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So I'm looking at putting together the lightest big mountain WS rig I can and am trying to decide on what canopy, as thats the majority of the weight. Good sink characteristics are important for me as well. I'm currently looking at both the Peak and the Feather. Does anyone have much experience on both these canopies to compare sink and flare characteristics? Any other options I should be looking at?

You should also consider the Lobo, it is light and has fantastic flying qualities - probably the best of all. The only negative is that the smaller sizes (eg200) seem to suffer hard openings which need slow sliders etc to correct.

Just keep in mind that I think every company still sources their fabric from porsher. Add in the thread and binding tape which is basically standard across parachutes, and I don't think you'll really find much difference in weight from two similarly sized lightweight parachutes.

We have a database on all canopy weights and volumes that come through the shop and have found that not to be true.

There are many variables that can contribute to differences in canopy weight, even between UL models.

ZP noses, vent design, line weights, slats, seam construction, etc. All of these elements can contribute to weight differences between the same sized canopies.

The difference between the lightest and heaviest UL canopies tend to be around 2 lbs. Whether or not this is significant is subjective, I suppose.

I'd look at the flight characteristic before I stressed out about a couple pounds of weight.

I've been jumping an Ibex slider up the past three seasons, and while it's great for LB, I wouldn't want to have to put it down somewhere with a tight or with poor footing. Landing at high elevations would also start to get scary in a hurry. I've had similar experiences with both the Peak and the Se7en (which is basically the same as the Feather but built with standard weight fabric).

If you're set on those two canopies, my best advice would be to get the Feather and have someone add vents to it after-market, because that's going to be the best compromise.

If I was looking for the lightest off-the-shelf canopy that I was still happy to land at high altitudes and in bad areas, I'd probably go with a Flik II, of the options currently available.

If I was willing to add a little weight and was flying wing suits exclusively with it, I'd check out the Outlaw in PN-9, because it will give you great landing characteristics for tight approaches, and it's super slow, so the high altitude landings will be easier to handle. An ultralight OSP would be another option if you're looking at those, but I'd personally prefer the Outlaw for the lower overall speed. Landings at 9000 feet can get scary in a hurry.

Do you ever need the rig to go slider down? Or is it exclusively WS slider up? Spectra lines will save you some weight and bulk, too if it's just a SU rig.

Yes, it will be wingsuit only so spectra/vectran lines for sure. The Ibex wasn't on my radar due to the swoopy characteristics, I had heard the feather sink in fairly well on a lighter loading from a friend. The only reason I was considering a Peak was because the new LD4 UL was one of the containers I was considering so I was thinking about the package deal. I don't have any experience with the Peak which is why I was asking. I'm definitely open to other options.

I currently have a 226 and 248 OutlawLite, the 226 feels too fast at higher elevation and the 248 feels like I can put it on a dime. But my 225 OSP I can also put on a dime and is a few feet smaller. The 5 vents ad a considerable about of weight and I don't see them necessary for a wingsuit only rig although I do like the slat system.

Whatever I end up choosing I plan on demoing first.

2 lbs difference between candies of the same size, or between all the UL canopies you've tested? Anything added on to a canopy like vents or zp will make a difference of course, but 2 lbs? I'm very intrigued how much weight is being saved by seam construction as well. As it seems to be thread and fabric used in a slightly different configuration, unless you're binding all the seams or something. I'd actually love to see that chart for my own personal intrigue.!!

I now have three of these canopies (vented seven/feather) and agree it's my favorite airfoil. Factory venting is in the final stage of development, and I well placed phone call to Marty might help to avoid the aftermarket.

I'd love to see some work done with welded seams, too. Supposedly they are stronger and more durable than sewn seams.

A couple brand-neutral examples:

Brand X UL 260: 7.45 lbs.
Brand Y UL 260: 8.60 lbs.
Brand Z UL 260: 8.44 lbs.

*Non-PIA measurements are understood and taken into account here.

In this example all canopies are marketed as UL, all of them use PN-9 either entirely or in combination with ZP and/or F-111, and all of them have Dacron line kits.

The weight discrepancy is 1.15 lbs between the lightest (Brand X) and heaviest (Brand Y).

