voidlizard

Hello, Some time ago I have noticed that my Cobalt Comp 105 became to snivel too long. It inflates three central sections and when hesitate to inflate the rest of them. It is not so funny, because it's very unstable when it snivel, and even a little harness skew may cause it to turn (and spin) So now I have one low-opening and one cutaway (because of spin mal) probably because of this. I have several ideas why it has started to happen. First - I've lost some weight and now wingloading is something about may be 1.7 instead of 1.8 wich I have been told that it's a recommended minimal WL for this canopy. Second - my PC has more than 500 openings, may be it's time to replace it. So I will replace the PC anyway, but will it fix the situation and wich PC should I get? The same size, or lesser one (as Atair recommends?) But Atair recommends small pc for softer openings, but it seems this is not what I need in this situation. Any ideas? PS. It opens better when I pull in tracking, but it's not possible to open in track every time.

So sad... Could anyone comment incident #23? What actions seems to be right in the situations like this? Do camera suits usually have RSL-like locks to release wings? I have never jump with a camera suit, but I am going to.

Yea! There are also some cool BASE photos, but they are too deep.

Good news that your may choose as much photoes as you want to.

There is a extreme photo competition on a russian site extremephoto.ru. So far the freefly photo is taking second place, lets help it win - http://www.extremephoto.ru/photo/1/316/&k=&s=1&v=0 link for voting (please click an **** - it means super :) ) Sorry if it's a bad idea to post such message here - just delete it then. It's not my photo and I seriously think that it's better than current leader - but it seems that amount of skiers in russia exceeds number of skydivers.

N/A

I have already heard this before. So, if the Cobalt 95 is similar to Stiletto 107, then probably Cobalt 120 is similar to a something 135-ft. I have a rig designed for 120-ft mains and some time ago I have jumped with 135ft Spectre - and it was very hard to pack 7-cell 135ft canopy into my d-bag, and the rig looked very ... specific after that. But I had no problem to put Cobalt 120 there. So, for me it's obvious that Cobalt 120 is much smaller that 135-ft 7-cell PD. I also packed Safire 119 in my dbag, and it was similar to Cobalt 120. Anyway, it's easy to compare if you have Stilletto and Cobalts on dropzone. Stilletto 107 and Cobalt 95 fly quite different with the same weight under them, aren't them?

I jump CC105, WL about 1.8 Opening are good, flare is perfect, flies fine. For me, it's similar to C120, but flies faster, dives deeper and more funny. There were no any hard openings at all. Every opening was very soft and 2-stage, as promised, regardless of packing - but it's more sensible to body position during deployment than my previous Cobalt 120. There were some problems with turning after deployment - sometimes it did 45 - 360 turns after deployment - but it's seems that it was because of my movements after 1st stage. Now I have fixed body position and do some packing tricks - and there are no turns for some jumps... Hopefully this issue is fixed.

Landing off is not very unusual thing in case of jumping through the clouds locating the drop spot only by GPRS. GPRS may fault. There are also incidents with the newbie pilots who forget to order to get out of plane, incidents with jammed doors and with missed spot in result and so on... So I have landed off a number of times, but only couple times it was my mistakes (underestimated wing or so...)

I have landed my Tempo 120 loaded 1.6 twice. It's definitly flies different than my mains, but there were no problems with landings. Lift was not great. But it opens and it saves life. No more or less. I am going to get something with bigger square and lesser packing volume - Techno 128, or something.

Hi! Cobalt 120 1.6 on 157 jump. I felt myself much better when I have changed Safire 119 (or 109 - there was something strange with square measuring ) to the Cobalt. Slightly harmed my knee under the Safire, no problem with Cobalt (but screwed couple of time by dropzone's stuff for dangerous landings). Know a guy who has got Stiletto 120 about 1.7 on 100th jump.

Well, they supply not only Floggers (strange name indeed), but also several other models. They also produce reserve canopies and containers. Their containers are very popular in Russia, but I can't say that canopies too. Most people I know usually try to buy canopy from one of industry leaders, new or used.// ones. I have about 50 jumps on Ozone and Spinnaker Paraavis canopies which are clones of Spectre and Sabre. I can not say something very good or bad, but the original Spectres and Sabres definitely fly better.

