friflaj

If you jump camera you're really going to appreciate the openings on the Safire. With the Stiletto I had before, I'd always 'brace for impact' during opening when I'm wearing my topmount. Since the Safire, I've totally forgotten about the weight of the cam during the opening.

A stiletto is a pretty aggressive, fully elliptical canopy. The Safire and the Pilot are intermediary canopies. The Safire and the Pilot are *not* in the same category as the Stiletto. No offence (specifically since you have nearly 3 times as many jumps as me), but what have you flown so far? It seems weird to me that you'd gather nearly 2000 jumps and would compare the Safire to the Stiletto.

Have several experienced jumpers jump it, preferably in their own harness. I had a canopy with a built-in turn once, the first experienced jumper I handed my gear to didn't notice it. Lucky me, one of the designers from my canopy manufacturers did.

Except the openings don't suck. The flare of the Safire2 is deep, not weak. As for the original question, I load mine at 1.42 and love it, but I fully agree with diablopilot that it's by no means intermediate at this WL. Intermediate would be 1.1-ish. Just because it's not a Velocisplat doesn't mean it's docile at any WL.

I busted my leg pretty nasty and fractured L5 in 2002. I was lucky enough that I had an orthopedic that was also a very experienced jumper. He subscribed me some braces and I was good to go in 9 months. Was I nervous? Hell yeah! I promised myself I'd make at least 10 jumps before even considering quitting. Took me the full 10 jumps to bleed off the nerves. Oh, and I upsized (stiletto 135 -> Spectre 150) for about 4 months to ease myself in. I can heartily recommend doing that.

If it makes you feel any better, I have over 700 jumps and I still don't like opening the door, or closing it after a mid-run. Doesn't matter at what altitude . The jitters are over the second the door is fully open, though.

I have demoed a Sabre2 for some 10 jumps while I flew a Stiletto at the time. I found the Stiletto openings more reliable than the Sabre2 openings. Search for 'Sabre2 openings' in the forums and you'll get lots of hits. this one made me smile :) Purchase a Safire?

Hey, if it works for NASA... and a 12 year old design doesn't neceasrily mean 12 year old components

Man, this pretty much exactly describes my dealings with Wyat. I luuurve my spiffy new Safire but I wouldn't deal directly with Wyat again unless he's in nose-punching range.

I'll go along with that. In the end, I still love the Safire2 I got, and in the balance, the canopy more than balances out the experience of getting it. And no, I don't own stock

I get to deal with Icarus Europe now, who are a great deal better.

Let's just say that my experience in dealing with Wyat stands in stark contrast with yours.

Right. Set him up for more frustration, why don't you. Go ahead and call Skydive San Diego, but ask for Simon Powell. He's an Icarus dealer and he'll help you out.

I demoed both the Safire2 and the Sabre2. The Sabre2 flew great, but those openings were consistently uber-crappy (wildly offheading, angle, direction and dive steepness totally unpredictable), and with a kilo of camera on your head that distinctly sucks. I now fly the Safire2, and I love it.

In the Netherlands you cannot jump a set of 25 years or over. Not sure it it goes for all parts of the rig, though.

But it may bear qualifying what 'after opening' is. I used to grab my risers pretty much immediately after the pitch, and that was OK, since my Stiletto opened in a snap. Now that I'm flying a Safire, the slider comes down just that much later, which resulted in sore thumbs for the first 3 jumps . I now just look up after I feel the snatch, wait for the slider to come down, then grab. I might grab if the slider takes too long, but when moving to a Safire, a little patience is required

Call the Parachute case or the Fallschirmdepot, they will post the canopy to you at a very modest cost so you can demo it. If you're planning to boogy on down to Empuriabrava, check if the guys from Icarus will be there -- if you're looking at the SabreII (which in my personal opinion is OK except for the super-sucky openings) you also want to demo a Safire. The Parachute also has some Icarus canopies in their demo lineup but I don't know if they'll post those too -- best check I guess.

Why are you debating this? Go see you physician!

