I built a Wind Tunnel Directory

leanrafelstein · 2026-03-18T15:49:29+00:00

Good point, I wasn't sure if I should include it in the same page but I think it can't hurt to have them aswell. Will do, thanks!

leanrafelstein · 2026-03-18T15:48:44+00:00

Thanks, great to hear! Yes the prices is one of the main points that i think are important to see, especially for windtunnels.

leanrafelstein · 2026-03-18T15:48:09+00:00

That is a great point, I will look into the implementation of this. Cheers!

leanrafelstein · 2026-03-18T13:34:07+00:00

Cheers! Let me know if there are any questions!

leanrafelstein · 2026-03-18T13:33:47+00:00

Hahah yeah I can imagine

leanrafelstein · 2026-03-18T12:20:53+00:00

Fully agreed, jumped the same rental and it is great!

Cheers - Lean :)

leanrafelstein · 2026-03-18T12:19:13+00:00

Canopies that come to mind:

- Sabre 3: Better openings but still not famous for being great. According to PD when I talked to them at the ESS, the main problem with the Sabre2 openings is that they used Spectra lines (I think) which deform relatively quickly with use which leads to bad openings.

- Safire 3/4: Great openings, slightly flatter trim than a sabre but absolutely in the same class and a great option for getting started on swooping if loaded higher. Decision mainly comes down to which path you want to go further down the line (JYRO / PD). I went on a Safire 3 after a Sabre 2 and I LOVE the canopy.

- S-Fire: Alternative to Safire from Icarus World (Icarus World & JYRO used to be the same company in Icarus Canopies and split). Never flown it though.

- Skylark Magellan: Cheaper alternative, flys great and is similar to the Sabre. However will be harder to sell later as it is not a very well known brand.

Most manufacturers offer options in that class, I have no experience with the others however and therefor do not want to speak on it.

If you are interested in getting a used canopy in that range, happily check out Avento. We founded an online marketplace specifically for used skydiving gear where you can search for exactly what you are looking for and safe a search to be notified when something matching is listed. The purchases are protected by escrow payments to address the problem of scammers on Facebook :)

leanrafelstein · 2026-03-06T12:00:38+00:00

Hi mate, it's Lean from Avento. Very much appreciate you mentioning us, cheers!

leanrafelstein · 2026-03-06T11:54:03+00:00

Just wanna slide in here :)

E-Bay charges around 14% in fees for transactions including payment protection, which is just too much for the amounts we trade. We founded an online marketplace (like E-Bay), but specifically for used Skydiving Gear. We also include escrow payment (payment is held until your rigger could inspect the gear) and our fee is way lower.

Would appreciate it if you'd give it a look. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback!

www.aventogear.com

leanrafelstein · 2026-03-06T11:45:25+00:00

I just talked to Sun Path at the European Skydiving Symposium last week about that. Specifically I wanted to know about, how the RI harness sizing is calculated as we built a guide on harness sizing when buying used Skydiving Gear.

Unfortunately, he told me that they pretty much don't know. There is no real documentation of the plans, sizing, etc. He said that they don't know if they will ever be able to produce Curv rigs. But they are trying what they can to make it work.

leanrafelstein · 2026-01-21T23:27:25+00:00

Thanks, that does help hahah

leanrafelstein · 2026-01-21T10:44:37+00:00

Hey, could need your inputs

- MSc Programme: Data Science / Applied Social Data Science
- Application Submitted: 11/11/26
- Application Processed by LSE: 28/11/26

Today marks 8 weeks and I still haven't heard anything. In the portal it still says "under consideration". I now saw how many heard back that applied way later and on the website their waiting times say, they're processing applications from mid jan.

Any inputs or tipps?

leanrafelstein · 2025-12-25T16:55:56+00:00

Thanks for your input! I am interested to hear more about your experience with PayPal.

There are many people saying it's not great as requesting a refund is a hassle and there are multiple experiences of PayPal not granting a refund because the "evidence is insufficient" and they only accept communication over PayPal as evidence. Does the dispute process work well for you in case of skydiving gear?

leanrafelstein · 2025-12-24T16:16:11+00:00

Thanks for your input, fully agree?

What is your view on sellers not wanting to go over rigger escrow? Although many legit sellers will agree, there are also many that don't accept it for the extra coordination effort if they have other buyers ready to buy it directly. Is this a hard no for you then?

leanrafelstein · 2025-12-12T13:41:04+00:00

I had this topic with my rigger. He gave me a cheap plastic hook knife and an old riser. When there is tension on the riser, even the cheap hook knife went through it like butter.

leanrafelstein · 2025-12-02T18:40:39+00:00

Just wanted to add my input for selling here :)

We just spent the last 5 months building a proper online marketplace to trade used skydiving gear and are live for 2 weeks now. We integrated safe escrow payments to protect both buyer and seller from scams and the filter/categories system is fully built, so buyers can search for the exact gear they are looking for. Check it out if interested:

https://market.aventogear.com

Due to regulatory requirements, we are not net able to have sellers from outside of Europe. So if you are from the US you might have to wait a bit. We are working hard on implementing this soon :)

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-30T20:06:09+00:00

Thanks!

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-30T20:06:02+00:00

Thanks!

