Basejumper.com - archive

Just wondering what people think of the Seven?

I've heard really good things about it, but would like to know what people think of it slider down / off and also the lack of vents on it too?

Different people will have different opinions.

My opinions:

Glide is very good.

Flare is extremely strong and snappy (a lot more like a skydiving canopy than a typical BASE canopy).

Pressurization is atrocious.



I think it's a great canopy for slider up jumps or slider down jumps from bridges (or antennas in good tailwinds). I would not be willing to jump one off a solid, slider down object.

Id be willing to bet Ive got more jumps on sevens and feathers (same airfoil) than most people around (over 800) and here are my overall impressions, trying to be as unbiased as possible as I have a good friendship with marty.

The seven in my opinion is a newer canopy in line with the ace, designed to be good for a lot of different tasks. I agree completely with tom that the canopy flies and flares great. It really is more of a skydiving feel to it, and glides really well despite being trimmed with slightly faster forward speed than the majority of base canopies.

The pressurization is definitely not as good as a vented canopy, but I completely disagree with it not being a "solid object canopy". The thing you will notice most is that on shorter delays, it takes the nose longer to finish pressurizing than other canopies. The canopy is controlable and flying before the nose finishes completely pressurizing on videos, and I usually have my toggles out and am turning before the end cell nose completely unfurls. Ive found that the ZP optioned models have less of this problem, and do finish pressurization quicker. That being said, I have freefallen sevens from under 200 feet, and static lined from 150. Until I vented my original seven recently, I still static lined it routinely from 170 even with close to 500 jumps on it.

I recently had vents installed on my seven which you can see in action in another thread. I definitely do notice a dramatic change in pressurization time on this canopy which as I said before has seen quite a bit of use. The flare and the turning seems to be unaffected. Im testing its subterminal slider down performance later tonight.

In summary, I recommend the seven if you plan on most of your jumps being between 300-10,000 feet off of all object types. If you plan on most of them being in the lower end of this spectrum, consider the ZP option. If most of your interest lies below 300 feet, then vents might be a better option. I have a ZP blackjack and I absolutely love that for ultra low stuff.

How would you folks compare the Seven against the RockDragon?

All these starving comedians and this guy shows up with jokes!

i can imagine it almost being as good as the dagger

So you are saying it's just like a dagger, but with better glide and better flare?

J/K I love my dagger :)

(But it has scared the shit out of people watching me, and I am too ignorant to know better)

_Much_ better glide and flare. But basically, yes.

I have a Seven and comparing in slow motion to my friend's vented Troll in the same jumps it does take just a tiny bit longer to fully pressurize. However, this difference is way under a second. In normal speed videos you can't even notice.

With respect to control of the canopy I can't say cause I don't have experience with other canopies