Oh, it's a strike now? A few months ago when I was trying to pry away my canopy from them it was a fire at Performance Textiles. FWIW, it makes a huge difference wether you're trying to reach Icarus Europe or Icares US. Icarus Europe responds almost always immediately, Icarus US hardly ever (yeah, that's you Wyat). Simon Powell from Skydive San Diego is an Icarus dealer and he's treated me uber double plus good. It was more fruitful dealing with him than trying to reach Icarus US themselves.

Winds (blasted Tramuntana) I don't know if it's allowed, but I know it happens. Had one jump where we had clouds from 14k to 6k. That wasn't much fun (and thoroughly stoopid). Some DZs I visit do, some don't... but in Empuria the winds can change very fast, and my guess is that they rather take the loss and keep people happy and coming back. That, and people might be less inclined to try dangerous stuff on account of losing 20 euros. I've heard say that Empuria has a pretty good safety record. Wolf did say that he'd not have refunded my ticket if he had needed to pull me back though

1: Out for a trip to a DZ I used to frequent but hadn't been for a while, with my regular skydiving buddy. I knew the planes, I knew the staff, I knew most of the jumpers. Little wind, *big* ass landing area. By all accounts, this should have been fun and easy, but for some reason, my buddy and me were *extremely* nervous. We did two jumps with mounting tension, and at the 3rd jump we found ourselves facing each other at some 10-15 meters after opening... yow! Lesson learned: listen to your heart. Even if you've driven 3 hours to get to that DZ, sometimes it's best to just accept that today's not for skydiving, regardless of the weather. 2: After we had been moping around the DZ waiting for the storm to calm down for what seemed like ages, the winds finally dropped -- a little. Everyone in our group went up, so so did I. *Big* mistake. The winds were still very high and turbulent, and at the end of a superfun dive we found ourselves miles out. The others find a little field to land (although I did see some tumble during their tailwind landing), my options were limited to trees, more trees, a busy road, some smaller roads with powerlines across, or a small patch of grass between the trees and the road. Seemed to be working our OK until I came near the treeline, and I *think* the turbulence from the treetops did something funky with my canopy, because the next thing I remember was me lying on the road I had vowed to avoid, laughing through the pain about the cyclist that had fallen off his bike as my crash landing beside him scared the bejeezus out of him. That incident took me out for 9 months. At the start of the season :< Nasty open fracture of my left leg, broken vertebrae. Fortunately, I lived to tell the tale, and most of the damage healed.

I was in Empuriabrava on a coaching dive with Babylon (who rock, BTW), with all of 202 jumps on me IIRC. When the Porter took off we were at a 100 jump limit, while nearing jumprun it was radioed that the limit had been upped to 200. My coach (hya Lupo!) asked me what I wanted to do... i figured a coaching dive would add enough stress, I'd rather not put myself in a situation that I would not have been allowed to jump just 3 jumps earlier. So we rode the plane down. After we landed, Wolf told me he was merely curious about what I would choose, and that he'd have pulled me back in were I stupid enough to attempt to exit. I went back to the manifest to get my ticket back, and the sign read "400 jump limit".

I just shot off a question about it to AAD and got a prompt reply with a full explanation for the 4 ground misfires and the static line air misfire. They're still investigating that incident. Any info they would release while that investigation is ongoing would be speculation at this point. If they speculated and another reason was found, they'd be flogged for that too. Yes, they've had serious issues and have seriously addressed them. They have not ignored "some" issues, but they have yet to report on one issue.

Yep, saw that here consistently too. Maybe so, but I jump a Stiletto otherwise and I have no issue whatsoever keeping that flying straight during opening, and the SabreII openings would vary from slightly off-heading (90 deg or so) to a 360 sharp dive that had me swinging almost horizontal... all after a smooth and on-heading stage 1 opening leaving some outer cells closed, one side would pop open before the other -> roller coaster ride. And were it just me I might have put it down to body position, but I know several others that love their SabreII but for their consistently erratic openings . Some have said it has to do with wingloading, I dunno. I went with the SafireII. Yes, it does take some getting used to the deeper control range, but once you get used to it can easily match anything the SabreII can bring to the table. As others said, demo a bunch of stuff, pick what you like. But you owe it to yourself to not blindly pick the SabreII because it's from PD.

That's why mine is in the bracket, secured by lotsa duck tape. Sorry about your loss.