I've made a lot of skydives so far this year; 450 and counting. Each skydive ends with me landing a parachute, so I've spent a lot of time flying parachutes this year.
Even though it's the end of the season, this is the ideal time for me to try out different designs, given how much time I've spent in the air lately. I have some idea of what I want, and I'm trending towards higher-performance elliptical models. That's a bit of a leap from what I'm flying now.
I demoed a PD Katana a few weeks ago, totaling 25 or 30 jumps on that canopy before sending it back. It was a joy to fly but the openings were not to my liking.
I'm now demoing an Icarus Crossfire 2. I've put 3 jumps on it so far. The openings are way better, it's more responsive to harness input, and I generally feel more connected to the canopy, but the controls (especially front risers) seem significantly heavier. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet.