It’s gotta be 7-cells, and lemme tell ya’ why. There are many different 7-cell canopies on the market, and there is something for everyone. If all you care about is openings, there’s a canopy for you; if you want great openings with a bit of performance, there’s a canopy for you; if you’re looking for the jack-of-all-trades (master of none) canopy, you’re covered; if you want a ground hungry, fully-elliptical wing, good luck bro, hope you have a good rigger for all those repacks.

This won’t be a review of these canopies, just a list. If you want more information, look through the internet. In another article, perhaps we’ll take up the subject of reviewing these canopies. Here they are:

These are all available for wingsuiting, and each canopy pilot had their own opinion. I am no different, I have an opinion as well. I fly a WinX, and I love it.

The canopy opens on heading about 90% of the time without line twists. Any line twists that I have gotten are likely due to my poor body position or having too much speed on deployment.

Too much speed on deployment can cause your body to be slung forward, feet to lines, and place uneven pressure on the legstraps and induce a body spin. Poor body position can create burbles and uneven airflow causing the bag to spin.

A 7-cell canopy is safer because they are typically more docile and more stable than a 9-cell. My WinX can get line twists, but it has stayed a level wing while I got out of the twists. (Check out our article on getting out of Line Twists).

The WinX has plenty of flare, and it’s just fun to fly. Enough of the WinX promo, and we’ll move on to other topics. Whatever canopy you choose, get a few jumps on the canopy without the wingsuit to get a feel for how it opens and how it flies.

There’s also the difference in fabric choice, wingloading, pilot chute, D-bag, container, etc. that affect the opening of your canopy, but we’ll cover those in a later article.

Do yourself a favor and get a 7-cell canopy while wingsuiting. It will save you on reserve repacks.

Keep deploying those canopies, they will deliver us safely to the ground (if it won’t, chop that shit).

Blue Skies,

WSL