Rock Dragon

imported_Tom Aiello · May 19th, 2004, 11:45 AM

Anyone jumped Vertigo's new canopy? Any feedback?

It looks pretty good to me. Much better for the low and tight stuff than the Dagger.

Anyone have any actual experiences to share?

Thanks!

--Tom Aiello
tbaiello@mac.com

**Skydawg** · August 19th, 2004, 10:17 PM

Bump...
Anyone?

BASE652 · September 15th, 2004, 05:23 PM

Rock Dragon Review posted today in the Technical forum.

zennie · September 15th, 2004, 09:56 PM

Originally Posted by imported_Tom Aiello

Anyone jumped Vertigo's new canopy? Any feedback?

My Rock Dragon is literally on the way as we speak, so I should be able to give at least some very tentative initial impressions next week.

Also, one aspect that I can cover that hasn't been yet will be terminal jumps. I don't have a small mesh slider (

) but I'm stubborn and will prolly still do some terminal jumps with it anyway.

One comment from 652 that I notices was that the landings were less "floaty". This really isn't too surprising to me since the Dagger has always been sort of a "swoopy" canopy. I would kind of expect it's progeny to have similar (though maybe to a lesser degree) characteristics.

In any event, I'll let y'all know. I have a 300' building, 280' A and a couple of terminal towers at my disposal. Should give me a decent idea of it's all around performance characteristics.

**Skydawg** · September 28th, 2004, 09:22 PM

Originally Posted by zennie

My Rock Dragon is literally on the way as we speak, so I should be able to give at least some very tentative initial impressions next week.

In any event, I'll let y'all know. I have a 300' building, 280' A and a couple of terminal towers at my disposal. Should give me a decent idea of it's all around performance characteristics.

Hey Zennie, Any news?

zennie · September 29th, 2004, 09:30 AM

Originally Posted by Skydawg

Hey Zennie, Any news?

I've put two jumps on it so far (yeah I know, I'm a slacker). One slider-off from 300 and another slider-up from 1650.

It's hard to really tell a whole lot because with any new rig you have to spend a little time finding a pack job that it "likes" as well get a feel for flight characteristics in general.

On the 300-footer, I took about a 1 sec delay with a 46" PC. It seemed to take a hair longer to set me up than my other rig, though I personally think that's mainly due to the fact that my other rig is a 220 and this is a 266. Opening was brisk but not super hard and was perfectly on heading.

One thing I did notice was that the canopy felt like it opened at close to a dead stop. Very reassuring. Toggle inputs were very responsive, but not "twitchy". I felt completely in control of the canopy. Had a nice solid smooth flare through the entire stroke.

On the 1650 jump, I was really bracing to get smacked, but surprisingly, it really wasn't any worse than my Ace. The canopy hunted a bit during opening and opened about 60 right. I seriously doubt this is an issue with the canopy and has more to do with me finding the right treatment of the nose for slider-ups. In this case, because I was expecting to get slammed, I rolled the outer 3 cells TIGHT and lightly exposed the center cell. So my thinking is that I may have over-tamed it a bit. Next time I'll just lightly fold the outer 3 and expose the center a bit more. I expect that will make it hunt/snivel a bit less.

I opened high (750) and played around with toggle & riser stalls. I need to play with this a bit more on some skydives, but my initial impressions were that I could easily bring the canopy to a dead halt and stall turn without feeling that scary rocking back & forth that you get on some. The canopy flies fantastic in half-brakes, making it a breeze to land it exactly where you want to.

I'll be out at the GoFast games & then Bridge Day, so I should have quite a few more jumps on it by then and be able to give a more informed opinion. But right now I give it a big thumbs up.

I'll keep ya posted.