartacked and they failed on opening. I've complained about Icarus never seeming to answer a phone when I was calling or how they responded to the Crossfire collapse. I've posted about how Sunpath screwed my rig up on a harness resizing and now it can only hold a custom D-ring since they sewed the pocket so small I can't get any other one into it. I'm generally a bitchy person and if I'm not bitching that means someone went to the extra mile to make me happy. I think this actually reinforces my point that generally, YMMV ("your milage may vary") across ALL the manufacturers.

If that is the case then I think it disproves the theory that we never see complaints or problems with other manufacturers or their canopies. I think a lot of this discussion has it's roots in the fact that we're trying to objectify our individual subjective outlooks, i.e. our particular individual preferences. It would be a blanket statement to say that a certain manufacturer is totally immune from ever creating a product that is infallable or that everyone is guaranteed to like - it's just not possible. There are people out there who dislike Atair canopies just as there are people who have similar feelings about Icarus or whoever, and that is ultimately to be expected. I do feel that it is unfair when I see people bashing Atair over and over again without acknowledging that there are people who feel the same way about other manufacturers. - A

i don't believe AggieDave would make an uninformed statement. i know for a fact he's done his homework on this product. I don't blame Aggie Dave for his reponse or his observation AND if I would have had the experience that he had with attair and the cobalt I would have run the other way with my money. He has a very personal reason not to like the product and a very valid one. My complaint or rather my observation is that there is indeed a great many people that bash attair and its not always cobalt related sometimes they have never flown the canopy . They are only relaying second or third hand info most of the time. Before I bought the Cobalts I jumped six different canopys in three different sizes, although I was hooked on the first jump. And when I say ask a person who puts 1000 jumps a year on a piece of equiptment I never approached a factory pilot about it. Just a working person who makes a ton of jumps and has many canopys to choose from. I also asked the persons with ten times my experience, who were also at that time demo ing the cobalt, and picked their brains about what they thought. Trust me I did my homework too. I totally agree with you. I've talked to a person who used to be sponsored by Atair. He told me that even though he now jumps a VX the Competition Cobalt he had was (quote) "the nicest opening canopy I've ever owned". So there are very experienced jumpers who have good things to say about the Atair canopies, just as there are also people who don't like them - but que sera sera... - A

Not that I'm an Icarus suporter or anything, but the colapes of the canopy in New York was never atributed to the contruction or trim, but rather the turbulance often found at that location. In that case, apologies if my understanding was incorrect. What was the reason for the redesign then, as my understanding was the possible collapse was one of the justifying factors. Thanks, - Andrew

Maybe. However, how many people that jump or have jumped PDs have come out and said the same sort of things about PDs. Now what about PISA canopies, Precision canopies, Icuras canopies, etc. Why does it seem that predominately it is the folks that have jumped Cobalts posting about a negative experience (sometimes a VERY negative experience)? If you ask people, you'll always find someone that had a bad experience with a product, it just seems rare that so many people have such a very vocally bad experience with a single company/product in skydiving. How about that long thread about Sabre2 openings in one of the other forums? How about all the hoo-ha about the Crossfire1? As far as I'm aware the Cobalt hasn't been the direct reason why someone was killed, whereas the Crossfire1 collapsed and killed at least one person (correct me if I'm wrong on this but that is my current understanding). - A

I took Wyatt Drewe's course - he's with Icarus Evolution. Great course and highly recommended. He's based at Perris which is the same location as the Team Extreme guys (who tour a lot). I believe Wyatt's email is icaruspilot@hotmail.com - Andrew

yeah, to the military. thats their bread and butter. as an aside, why is their nothing in your profile? why no name? who are you? what & where do you sky dive? what you have heard here are actual events and opinions of experienced sky divers with profiles and names, the whole 9 yards. ANDREWSTEWART Full Profile posting anonamously, shame on you. Well... they obviously sell a fair few sport canopies because YOU bought one, right? I don't know why my profile doesn't work, I think the problem with that is with the forum, not me; it was certainly not intentional. Just because the people posting here are "real skydivers" (whatever that means) doesn't invalidate my opinion. I posted that my Cobalt demo arrived promptly - it did. I posted that my Cobalt demo was on risers - it was. I posted that I like how it flies - I do. I reiterate that my experiences with Atair have been entirely positive. - A

I think you're living in some weird conspiracy theory... Anyone can go back and see what previous posts people have made - it's not rocket science. If I was trying to hide my identity or if I was somehow ashamed of my previous posts (which I'm not) I would have changed my user name, which of course I haven't. - A

But Dan, they're not that rare. If they were, there wouldn't see as many people as there are complaining about them. Right? Not necessarily true. The people "complaining" seem to be far more vocal than what has to be a silent majority of people who are perfectly happy with their Cobalt. Even if we were to say that there were 20 people on this forum who hated the Cobalt, I think that Atair have sold a lot more than 20 canopies...

