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Would like to here from anyone who has been jumping a Troll with MDV. I would like to know what you think of the canopy.

Thanks
Jason

there is a guy i knwo that jumped the troll from 300 ft and is lucky to be alive. Not sure if it had the valves or not... no more info

I think its fitted more for terminal dives from what people in the field are saying

I only have three jumps on one. The first was a 5 sec slider up. It opened hard and fast and straight (which is always nice). It has a fantastic glide ratio and flare. These are not at the top of my priorities for a canopy personally. I felt it responded a little too much like a skydiving canopy, but only had that one jump to really judge its flight characteristics.

The other two were freefalls for 186ft. The first one was great, it opened at the same height that my flik does, was immediately pressurized and flew to the end of the landing area (which is unusual on this jump). The second one was not so good. It opened in a stall and I pounded into the sand. The previous pack job was by someone else and they assure me that the brake setting they packed with was the same as the one I used on the last jump. I'm not convinced that it was, so it is possible that it was brake issue and not a canopy issue. However, I did decline freefalling it from a 210ft cliff. I'd love to do some more jumps on one.

http://www.dropzone.com/...i?post=498532#498532

Dwain still has the answers to your questions.

I have a Troll MDV 265 . Great canopy. Have only jumped it from the P-Rine. It's the only BASE canopy I have jumped. All slider down . Easy to sink it in, even with a tailwind. Nice flare. Responsive. Good glide . I weigh 165 lbs.

I've made about 150 jumps on my Troll MDV, with about 150 jumps on it before the MDV's were installed. I can compare it well to FOX Vtec and Blackjack (on each of which I have in excess of 250 jumps) and not as well to Ace, Flik, Dagger, and FOX Vtec w/valves, on each of which I have less than 50 jumps. I cannot compare to the Rock Dragon, as I have no experience on that canopy.


With the MDV I'm quite happy with the canopy. I wouldn't buy one without the MDV unless you are only going to do terminal jumps and open with a fair margin for safety.

The canopy flies great. It has very good top speed, as well as excellent full brakes. In other words, it can go both fast and slow. I think (subjectively) that it has a bit less top speed than the Ace/BJ, and about the same sink rate. It's much better at penetrating than the FOX Vtec, and has better flare, but sink rate appears slightly worse.

I've been pleased with the openings since adding the MDV to my canopy. I've used the canopy at altitudes down to 180' without major issue (or at least, without issue that couldn't easily have occured on any other canopy).

You can reduce the "skydiving-like" characteristics (harder response to toggle input, shorter control stroke) by removing the fifth control line. This mostly depends on personal preference (and how much you skydive) in my opinion.

I totally agree with tom. I started with a FOX and continued with the MDV. mostly, I jump subterminal stuff and like the overall performance very much. on terminal, I choose to slow down the opening by rolling the cells towards the middle. but I am always happy with reliable openings, even if they appear a little harder. for me it fits most.

   I was there on that jump, and I am pretty sure that the Troll the person was jumping did not have MDV. I think that he is definetly lucky. The canopy was not fully inflated after a 2 sec delay w/ a 46" pc from 300'. His opening appeared to be normal from up top but you could see the shimmer in his topskin as he went into the trees. The canopy had not yet fully inflated but was starting to surge forward at 40' which resulted in a tree landing 1 sec later. The tree line was very close to the tower itself probably 10' from the structure. I am no expert but the delay seemed reasonable and I went right after and opened much higher. I know the canopy wasn't MDV. Hope this helps
Mish

I also had bad experiences with the pre-MDV Troll openings. I found the canopy had a tendency to "Jellyfish" (term borrowed from a friend who was an early jumper of the canopy) on low airspeed openings.

My review of the unvented version is on BLiNC. The MDV's pretty much addressed all of my concerns.

hi!!
my english is not the best but i'll try!!
i have a troll MDV 225 and 140 jumps with this canopy!
the lowest jump was 55 meters (pilot on the hand) and the higher was in <edit, site naming ~TA> Italian Terminal Wall (slider up).
i have a 2 pin NEO rig(also a very good rig),
From my experience i can say that this canopy have a fast and soft opening! soft compared with ACE!!
i already try ACE and FOX. and i have no doubts that Troll is the best canopy money can buy!all the landings are more then good!!!!

be safe!!!
paula

Soft is not necessarily good.

I've put probably close to 120 jumps on my Ace... everything from terminal to go & throw... and I've never found the openings to be particularly hard.

I really think it's about what your basis for comparison.

