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I put 9 jumps on a demo PD Reserve this weekend. The 7-cell F-111 reserve did not fly or land like a conventional 9-cell ZP canopy. How does a 7-cell F-111 skydiving reserve compare to a 7-cell F-111 BASE canopy?

Disclaimer: Under no circumstances do I recommend using a PD (or other) reserve canopy instead of a BASE canopy for BASE. See this thread for more info on that.


Personally, I found that the PD Reserve canoy had a shorter flare stroke than most BASE canopies, and that it responded later in the control range. Your results on that may vary, depending simply on the geometry of arm and control line length. I also found it to be much less consistent in opening characteristics, and less stable in deep brakes. It did, however, have much lower pack volume.

I understand that using any type of skydiving canopy for BASE is a bad idea. After demoing the reserve and finding out how a 7-cell F-111 is a lot different from a 9-cell ZP, I was curious as to how it compared to a BASE canopy. Even my 7-cell ZP was a lot different compared to the PD reserve.

1. Not all BASE canopies are alike like not all skydiving reserves are alike.

2. PDRs usually have a much swallower angle of incidence than the majority of BASE canopies.

3. PD used to make a BASE canopy for Vertigo called the Dragon. It was a PDR trimmed like a Lightning (much steeper angle of incidence).

4. So usually if you compare a PDR with, let's say, a Mojo of the same size, the most noticeable thing you notice in flight is the reduce glide on the Mojo, a deeper flare window in the Mojo, and faster, more consistent openings on the Mojo. What the PDR does better is the glide but BASE jumpers usually don't care if they are able to land 15' further on a 10 sec canopy ride at the expenses of crappy openings.

John LeBlanc weighed in on a previous post regarding PD reserve canopies vs BASE canopies.

Oops... Tom already linked to it.