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I'm thinking of buying a new Flik canopy and need some advice.
My weight is 200 pounds, what size is better for me: 293 or 322, and why?

I'm not going to offer you advice on your canopy size, I'm sure someone with more experience will.
I will offer you my own personal experience and thoughts

I weigh 217lbs and have a Troll 305 MDV.
Bigger canopies weigh more and so the time from extraction to deployment may take marginally longer, which is just something that needs to be kept in mind when deciding to jump low objects.

I cant say its something I could quantify but i definatley have noticed a difference in the time it takes for my canopy to be 'flying' compared to that of others with smaller canopies....for no other reason it seems other than canopy size..
I have no time on unvented BASE canopies , but for my size and likely objects a vented canopy has to be beneficial.

Somebody I trust gave me good advice on sizing once saying ' You will almost never regret having a larger canopy, If in doubt ...go larger"

I think you also have to look at the objects you are going to be jumping....
If you are Swiss or Norwegian and doing mostly big walls, you may well want a different size canopy to that you would 'want' doing low 'A's at night with small landing areas.

I live in Moscow, and I'going to make most jumps from antennas and building that are 100-150 meters tall. I'm going to buy a vented canopy.

If you are worried about size go larger. however there are some issues with larger canopies in regards to lower jumps. spec: extraction time and pc choice. my tid bit would be go to a gym and drop some weight. but i dont know you, so you can tell me to go to hell. your not fat, just husky

The lowest jump I have done to date is a 170ft 'A' which was Static lined.
This gave 6 secs to touchdown......interestingly, all of the other jumpers had the same time......(canopy size range 220? -305)......I still dont understand that, as well as not understanding how much I enjoyed that jump that low !

Ow, I'm not fat at all (not yet )

Naa, he's not at all fat, he's just freakishly tall. You should see the amazing flare he gets out of my rock dragon, seeing how his arms are so much longer than mine!
(need to shorten steering lines in near future)

Just go large. Simple.

ian

Ian, Tom, Yuri (and other people flying big),

Do you think the riser response feedback is going to be substantially slower on a 293 vs 322 (that's almost 30 square feet of nylon, after all)?

If I remember correctly, when Yuri_base had his cliffstrike on the Flik 322, he mentioned the large size had something to do with the slow turn rate.

To what extent do you consider this characteristic (the inertia-induced slow response time) when choosing to go big?

I find my Flik 322 quite responsive to fast inputs. It does toggle-whip 180 on a dime, and riser-stalls instantly, too. It's just flying slow (although at very good glide ratio), and that's what I like about it.

The slow turn rate in my cliffstrike was caused by instinctively grabbing the risers near shoulders and not having enough range of motion.

I've noted from previous comments that some people also like to use a size smaller than normal in high winds. For penetration I'm assuming.

yeah in my expert opinion penetration is pretty important for the sport.

322

No. I own and jump a ridiculous spread of gear at the moment, and I can tell you that the riser reponse is not correlated to canopy size very closely. Within one model, there is a slight difference (slower at bigger sizes) but the difference is much greater from one canopy model to another.

If you're going larger, definitely get the Vtec (which, this month isn't going to be much of a problem, is it?) to help with inflation, for sure.

Gotta love that free Vtec deal on the Flik this month, eh? I'm trying to decide if I should break down and replace 5 or 6 of my student canopies with new Flik Vtecs, and sell off other gear at Bridge Day.

My experience has been that the Ace/BJ have the fastest (in time) riser responsiveness, and also appear to lose the most altitude during the riser correction. I hypothesize that these are related phenomenon, but I have yet to do any empirical testing, so my theories are based on subject observation, not statistical data.

For what it's worth, I say go with the 322.

I've almost never found myself wishing for less nylon over my head (not counting that dodgy alley in San Francisco where the end cells were clipping both walls), but I've frequently found myself wishing for more nylon (especially when I was looking at an out landing on broken ground).

WHat? Free VTEC on a flik... I was debating picking up another set of kit... I didn't see the special on the website... Is it a for Tom only special?

I think that is what DJ also told me last week. Some kind of deal for the month or something like that ? V-tec mod. as a freebee this month with purchase with Flik ?
Flik 293 with venting is a canopy that has treated me pretty well so far. I got 3 of there products flying at this moment and have owned 6.
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I weigh 203lbs and jump a 310 ace. The 310 is great. I do believe that the 310 ace is sized differently than the flik (when sizing; the stabilizers are included in the calculation on the ace). What is the 310 ace comparable in the flik? May be someone can verify the comparable.....
Will

It's for the month of October only, for Flik and FOX canopies. I know that Apex sent out a notification to all their dealers. I'm not sure if you have to order through a dealer to get the special or not.

Heavier jumpers are at a slight disadvantage when it comes to canopy size and wing loading. A jumper under a 200 sq. ft canopy with a wing loading of .75 will have more penetration into the wind than a jumper under a 310 sq ft canopy with the same wing loading. The drag of the bigger canopys doesn't scale with wing loading. I weight 190 lbs and jump a Black Jack 310 and a Troll DW 305 MDV normally from 250ft to 350ft. range for freefalls. In zero to light winds they are awsome, but add a 10 mph wind to the equation and I'm at a stand still. The Black Jack has more forward speed than the Troll but I'm still limited. Since I tend to jump in higher winds on slider up jumps I bought a ACE 280 which gives me that higher wing loading and a little less drag.
So my advice would be to go with the larger canopy if your jumping the low stuff in light winds.
I'm no expert. Just my 2 cents

I too fly a vented 322. My $0.02 is to go larger. Given my weight, if I would have had option to get something bigger than the 322, I would have. However, the 322 does me well. Regardless of what you size you end up with - make sure it is vented (V-TEC). I think that is a must for the big canopies if you are jumping anything remotely low on a regular basis.

As others have said in the thread - the bigger canopies do take longer to get inflated and flying and also require a bigger PC. Meaning - when your buddy jumps a 38" on his 260 you should consider a bigger PC on your 322. There's more fabric to pull off your back and the bigger PC is necessary.

jump someone else's gear and buy what you can fly.

i'm around 190 and i jump 260-280. on most jumps i still prefer my ACE 260.

if you can't land it, buy body armor.