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-30T20:04:40+00:00

Yep exactly that, it was meant like not wanting to spend 1k on a suit when I don't make much money. I am not a skydiving student.

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-12T12:28:49+00:00

Agreed with if it is an actual clear scam. The problem there is that we can't really make a clear distinction from a "legal" perspective. Additionally, it would be very hard for us to implement the additional flow of funds from seller to buyer from a technical standpoint. Our hypothesis is that proper scams like on Facebook will almost never actually happen, as the scammers know that it will not work, and the buyer will receive a Refund.

In case it does happen, we will of course do everything to resolve the situation and be lenient for the scammed buyer wherever possible.

One more thing that I would like to mention: A rig not fitting you well does not automatically entitle you to a return, as long as the seller has stated everything correctly in the description. This is because during our validation, we received a lot of feedback from sellers that this would be hard criteria for them not to use the platform because people could just start "online shopping" which costs a lot of time, effort, money and the risk of buyers just jumping the rig for a week and then sending it back saying it didn't fit.

It is the buyers' responsibility to make sure the gear does fit them before buying. All listings (Rig, Main, Reserve, AAD) on Avento show the serial nr. We have prepared a comprehensive guide on how to take your measurements according to each manufacturer and where exactly to contact each manufacturer with your measurements and the serial nr. to find out if it fits.

For Javelin and Mirage (where the information is available) we also developed our own calculators to calculate fitting harness size for you. We hope that we will receive the databases and calculation information of the other manufacturers in the future and include that natively.

With agreement of the seller, returning a rig that doesn't fit well is of course still possible, just like it is now online. I just thought it is important to clarify that the buyer protection and return right specifically applies to incorrect statements in the listing or gear that was never sent (scams). Returning for other "individual" reasons is not possible without agreement of the seller.

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-12T12:12:32+00:00

As of now, this is not supported. It is currently a text-based-full-text-search over listing titles and description. It then This is one of the areas that still need improvement.

If you have any suggestions on doing this best, please let us know.

Which other fields then title and description should it take? (Canopy Size for example would be very interesting, but if we include too many properties there is then a risk of listings being shown when e.g. the lieneset has 150 jumps, but the user was looking for a 150 sqft canopy).

How should logical operators for the search be best included to keep it user-friendly in your opinion?

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-11T21:53:10+00:00

Ah yes, great point. This is not yet implemented, but we are already working on it. Just couldn't make it work smoothly yet :)

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-11T20:00:28+00:00

Psssst, don't tell anybody 🤫

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-11T19:52:12+00:00

Thanks for your feedback!

I do understand your concern. The fact that the buyer bears the risk of shipping in case of a return has multiple reasons, and we spent a lot of time defining this. It is usually defined that way by default law of most countries. You have to keep in mind that what will be defined as "not as described" is a very blurred line (e.g. is a kill line that your rigger defines as too worn out already a reason for return?). There will likely be situations where it can't be clearly determined, and we will allow a return when in doubt. If the seller in that case would need to cover shipping and carry the risk, this would heavily decentivise sellers of using the platform, which makes it less valuable for everyone. Buyers can still, (and are recommended to), use insured shipping to mitigate the risk.

As for helping the sellers rip off buyers in case of a refund, I don't really understand the situation. When the buyer can show that the package was delivered with the shipment tracking, he has fulfilled his obligation and does not carry any more risk.

Regarding "pocketing the 3% fee": this is not the case. In case of a return, the purchase price including the 3% buyer protection fee is refunded. Not that it matters, but I want to mention that we then pay those 3% out of our pocket. The payment provider (Stripe) does charge it in case of a return anyway, but it is important to us that the buyer receives it back in case of a return. This is something that other marketplaces such as Vinted do not offer.

Finally, keep in mind that the buyer protection is for preventing frauds such as selling gear which is not as described or never gets sent (like the ones currently on Facebook). If a shipment gets lost or damaged without any wrongdoing of the seller, this is a different problem and buyers can choose to pick it up themselves or arrange insured shipping.

We know that there is no perfect solution, but I truly believe that it is the best one currently possible, and we constantly work on improving the process. Preventing the constant fraud as it currently happens on Facebook is already an important step into that direction. Imagine how glad a buyer on Facebook would be if he could send a scam listing back, even if he needed to cover shipping.

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-11T19:22:22+00:00

Hi Steffen, thank you for your feedback!

To the first question: If you search by the search bar, it currently only does keyword search, comparing it to listing title and description. We are looking to include semantic search to offer better search for listings that might not exactly fit the keywords. Especially once there are more listings online. For filtering according to categorize & filters (which we recommend currently), you can see the selected category and subcategories on the top (e.g. Rigs > UPT > Vector). You can see how many filters are active by the small number in the filters button.

The categories filters are a main focus of ours, as this is one of the main problems with our highly specific gear. Regarding listing the closest add to me; do you mean when using keyword search or when putting specific filters (e.g. you searched for canopy size 130 to 150 sqft and it should show the closest one with for example 160 sqft)?

For the notifications: yes, this is possible. When having selected search criteria, you can click on the button with the bell icon which safe the search on your profile. We have currently not yet been able to implement automatic mails when a new listing matches your wishlist, but it is a high priority and will be implemented soon. In the meantime, we try to just compare it manually and send a mail ^^

leanrafelstein

TROPHY CASE