I have been jumping a Raven 3 with no real issues except for some minor concerns which could be corrected by a rigger (things like no dbs) and the lack of more reenforcement on the line attach points. I was just curious of the popular opinion for going with a pure base canopy vs a modified Raven if you already have it.
i have a raven II that i purchased from george in '99.
it has 84 troublefree jumps on it.
i had a tail pocket and reinforcing patch installed by precision during the manufacturing process and later added dbs myself, (which i rarely use).
i like it a lot.
but
i use it exclusively for slider assisted deployment jumps.
i'm not certain how many sliderless deployments it would take to damage the structural integrity.
inspect your bridle attachment point often and have fun.
kleggo
I've been jumping a Raven 3 for a little over 100 jumps. Slider down openings are very consistent but I've tried some slider up jumps with it and I found it to have inconsistent openings with sniveling problems. I've also heard of these problems from a lot of other people too. Other than that, the flair and flight characteristics are great. Does anyone have any ideas for improving slider up openings on these canopies?
I also have a raven 3 with almost 100 base jumps on it. I have also had trouble with snively slider-up openings recently. I hate to say it, but being a relatively cheap skydiving reserve canopy, the ripstop material on ravens seems to wear out pretty quick. Not in terms of strength, but porosity. I haven't done a permeability test or anything, but I can tell mine is a little clapped-out.
I have however been able to increase slider-up consistency by stowing the slider a little differently. In the past, I put the middle of the slider (mesh) about 2" through a rubber band on the center c line. Now I use the same basic method, but instead of putting a bight of mesh in the rubber band, I put not only the mesh part but also the load tapes. In doing this, I take the slider load tapes and basically wrap the top of the slider into a little "pud" similarly to a stowed pilot chute w/ no handle. This provides a more solid wad of material to stow in the rubber band, and with only the nylon load tapes in contact with the rubber band, there is less friction and therefore less force to remove it.
I hope that makes sense, if not...buy a fox.
What is a slider assisted jump?
Thanx for the input! Has anyone had any bad expieriences with rubber banding the slider? Where exactly are you placing the slider in the pack job, I assume the middle but I hate to assume.
I am hardly an expert on this, not owning a Raven, but I figured I'd throw this out there.
I heard a while back that there is a difference between a "Raven" and a "Super Raven," and that for BASE, the "Raven" has the slider snivel problems, while the "Super Raven" opens much better with a slider.
Does anyone have any actual information on this, or am I just falling victim to the BASE version of an urban legend?
--Tom Aiello
tbaiello@ucdavis.edu
I spoke with someone at Precision a while back and they told me the same thing. I don't remember the date they switched to the Super Raven, but it supposedly fixed the problem. As for an easy way to check to see if you have a regular Raven or a Super, look at the end cell. If there is a "Raven" label, then you have a super raven (they only started putting the Raven labels on the Super Ravens). Hope this helps!
I do have a super raven but it still snivels. I am by no means a slider up packing expert(2 slider up jumps). What is a good method for wrapping the tail? Is it around the whole pack job or around it self? Thanx for the advice, Jeff
i know how tempting it is to jump a raven that you already have vs. a base specific canopy, but i would recommend the later. in the extreme world of base,the super raven just can't take the stress compared to a base specific canopy.the bridle attatchment is not nearly as strong as base canopies and lets face it, if your bridle seperates from the canopy, it will not be a good day.also there is no spanwise load tape which would keep me from jumping one slider down even if i did jump one slider up (which i would'nt). i'm not saying that raven's wont work, but so do skydiving rigs off the new river bridge. if you're going to do the low stuff you need the absolute strongest,most reliable stuff money can buy.remember you only have one canopy, how much is your life worth. there were two cases this year of super ravens blowing up while skydiving, resulting in fatalities.i know the parties involved were head down on deployment and they were way over loading them,BUT, i bet if the would have dumped a canopy built like a mojo, fox or a dagger, they most likely would still be alive today. to sum it up.i would crawl across ten brand new super ravens just to jump one used base specific canopy. thats just my opinion
>What is a slider assisted jump?
a jump using a slider to assist in the deployment
of a canopy, vs a no-slider jump.
stay safe
kleggo
I appritiate your input on the Raven but if you look back over the years, I've seen more Ravens out there than most other canopies(before Mojos&Foxes). It is built to be a reserve and I've got over 100 jumps on mine, almost all slider down, and it is in awsome shape. I think it depends on your standerd delay. If you always take 3-4 secs of coarse it'll blow up. I take mostly 2, maybe 3 once it a while and my canopy thanks me for it. So anyways, What does everyone do with the tail on slider up jumps? I have some experimentation to do. thanx, Jeff
A key thing to remember is that when lots of people were jumping Ravens and Units and Cruiselites and Comets, we were all doing slider up BASE jumps from high stuff (and some of us from low stuff), so the durability/structural integrity issue was not much different than when doing regular skydives.
This changed with the advent of slider-down BASE jumping as the norm (in the U.S. anyway). And even then, it used to be that if you DID do slider down/off jumps, then you went 2 seconds MAX.
That doesn't happen any more either; now people are regularly doing 3 and 4 seconds slider down/off and that absolutely requires a a reinforced canopy, especially if you do it regularly.
Which brings up another point: Ravens were principally used in the day when 20-50 BASE jumps was a LOT, and most people only did a few a year and so what if you made three or four slider-down/off loads per year and wore your canopy out after 10-15 of those... the canopy still lasted you 4 or 5 years!
Now people are doing 15 jumps in a weekend, so, like most everyone else on this thread, I recommend that if you are going to regularly do low ones, then you gotta get the gear made specifically for low ones, and that means spanwise reinforced canopies, regardless of manufacture.
As for the two fatalities, they would NOT have died on Mojos, Foxes and Daggers because those canopies don't come in 120, which is the reserve size these fu(king idiots who weighed 220-plus out the door were jumping, and it actually wasn't the material that blew up; it was the LINES that blew OFF.
.... are there any actual instances of a Raven bridle attachment point failing on a BASE jump? What about instances of Ravens blowing up on BASE jumps? And if it has happened, would a BASE specific canopy have GUARANTEED a different outcome? I started out FOJ-ing on a Raven, and I have used Furys and Cruislites and Pegs, etc. As a matter of fact, I now use Mojo and Fox canopies predominantly, but I still use a Raven III in a HUMMIT on a regular basis (grin). (No slider, and CR risers). I inspect ALL my gear EACH TIME I pack. I've never seen or experienced problems with the Raven (besides normal wear-n-tear that would be on any canopy, BASE specific or not) that I would consider attributable to the canopy because it's a skydive rather than BASE canopy. That includes bridle attachment point issues, no problems.
Use what you know, and know what you use.
Is that my nugget, or did someone already say that?
I noticed a few comments in this thread about the bridle attachment point. An interesting thing about the super raven, it has the strongest bridle attachment of any skydiving canopy I've ever seen. The loads are very well distributed through the tapes on the top skin down through the ribs to the center c-lines. Take a good look; this is definitely not your weakest link. It may be only about half as strong as the bridle att. on the Fox...but let's keep things in perspective.
My biggest fear jumping my Raven 3 is the possibility of a slider-up snivel. I don't worry about the canopy blowing up on slider-off jumps. Canopies blow up usually because there was some initial damage to begin with. For example, a torn load-bearing seam or something like that. Solution? Inspect the damn thing.
The raven is a structurally sound canopy, period. Don't pay much attention to what happens to fat skydivers with tiny reserves with microlines.
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