BPS and I did a 3 way with a German jumper from the Italian terminal wall about a year and a half ago. BPS and I were both thinking "wow, my (Tom's) opening really snivelled," and the German jumper commented "we all had really hard openings!" The German and I were both jumping (pre MDV) Trolls. BPS was jumping an Ace (if I recall correctly).

I think the Troll does open soft. Slow and soft are not necessarily the same thing (nor does hard = fast always), but in the case of the pre-MDV Troll I think that the canopy was both slow and soft.

I've also never found the Ace to open particularly hard. In fact, I've found the slider up openings very soft--but that may be partly due to the fact that I'm accustomed to vented openings.

The Troll MDV is the only BASE canopy I have ever flown. So far I love it. I am 240lbs without gear and am jumping the 290.
My first 3 jumps with it were from 250 feet (PCA) into semi-crappy LZ with rocks etc. Longer than expected canopy ride, great/powerful flare.
First FF was from 550feet, 1.5 seconds. The video shows very fast pressurization and no "jelly-fishing" of the top or bottom skin. This LZ required a sink-it-in landing into big rocks on a 50+ degree slope. STELLAR!! Very gentle landing.
I have no complaints at this point with the canopy in any way!:)

My post goes little offtopic since this thread is all about MDV Trolls but since there has been some comments about standard Trolls (without MDV) I might write couple points conserning them. I'm certainly no expert on this one since I only have ~20 jumps on my non-vented Troll. However I have jumped with it full terminal delays and also taken it as down as 95m (~310 feet) handheld and have experienced none of the issues described above. I have generally been very happy with my Trolls opening characteristics and when comparing to fellow jumpers Mojos or Aces for example I have not seen any great differences on pressurisation times. Of course everything could be just beginners luck but those are my impressions on standard Troll and it's openings.

When I thought about ordering the Troll as my canopy I read Tom's review and noted his comments about the openings. I decided to ask Robert Pecnick about that issue since Robi propably has the best knowledge about Trolls apart from Stanje of course. I'll paste some comments from Robi, of course he is sponsored by Atair so take his comments as you like but these were Robi's views :

My question : "I'm slightly concerned about rumour of Troll's incosistent openings, for example Tom Aiello's article on dropzone.com says : "I personally have had very bad openings on my Troll (Atair Aerodynamics). My openings have been wildly inconsistent, and included unacceptable snivels, end cell closures, and asymmetric inflation (leading to off-heading openings)." Any comments on this issue ?"

Robi's answer : "True is that as we started to test first series of Troll ( I did that ) we had issues like jellyfish opening! This was solved simply by increasing the crossports in the ribs of the canopy"

Any comments on that ? Tom ? Could it be that the non-vented Troll you have been jumping has been one of those "first series" Trolls Robi mentioned and the opening issues have since been solved ?

Sure. I am not in the design/manufacture loop for Trolls, so I don't know about changes in the design. Mine was fairly early, though, so it could easily have been one of the earlier (smaller crossport) ones.

As I said, since the installation of the MDV, I'm quite pleased with the canopy. I think Stane is very knowledgable on canopy design.

BTW, what kind of delays have you taken with your unvented Troll? The problems seem to have gotten worse for me as the delays got shorter.

Every BASE canopy on the market gets continuously revised throughout it's lifetime, as feedback comes in from the field. Usually, the manufacturers don't publicize the changes (I'm not sure exactly why, but I'd imagine that's a marketing decision).

Bottom line: The unvented Troll that I reviewed was just that--the particular unvented Troll I reviewed. Other Trolls may behave differently (as any two Mojo's, FOXes, Flik's, etc may be different from each other). The best we can do is gather as much data as possible to generalize about canopies. In the end, being hand made and continuously developing, BASE canopies are going to be fairly unique animals.

there was 1 revision done to the troll canopy based on user feedback: the cross ports were increased in size. if someone had and early canopy the crossports were easily increased in size as a post manufacture modification.

sincerely,

daniel preston
atair <><>
www.extremefly.com

I always wondered why a 5th control line had not be offered before it was eventually released on the market. I have never jumped a canopy with this setup. How noticable are the flight and flaring characteristics compared to a standard canopy of the same design? Is the response noticably more significant? Is it "swoopier?" -Chris

My experience with a 5th control line is only on the Ace and the Black Jack, so I can only give you opinions on these two canopies.

