I will soon be buying a Pitts S-1S and need a parachute. Current plan is for a seat parachute. Any recommendations as to vendors, prices, styles, lessons learned, comfort, harness compatibility, etc.? Thanks so much for any help.
Printable View
I will soon be buying a Pitts S-1S and need a parachute. Current plan is for a seat parachute. Any recommendations as to vendors, prices, styles, lessons learned, comfort, harness compatibility, etc.? Thanks so much for any help.
Para-Phernalia Softie with the aerobatic harness, either directly from them or through Alan Silver. Can't go wrong with their product.
http://www.softieparachutes.com/
http://www.silverparachutes.com/
You can also try Para Gear in Chicagoland - they have a wide selection, great staff, and riggers on site. I believe they are in Skokie IL
For what its worth, all of the manufacturers are online. Strong makes a seat rig - www.strongparachutes.com. Paraphernalia makes the softie rigs - www.softieparachutes.com. National makes a seat rig www.Nationalparachute.com. You can call them up and buy direct.
The most important thing that you can do before you spend $2000 of your hard earned $$ on a new parachute rig is to borrow different ones and try them on. Preferably try them on in a friends Pitts. They all fit differently. Your body shape is not the same as mine. You want to be comfortable for all of those $$. You want the ripcord located in a place that you can see and reach. You want the chest strap, if you buy a rig with one, positioned low enough that it will not come up and break your trachea during opening shock.
If you read the fine print on the rigs, you will also see other differences that affect you if you have to use them. Softie uses a 24' parachute. Strong and National offer 26' parachutes. Bigger parachute usually means softer landings. but if you only weigh 100 lbs, they all will work for you. If you weight 250, think about it. That said, they all delivery high quality materials and sewing. You might think that you will never use your parachute but a friend just was run down while doing aerobatics and his parachute saved his life. You can read about it in this month's Sport Aerobatics.
Another factor is who will be you local parachute rigger. In the US you must get your rig repacked every 180 days. The parachute rigger is supposed to have instructions for every rig that he or she repacks. Since they are all on the internet these days, this should be no problem, but I am surprised regularly to open a rig that was repacked by a trainee at the local skydiving center and find that a Strong rig appears to have been repacked using Softie instructions or worse. So check out who will service you once you own the parachute and what they know.
I am not Allen Silver (Allen is a great guy) but I will offer that my resume includes currently owning a Pitts, holding an FAA Senior Parachute Rigger certificate, and almost 1700 parachute jumps, including some jumps using parachutes like you will likely buy - round, barely steerable parachutes. I fly with a Strong Wedge when I compete in IAC Intermediate. But I am a shorter guy and the airplane fits with that rig. The wedge reclines me a little. But if you have long legs my choice won't be yours.
Best of luck,
Wes
N78PS
I used a Strong seat pack in my Pitts S-1C. Worked great! I'm sure you'd be happy with a Strong chute.