Take a look at the leading Russian dropzones. The weather is usually acceptable in summer; The airlift potential is very good - Stupino and Kolomna dzs have several aircraft like Mi8 Heli, An28, L410. All of them allow to take more than 20 skydivers on board. This allow to do 8 - 10 jumps easily. The Russian RW (world's champions, btw)and Free Fly teams did 15 - 20 jumps in a day in the past summer. Kolomna did 64 loads in a day once (more than 1000 jumps). The jump's price is probably lowest in world - about $11, and even less (~$9) if you buy them in bundle by 11 - 50 jumps. The jumping attitude is 4000+ meters (~13000 feet) >easy to access (geographically) Both of the mentioned dzs located near the Moscow. > good landing area Both have very large landing areas. There are no swoop ponds yet, but there is a small lake near the Kolomna's dz and sometimes swoopers jumps on this lake. Moreover, Kolomna worked every day almost whole the past summer. The another good thing, that the both dropzones located in about 50 miles from each other, and you may visit them both easily. There is also couple of nice dzs in Ukraine too. PS. Yes, jump prices also reduce if you jump for a swoop from the low attitude, but DZO's usually not welcome the low-att jumps in good weather days when there are lot of skydivers at dz...

Russia - 6 months ( AFAIR, 3 months for the old Russian PZ-81 triangular reserves which are not wings )

But where are Velocity, Extreme VX and FX ?

Really? Well, I have been slammed by Hornet 135, Sabre 150 (it was a very hard impact and absolutelly inconsistent opening - the worse opening I have ever had). and I have several very hard openinigs on Spectre 135, and one on Safire 119. Not a big deal. I am hearing talks about hard openings on the different mains all the time on dz. Almost every weekend we are drinking beer at evening because of someone had cutaway. It's life. But it seems that every mal or hard opening on Cobalt cause a discussion on dropzone.com. I know five or six Cobalt owners on dz, they are happy with the canopies. I am happy with the Cobalt too, although I was having some minor problems until I have not learned how to pack it.

Disagree. I have 120 jumps on my new Cobalt 120 1.6. I had several (may be five or eight) very hard openings, several line twists (I have kicked them out without cutaway). All of thouse things happened because of my mistakes. I did not roll the nose tightly, I was grabbing the risers during the openings and so on. Now I have soft, on-heading openings. Mostly on-heading - I guess it strongly depends on body position. Now I have no problems with the canopy. Yes, the canopy requires neat packing. I can't trashpack it like Safire. But it flies great. PS. I have 25'' PC. It little bit more than Atair recommend for 120^2 canopy.

Thank you for response. I've discovered some info about this subject: -- taken from http://www.diverdriver.com/Regulations/Supplements/supplements.htm Automatic Activation Devices. A jumper may have a tendency to feel more at ease if equipped with an automatic activation device (AAD). However, experience shows that such devices may not be completely reliable and should be used only as a backup to proper training and procedures. Skydivers who use an AAD on their reserve/auxiliary parachute should ensure that the installation of such a device has been approved by the parachute manufacturer or the FAA (see paragraph 8). The FAA does not approve AAD's. They do approve the installation which is submitted with the manufacturer's TSO paperwork. The manufacturer's instructions for installation should be followed. The installation of an AAD to a TSO or military specification (MIL-SPEC)-approved parachute constitutes a major alteration to that parachute. A jumper who uses any type of AAD should be aware of its level of reliability and become fully proficient with the device. A prejump check should be made for proper setting, arming, and operational reliability to ensure proper functioning of the AAD. When the situation requires use of the reserve parachute, the jumper should always manually pull the reserve/auxiliary ripcord even when using an AAD. --

Hello, we have a great discussion on the russian skydiving site about AADs. The matter is that AAD's are absolutely required on all russian dropzones. But it seems like none of populars AAD has no any russian licences (except, may be, russian archaic mechanical military-styled AAD). So, how it going in USA or other countries? Does Cypres and FXC have any USPA licence and does any licence required for AAD's at all? If tomorrow appears, for example, Japanese company which will offer a modern ADD priced in half of Cypres, will skydivers free to use this hypothetic AAD? Thank you, Dimitri