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Recently I have undergone a back surgery. To help keep my back intact in the future I started to think of changing my WS canopy (Trango3) to something which opens a bit softer.

Can you share your experience of what canopy opens the softest (of course I know the downsides of soft openings)

I used to jump a crossfire 2 139...Thing sniveled for about 1000' before it even thought about opening. Hope this helps ;)

Does it come in 280sqft size? :)

Dacron lines are your friend And get a wing suit with monster flare

Also worth considering the harness type. Perhaps stick with type 8/17 harness builds, as they are more elastic than spectra/dyneema.

Won't be nearly as much of a factor as airspeed/canopy selection/dacron lines/etc. But hey, it's your back. Every little bit of cushion is probably worth it.

Messing around with slider style and dimensions can help a lot. Not familiar w/ trango, but I've tried 3 different sliders on my Flik, 2 stock (small hole, large hole mesh) and 1 custom. Make a massive difference.

Have to do a lot of testing unless you're opening way out in the open tho. They can get squirrely on ya with those slower/softer openings

Have you tried a fine mesh slider on your current canopy?

Fine mesh slider has made things very nice for me. Putting it on Dacron lines makes it even slower, but I'm not sure if you're willing to trade for the bulk.

You can also put a removable patch on your slider to slow it down even more--but I'm not sure how slow you're trying to get.

I have used slow slider but never mesh slider on this canopy.

Dacron lines seems like a good idea. I don't really care about the bulk :)

The VisionWS from Atair is by for the smoothest opening canopy iv jumped from multiple manufacturers. nice smooth precise openings... Its definitely my go to canopy.

Slower than a Trango 3 is hard to get.
I have a Trango 3 and I removed the stripes on the slider and put microline to get non-slow openings, changing your canopy is no the solution IMO, specially because most of the new canopies are made to have fast openings because of the low speed at opening with the wingsuits flares.
I would consider a fine mesh slider if you want to get that, and if it's not enough you can put a first square of 10cmx10cm in the middle and test again, and put a bigger one if it's still not enough and again etc....

I think the place to start is which section of your back? Did you have a cage placed?, micrdiscectomy, lamiectomy, fusion, etc...
And the location.

I've had a microdisc at L4-5 and the recovery was roughly a year (went to a high end sports surgeon) so some of their techniques are cutting edge and have proven to be very sensitive and specific to healing and recovery in orthopedic surgery.

No on the other end, if you come back and state that you have a cage from T1-T12.... that's a completely different issue. Same with a fusion.

Problems with fusions, say they fused L2-L4. Eventually over time they will be fusing the rest of your spine.

So my 14cent answer is for the most part, the canopy doesn't matter as much as your packing, folds, reffing, etc. on each jump. SD I really roll the edges at the 45 tight (7 folds). make the reduction folds tighter, add another wrap to the rubberband (just make sure you place it at the tip)

Slider UP..... Now I really get into methods to slow it down. #! and foremost is slowing down air speed. You know the rest :)

Sorry about the back. It's tough. Recovery is hard. Hopefully you had a small surgery vs. a cage. (I'd be dam near chocked if anyone had a c-t cage and is jumping)

Thanks for answer.

I had two herniated discs, between L4-L5 and L5-S1.

I anyeay want to switch to sth bigger (280-290) so at the same time I want to look for something with smooth openings and also dacron lines.

I know that flaring and other things make the world of difference. On the other hand with all other things being the same, the canopy itself will have impact.

The Atair Vision is my top choice (for pretty much all my jumps) as well. My "WS" (I've had two now) have both been standard Vision, PN-9, Spectra lines, and using the fine mesh slider has given me really nice openings.

Have you done any jumps on the Ibex.UL and could compare?

Only the original Ibex in PN-9. Not the new version. I jump my (original) Ibex fairly often, both slider up and slider down. The Vision with spectra lines and fine mesh slider definitely gives me much more consistent openings than the old Ibex (mine has Dacron lines and a fine mesh slide), which gives occasional slammers at terminal.

The Vision and Ibex are totally different animals. If you want to be fair to Squirrel's product line, you need to compare Vision to Hayduke and Ibex to Peak.

I definitely prefer my Vision to my Ibex, but that's a silly thing to compare, because one is the old version and one is the new version. I also (and equally unfairly) prefer the Hayduke to the Trango.

Thanks Tom!

Dacron lines, direct slider control, slow slider, roll the shit out of the nose. I’ve had nice soft openings slick/terminal with my hayduke and vented feathers doing this. Are you only doing wingsuit jumps? Just changing where you pitch a little during the flare can help a lot, but cause other problems as you said already.

Thanks.

With this canopy I plan on doing only WS jumps.

I also have couple trolls for tracking and OSP for low stuff, which I'll probably sell as Troll does an excellent job for SD and I'm not handhelding 50-60m objects anymore :)

I have used slow slider but never mesh slider.

Dacron lines seems like a good idea.

I always try to give a non biased opinion an go out of my way to try fly everything i can from all manufacturers. Iv only done a few jumps on the IBEX an is not a bad canopy in comparison. It feels alot like the SEVEN,but again only had a couple jumps on one awhile ago. The visionWS definitely shines brighter for what i like in a canopy, but having said that i also feel that canopy in the wrong hands or aspect is not ideal its not for the uncurrent / newbie or run of the mill punter. I think you always need to write down a list in what you want out of a canopy and its purpose.

Thanks for the answer. For this purpose I just wanted a canopy that opens slowly. As we talk about BASE canopies, all of the current ones open on-heading. As for all the other ascpects - it's like comparing a rally-race performance of a Scania truck vs Volvo truck .

I decided to go with an unvented canopy with fine mesh slider. VisionWS was a strong candidate, but with dacron lines wouldn't have fitted into my container, so I decided to take an Ibex.UL as I got a great deal.