Canopy Landing in Colorado.

[meridianjumper 0]

I am going to be jumping in Colorado in the next couple of weeks. I live here in Mississippi and am used to landing here. It is pretty close to Sea-Level. I have heard from several people that landing in places that are high altitude, like Denver for example is different. Can anyone provide some insight as to what is different about landing in high altitude situations.

-Jeremy

Blue Skies,
Jeremy

[Sonic 0]

You'll come in faster because of the lower air density. Same reason why you fall faster at 12,000 feet than 4,000 feet.

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It's like something out of that twilighty show about that zone

[cpoxon 0]

Airspeed vs. Altitude

[skycat 0]

I moved to Denver from Houston last May so here is what I have discovered.

Right now it's in the 50s-60s, so your canopy will fly faster, and will also stall at a higher speed, I'd say it will feel like your canopy is about 2 sizes smaller. In the summertime, drop down one more size due to the density altitude being about 9,000+ ft. If you are a swooper your recovery arc will be a lot longer, and the advice you will get from the locals is wait a few jumps before you start hooking to get a feel for the change.

For me it took about 4 jumps to get the flare dialed back in, the margin for error became smaller and I could no long flare on the sloppy side.

My advice is be very conservative for several jumps and you should be ok. Also, ask for O2, don't try to be tough and go without it like the locals (we are use to this altitude) you will be exiting from ~17.5 MSL, hypoxia and alititude sickness are very bad things.

btw....Hooknswoop and I both jump down at Skydive the Rockies, if you are planning on jumping there or one of the other DZs just PM one of us and we will hook you up with one of the locals.

Kelli

Fly it like you stole it!