My demo arrived on risers.

On the contrary, my demo was shipped within a week and there was good phone contact throughout. It was shipped on risers and ready to go. - Andrew

I agree with you. I think if we were to focus on the flight characteristics of the canopy you'd find almost universal praise for how the Cobalt flies - it really is impressive IMHO. - Andrew

I have to disagree as far as their customer service goes. I had to chop my Cobalt because of line twists and I phoned Atair about it. I spoke to Dan and he gave me lots of good advice and explained several things that I could do, which I have since implemented and I now have consistent, nice openings (touch wood). Speaking from personal experience, I moved from a 7 cell to a Cobalt and that was primarily the root of a lot of my problems: that I wasn't flying the opening, I was looking up, I grabbed the risers, and that my packing was not neat enough or specific to a high performance canopy. To be fair to Atair you'd have to obviate all of those issues to be truly objective about their canopy. As far as hard openings go, I personally only roll the tail on my Cobalt a couple of times and I still get nice snivels. Just my 2 cents... - A

I know that within the ProTrack it records the values for both SAS and TAS, but when people are referring to their fall rate on these forums are they generally refering to SAS or TAS? (and why the preference?) Thanks in advance, - A

Thanks, I understand now :-)

Vertically, you have to contend with gravity of this big, fat chunk of dirt. If there was a wind blowing you, or some sort of vortex sucking you, upwards with more force than gravity (ie, wind tunnel), then yes, your fall rate would be affected. However, this really doesn't occur naturally while skydiving. Horizontally, the wind has no other force against it... there's no gravity to fight. So when these particles in the air push you at any speed, your body has no resistance. This is why you can push your buddy on a jump and send them across the sky horizontally, but if you try to push them up, they'll barely budge (asuming their body position stays the same). I'm still not clear on this, sorry ;-\ Take two people with exact body types, tracking positions etc (i.e. all factors are equal) but have one track into the uppers and one track "away from" the uppers, which are at some high value. If they both pull at the same altitude, you're saying that both will end up pulling at the same time? i.e. the duration of their flight is not affected by their orientation w.r.t the winds aloft? That seems counter intuitive to me because the person with the uppers "behind them" will be able to go faster and hence create more "lift" and stay in the air longer. (I know that lift is the wrong term here, but hey). Thanks, - Andrew

Does this mean that, as far as fall rate goes (vertically, as measured by a ProTrack), the strength of the uppers and their direction relative to the direction you are tracking, is irrelevant?

Not yet, I called literally 15 times last week (every day during the work week) with in Icuras' business hours, but not only could I not get someone on the phone, my voicemail was not returned. (I only left 1 voicemail, but called a lot trying to actually get someone on the phone, all I got were voicemail boxes.) I wanted to get a Crossfire2 for this coming weekend so I'd have something else to compare to, but apparently Icuras doesn't want to answer or return calls, so... Needless to say I'm frustrated with their unwillingness to even return my voicemail. I had the exact same experience. Their customer service is atrocious, IMHO.

While it is true that complexity is generally the enemy of security, there have been several examples of very well known security professionals who have written very small peices of code that have subsequently been found to be vulnerable. If they can't get 100 lines of code right, it doesn't bode well for anything larger... The root of the problem w.r.t buffer overflows is the underlying langauge, C, has very little bounds control. - Andrew

My experiences with Kolla for the PD demo program has also been excellent. The canopy was a Sabre2 135 that I demoed last year and they were cool with the fact that I had to chop it ;-) - Andrew

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No, I wasn't kidding. I don't think it was an unreasonable question to ask, and I'm sure there are people out there who do everything they can not to give money to those companies. Calling those people a fool for that decision seems harsh.

Just to be clear, I'm not passing judgement. I am actually legitimately interested in people's opinions on the topic as it just occured to me. I know that some people won't work for Boeing and so on. I certainly take your point Quade about the Internet, as many technologies have their roots in what were first military applications. I suppose I was interested to know if there was anyone who actively sought out specific manufacturers who weren't involved in military sales specifically, on personal ethical grounds. - A