This 1.15 lbs. can be attributed to certain features (ZP noses, slats, more vents, vent configuration, etc.). To be 100% clear, I'm not knocking any of these design features. They all make meaningful changes to flight characteristics which some jumpers find to be desirable, and I believe that all jumpers should prioritize flight characteristics above weight when choosing a canopy as Tom stated above.

So we're at 1.15 lbs. and we haven't even played with the line kit. You can see here how easily 2 lbs. can add up.

I suspect that the Ibex, Feather, and Peak are the lightest UL canopies on the market due to the slider-up only line kits, and lack of the aforementioned design features.

I suspect that the Lynx and FLiK II UL are the lightest "all around" canopies on the market, with Dacron line kits. Although I don't have any data on an Ibex, Feather, or Peak with Dacron lines and aftermarket vents.

As for seam construction we don't have any data isolating this specific variable. That said, we know that our new seam construction reduces fabric and therefore weight and bulk. Exactly how much we have not measured.

Are you sure that you are comparing PIA sizes?

Yes sir. I have accounted for brands which do not follow the typical PIA measurements. Good question though, thank you!

The weight discrepancy is 1.15 pounds...

Measure of Variance, not discrepancy

Thank you sir for sharing data with us.

How would you check for wear on welded seams? And if you needed to patch something close to the seam, what would be the process for separating the fabric?

Also, is there any reason the Vision hasn't come up as a good ultralight option?

I didn't mention it because it's a very fast canopy, and I'd prefer something slower for a high altitude landing.

I am also curious why the Vision hasn't been mentioned. It is fast that's fine, but does it have poor slow handling- the Lobo is fast and swoopy yet has excellent low speed handling and the most powerful flare of all canopies- not sure why even Bluhdow hasn't mentioned the Lobo - I would like to know where its weight fits in? (has the Lynx rendered it obsolete?)

No. The low speed characteristics are, in my experience, better than every other canopy except the OSP and Outlaw.

It's also (by virtue of the slats, vents, and ZP) a higher volume/weight canopy than the "simpler" canopies like the Flik II, Feather, Peak, etc.

So basically, I didn't mention it because it didn't seem to fit the criteria laid out in the original post in this thread as well as the other options.

The Lobo and Lynx are nearly identical, but the Lynx has a more traditional open nose design which makes it more versatile.

The rolled over nose of the Lobo makes it a bit sportier, which can be nice in LB (and contributes to the powerful flare you mentioned) but for an all-around design I point people to the Lynx or FLiK II.

Lobo weight is basically the same as the Lynx, with a little extra PN-9 fabric added for the rolled over nose. Either canopy is an excellent choice for a terminal rig, and very similar in weight to the FLiK II, but I would point to the FLiK II in this instance due to high altitude landing areas and an emphasis on sink characteristics.

You can save significant weight on a container too, Nick Burden/ Blacksheep has nice, light containers (aluminum hardware instead of steel), and would be stoked for an ultralight project.

Yeah I already have my container situation sorted out. But the difference between 900 grams and 1400 grams between different manufacturers lightweight containers is smaller than the difference between their canopies as posted above.

All manufactures (Squirrel, Blacksheep, Adrenaline) except for Apex are using lightweight aluminum bucked I believe (correct me if I'm wrong on Apex). Not sure if Asylum is using them but with the merger I'm sure they can get their hands on the same stuff Squirrel's using.

No hardware is lighter than hardware if the goal is really to save as much weight as possible. Dean potters dynema rig Pete Swann made was probably the lightest thing I've ever seen by a good amount. He also had a 220 in it, and pounded in probably 1/4 of the time too, so tradeoffs.

Of course no hardware works great if you jump in the same clothes year round, but when you're in shorts in the summer and multiple layers in the winter it doesn't work as well. The main reason I care about canopy weight for this one is I'm upsizing my canopy one size to handle higher elevation landings better (my 226 is too small for that) and the bigger the canopy, the more material and longer seams, so the more noticeable the weight savings in construction will be.

Apex is not currently using aluminum hardware. Todd is concerned about the longevity of aluminum and the potential for small micro-fractures which can be difficult to detect by eye.

We are aware that aluminum is popular in other sports, but BASE is unusually hard on gear and we also expect our gear to last for a long time. For now, we're going to wait and see how some of these new (to BASE) materials hold up in the real world.