I've found the 5th control line makes toggle input much more responsive as well as increasing the power of the canopy's flare. Since generally speaking, slower is better in BASE, these characteristics may not be desirable for some while for others it may. I bring this up because many newer jumpers in this sport may think that higher performance equals a better canopy, which is often the case in skydiving, but is not necassarily true in BASE. Hmmm...but that's another discussion, so let's get back on topic:

With the increased performance that a 5th control line brings, I've also found that it is much more sensitive to your DBS setting when opening in a slider-down environment. I've found that the same DBS setting on a canopy with a 5th control line (when compared to the same canopy with 4 upper control lines) may be too deep. When making a rear-riser correction after opening, it feels like the canopy is "falling off its line" rather than a traditional rear-riser turn. I often wonder if the canopy responds this way because more of the tail is pulled down and less air is allowed to "vent" out the back of the tail as compared to a more traditional 4-line system. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

The above is not to say that a 5th upper control line is bad, but simply that it responds differently when making a rear-riser response on a slider-down jump. For me, a slightly shallower DBS and less input during a rear-riser correction has been the answer, but keep in mind that your mileage may vary greatly since a) the depth of a DBS is highly personal for each and every one of us -and- b) one manufacturer may place the 5th control line in a different location when compared to another manufacturer -and- c) an Ace will respond differntly to a Fox Vtec as will a Troll MDV, etc. etc.

I've modified two of my Aces to a 4 upper control line set-up and am taking notes on the differences (as compared to having 5 upper control lines) but I simply don't have enough jumps to make an educated opinion at this point -- but will certainly post them here once I do.

Bryan

I've done full terminal delays (20+ seconds) and slider down low stuff (1-3 secs) and couple subterminal sliderups with my unvented Troll. So far I've been very happy with it's opening characteristics and have not noticed that it's openings or pressurisation would get worse when going for shorter delay. But as you said, you reviewed your particular unvented Troll, i'm speaking about my Troll. Two different canopies might have totally different behaviour.

What's an early canopy? I'm looking at buying a used 290 MDV from a dude in Slovenia. It was manufactured in Oct. 2004. Would it likely have the smaller crossports or had this problem already been addressed by that time? I've emailed Atair, but haven't gotten a response yet.

Almost all of my jumps nowadays are hand held from about 280ft. Will this be a suitable canopy? Would it be reasonable to expect about the same amount of canopy time as with my Mojo 260? Should I expect to be open lower becaust it's a bigger/heavier canopy, or will the MDV increase the opening speed enough to off set the weight?

It'll be fine. 2004 isn't exactly early in the life cycle of the Troll, and being in Slovenia, it's sure to have the latest modifications (since Stane is in Slovenia, too).





Yes, it'll work fine. I'd guess you'll get a touch more canopy time with the Troll than the Mojo. It is bigger, so a touch slower there, but also vented (faster) and will glide better (more canopy time).

rober from morpheus modifide my troll (increased in size on the crossport) on I think 2002,

the following is a sequence of pics from a 47m bridge.
canopy troll 290MDV.

i jump troll canopies from 265 to 305MDV.
i have jumped the new troll 305MDV evolution from 72m ff and will jump it from lower altitudes soon.

for the lower jumps with the difficult landings i use the big canopy. i have not had any issues with pressurization and anything related to big canopy and weight of it and inflation time. i performs just as well, if not better than the smaller canopies in my opinion.

luka

p.s. the las pic is just a nice one

edited for spelling. engrish no good

Thanks for the info guys.

Luka,
Are those pics of the same canopy we are talking about? Looks good.

Let me know if you get paypal sorted out. Otherwise, I can throw a check in the mail today. I'll email you my address.

That last pic is very cool. Hope to see that place in person some day.

Awesome pics. Thanks for sharing.

I got a Troll DW MDV and I can say for sure that it is the best canopy ever. I did some jumps on a Fox and on a Flik. But the Troll rocks. I wouldn't buy any other canopy than the Troll DW MDV.
Openings are totaly good (slider up and slider down), it has got great flying performance and an excellent flare.

Go for the Troll!!!

Jojo

no you can't

based on what you wrote, what you can say is:

'I got a Troll DW MDV and I can say for sure that it is a better canopy than the Fox or the Flik.'

It would still only be your opinion, though. Unless you have hard scientific data to back it up.

To even be able to voice a reasonable opinion that it is the best canopy ever, you would have had to try every other canopy ever first.




that's awesome. for you.

seems a bit closed-minded to me


don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the Troll DW MDV, by all accounts it's a great canopy, but then, so are the Flik, the Rockdragon, The Mojo, The Ace and the Blackjack.


Based on 'some jumps on a Fox and on a Flik 'and a DW MDV, you can't really make the best canopy ever judgement.

I bet there aren't even 10 BASEjumpers in the whole world right now who have enough jumps on every BASE canopy in production to be able to accurately say which is best. And then it would really be more like, which canopy is best for what kind of jump...