This will be my first visit to SnF, so I'm not sure if the manufacturers will offer discounts... one can only assume. This post is from a skydivers standpoint, as I spent 16yrs jumping out of planes before I decided to build one.
A quick glance at the SnF vendor list & I only see 2 chute manufacturers:
Strong Enterprises and
Para-Phernalia, Inc. I don't know anything about the latter, but Strong has been in the business for a long time. I've never bought anything from them though.
As a general note aside from SnF, its usually in your best interest to find a local dealer/rigger and buy through them (some skydiving equipment dealers deal in pilot emergency rigs also). Believe it or not, parachutes and skydiving systems (and I assume pilot emergency systems since they sometimes come from the same manufacturers) are one of the few things that I've ALWAYS been able to get cheaper from a face to face dealer than on the internet (I've bought 6... or was it 7
). There is usually a standard markdown of ~ 15-20% from the manufacturers list price, but there's always a dealer somewhere that is willing to give you another 5 (and sometimes 10%) more, especially if they know they'll be getting your rigging business also.
Not sure if it helps, but that's my 2 pennies.
Oh, another vendor I came across:
National Parachute Industries