Todd can build hardware-less containers if you're interested. We cannot make them quite as adjustable as when we use hardware, but there is a way to add some adjustability into the leg straps, and not simply making it fixed to your thigh measurements.

The whole thing about the micro-fractures in aluminium gear is an urban myth that has been thoroughly debunked countless times.

One of the main benefits of aluminium in fact is that it's malleable and will deform under load (both tensille and compressive) rather than breaking or fracturing, whereas for fractures to occur the material would have to be hard and brittle, which is a phenomenom actually encountered with some steels.

Regardless, if he's got any concerns whatsoever about using any parts he'd doing the right thing about not using them.

Just a friendly word of caution about the generalization, before anyone is too quick to judge Apex for being conservative.

The "debunking" of aluminum's microfracture resilience specifically applies only to rare events. i.e. you drop your carabiner off a 50 foot cliff and it bounces off ledges all the way down. You don't do that every day, and the inherent ductility of aluminum helps it survive. One of the many assumptions of this debunking, is that the force involved doesn't ever really approach the failure point of the aluminum (which is probably 12~20ish kN, for that carabiner). The climbing community is pretty much all over this.

That's one end of the spectrum.

On the other hand, repetitive, high-load events do cause microfractures even in aluminum. A graphic video of the wings ripping off a US Forest Service C-130 fire fighting aircraft, during a routine maneuver, comes to mind. That was aluminum that failed, catastrophically. If you over-G, say, an airplane, even once, it may undergo "nondestructive inspection" i.e. get x-rayed to rule out microfractures. This is a real-world problem that my own squadron is currently dealing with, and it isn't pretty.

OK that's a little extreme compared to what a buckle on a BASE rig is subjected to. But since no one has really studied it in this sport, I think in all fairness to Apex, if they want to wait a bit and see how the parts do in real-world use before staking their quality reputation on it, that's a conservative but perfectly acceptable business practice. There might be other unrelated concerns, such as cosmetic or functional resilience, too.

"Metal never forgets"

That all being said, I personally expect we'll all be jumping aluminum buckles in 5-10 years or less.


I personally wouldn't generalize that far. Aluminum can still work-harden and microfracture, and will still break well before work-hardened (aka brittle) steel.

It has been extensively studied in the type of components and usage patterns that pertain to 'this sport'.

There's zero correlation between components used in lets say, airplane wings, which by design will be subjected to suffer stress fatigue due to constant cyclical 'bending', and the equipment used in climbing, base, etc. where those stresses are way over the design parameters and efectively irrelevant.

If you are applying 1.5 ton loads 10 times a minute for one hour to your leg straps buckles i suspect you are doing something wrong, and it would still take you a few months of doing that for any fractures to occur...

i.e. http://www.mit.edu/...Loading_Lifetime.doc

edit:clickified

Thank you for that Colm. You're far more knowledgeable than me on the topic and I appreciate your input.

Basically, yes. There will always be unknowns related to the introduction of new materials in BASE. We're not an industry that has to meet mil-spec requirements or obtain a TSO. For the most part BASE is trial and error and a most of those long-term "tests" are done by customers in the field. Pull tests and in-house R&D is one thing, but it's the unlimited number of variables that can occur in the field which really tests how well gear holds up over time. And based on the decades+ old gear that comes through our shop for new tail pocket velcro...BASE jumpers are asking their gear to work very hard for a very long time.

It's possible, maybe even likely, that we'll all use aluminum in the next 5-10 years. But until we can be 100% sure we're not willing to put our name on it. It's no secret that Apex has made errors in the past when trying to put out the lightest possible gear, and Todd is not interested in going down that road again. We're moving into UL containers with caution and trying to introduce new variables slowly.

Like all of you we're excited by the prospect of new and improved designs, and we can't wait to put our name on them once we are completely confident in their long-term performance.

The airplane discussion was not to say that airplane stresses are the same as harness stresses... I guess I failed to clarify that. The point was to dispel any misunderstanding about microfracturing being an issue or not even with aluminum, and the faulty logic that says, "that phenomenon doesn't apply to aluminum, therefore we don't need to consider that failure mode."

Speaking of "stresses way over the design parameters," the strength of the fittings we're presumably talking about is nowhere even close to the strength of, say, a carabiner. One fitting probably could not bear the equivalent force of a 4 second slider down opening shock, if it somehow had to bear the full brunt of it. So they aren't exactly "overbuilt" for this sport... just "built" for it.

Hey, when you say that aluminum fittings are probably fine to use, I'm in total agreement with you. But no... I don't think the research in climbing harnesses pertains exactly enough to BASE harnesses and BASE usage patterns, to be considered universally adequate, not if you are a gear manufacturer who is wisely balancing risks to the company's long-term reputation, against near-term demand for a new technology..

PS I did enjoy the draft paper you linked to. This in particular caught my eye:

Ha, ha. Why do i have the feeling you are arguing for the sake of arguing...?

It should be obvious from the forum's name and the post we are referring to that we are talking about harness hardware here. Last i checked we are not in aeronauticalengineer.com, so how aluminium fails when you overstress the wing of a c130 is as relevant as saying a base canopy is not strong enough to withstand terminal openings because if you hook up a 245 OSP to the space shuttle and you deploy it on re-entry it will probably not give it a nice soft on-heading opening.

As for the buckles themselves, rest assured they are overbuilt enough. The 'weakest' model from a well known manufacturer is tested for 3 minutes static pull with a 2 minute lead in, and they withstand 15kn, so even if you managed to have a 4 minute deplyoment on a 4s slider off jump while wearing only one leg strap the coroner would still have to cut your harness off to put you in the bag.

Remember it isn't the climbing/base/whatever manufacturers doing the testing for the hardware, but the hardware manufacturers themselves, and is not marketed towards a particular product. They'll do a 15kn buckle, and regardless if you put it in a climbing harness or a dungeon spanking horse that buckle has been guaranteed, tested and certified to whithstand 15kn before failure. They even sprinkle them with unicorn dust which wards them against magical paranormal microfractures. True story.


Just realised that link i posted wasn't the final report, and in between other things it was misisng the tables, so you may want have a look at the finished one http://web.mit.edu/...w/Graham_Jon_622.pdf

The carabiners that were loaded "at even these relatively load low forces", were loaded up to 8kn (a third of the rated strenght) for an average of 10939 cycles before failure.

I don't know about you, but a 10kn spanker would be enough for me to re-think my life choices, let alone doing 11000 of them...

Back to the real world, arguing about aluminium buckles is pretty pointless... What's the weight saving on them? 50/60 grams? 100? In a rig that weighs like 6 or 7 kgs? Probably more of a bling thing than weight saving to be honest

(clickified...)

I think this is the bigger picture that some jumpers might be missing in this discussion. The reality is that there's an awful lot of energy going into stripping containers down to save a couple of ounces...all the while the cell phones in our pockets are twice the size as last year. Anyone leaving those at home because of the weight?

Exactly! Kind of like maxing the aerodynamic design of a wingsuit, and then strapping on a square shaped belly mounted camera to it (optional 2-3 more on your head). Bring an extra snickers bar on a hike to replace the energy required to hike 1 lbs extra for 4 hours, and get the gear you feel most comfortable flying and safely landing.

haha wasn't trying to argue, just sticking up for Todd & Apex :)

Forget I ever mentioned airplanes. My only point is: when metal (including aluminum) is repeatedly loaded near the breaking point, it will microfracture and the rated strength is no longer valid. It doesn't matter if it's a 75 ton design, or 250 lb fatass jumper doing something stupid. I was recently told by a mfr employee that some buckles being used are rated as low as 500lbs (i.e. chest strap). Gear should be built for the worst case scenario.

The whole point of UL gear is moving away from "overbuilt" to "built enough," and I'm glad the mfrs are going about it slowly and carefully!

This is correct. The chest strap adapter that everyone is familiar with and has been standard on all types of parachute harnesses for decades has a tensile strength of 500lbs.

you should see the one Zach built for his lightweight 180

I have, both while he was building it and after. I think deans was probably even a little lighter (I'll take back my "good amount" statement) Single layer everything with two piece chest strap secured with a knot. I can't remember what weight webbing, but thinner than standard too. Not saying zacks is heavy by any stretch at all. Seeing a 6'5 guy with that rig on made it look extra silly too. I really like dyneema, but it's probably too expensive to mass produce rigs with. I made a container for my full weight vented seven out of it and it might be the lightest container I own.

You underestimate the customers :-) Build it and they will spend.