blewaway5 0 #1 January 24, 2003 I'll be real brief here. Does anyone know of it's possible to deploy a parasail canopy like one would a normal ram-air canopy? I just got a curious moment and now I have to know. Truman Sparks for President Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
markbaur 0 #2 January 24, 2003 With or without the boat? Mark Edit: Sorry. I was thinking parasail = towed parachute; paraglider = soaring parachute. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohanW 0 #3 January 24, 2003 A normal parasail canopy wouldn't survive opening shock. Some French company is developing something along the lines you're describing though. They claim to have solved opening a very large aspect ratio canopy in freefall somehow.Johan. I am. I think. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gus 1 #4 January 24, 2003 The company is Nervures, I don't think it's strictly a paragliding canopy though (more of a hybrid), although they claim a glide ratio of 7:1 which is pretty imressive. GusOutpatientsOnline.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 643 #5 January 24, 2003 Para-Flite is marketing a military HAHO canopy that looks like a para-glider. A few other manufacturers are probably selling similar canopies to military special forces types, but their customers are usually the quiet sort of guys who will knife you in the throat before you even know they exist and they prefer to preserve that advantage. There are two technical limitations on deploying high aspect ratio para-glider type canopies at high airspeeds. First of all, most para-gliding canopies do not have enough reinforcing tapes to survive opening shick. Secondly, it is difficult to get the end cells to inflate simultaneously. If one side of the canopy inflates significantly earlier, then it will fly just like a Spinetto on a bad day! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 3,109 #6 January 24, 2003 >Does anyone know of it's possible to deploy a parasail canopy like > one would a normal ram-air canopy? Parasail canopies are round canopies towed by a boat. Do you mean paragliders? Paragliders aren't much different than ram-airs but are not set up to be able to deploy in freefall. They have no reefing system and are not manufactured to the same strengths as skydiving gear, so the canopy would probably explode if you tried to deploy it. They can't take sliders either since their profile generally prohibits a slider from working correctly. Christian Wherfritz did some work on building paragliders out of ZP and altering their profiles to allow a slider to function correctly. Not sure what came of that. PD also used to build paragliders; it would be interesting to see what they came up with. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
blewaway5 0 #7 January 24, 2003 Yep, I meant paragliders, my mistake. Anyhow, thanks for clearing that up a bit or me everyone. Truman Sparks for President Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
