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Zoso

End cell closure occured during braked turn

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Help me understand what happened to me recently so I can avoid it re-occuring.

For our sunset load recently, myself and 3 others did a hop-n-pop from 6500 feet. My canopy ride was long and uneventful until I did a braked turn to the left just under a 1000 feet in order to give another jumper plenty of landing area. Before I had turned 45 degrees I had the sensation one gets if he does a hard toggle turn and ends up with induced line twists. (It felt like it dove to the left for a second.) I looked up and saw that my left endcell had collapsed. I flaired the canopy 4 times before the cell re-inflated. By that time I had just enough altitude left to set up and land safely.

Pertinant info:

Sabre2 170 loaded at 1.05 to 1

Ground winds were 0 mph

Winds at 1000 feet were maybe 5 mph

Pretty sure I was flying in half brakes when I
initiated the braked turn.

No canopy problems before or after. (I have about 80 jumps on this new canopy.)

What could have caused this?
Should I have responded differently?

Thanks,
Gary

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When flying in brakes your canopy is not as pressurized as it would be in full flight. If you flew through another canopy's wake turbulance then that could be the cause of your problem. Realize though that wake turbulance will stay in the air for quite a bit longer than you may expect it to. Also the turbulance may move around with the winds, so it may not be where you are expecting it to be. AS for the response, I personally would have put the canopy back into full flight (smoothly of course) to build up a little speed and internal canopy pressurization, and then pumped the brakes to inflate the end cells. Closed end cells is more likely to happen on a lightly loaded canopy, but if you get them it's not the end of the world. If they are making the canopy un-controllable then cut away if you are high enough (above 1,000') if not then just fire your reserve and hope for the best (if you are below your cut away altitude). The best medicine for this is not to get into the situation. Try not to fly dirrectly behind another person's canopy, or their descent path down low to the ground. Turbulance near the earth makes me a little scared!!!

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Does your canopy need encouragement to get the end cells inflated on opening?

Another factor could be the type of brake turn. Did you have half brakes and then let up on one side, or continue down on one side. If you answer is the later, then it is easy to induce line twists. Particularly with a lightly loaded canopy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peace and Blue Skies!
Bonnie ==>Gravity Gear!

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Tell him girl!!!!

Another thing I just thought of is that you may not have been in coordinated flight. Here's what I mean by that. If you are not directly under the center of lift on your canopy then you are not in coordinated flight. Toggle turns are usually not coordinated turns, as you give the input to the canopy, and it turns and then you catch up to the canopy. An even easier way to think about it would be to think of keeping equal line tension on all of your lines when you are manouvering around through the sky. Toggle turns are the least coordinated turns, followed by rear riser input, then front riser turns, and harness turns being the most coordinated form of turning. Think about being smooth in everything you do under canopy. It will make you a more effecient, and coordinated pilot.

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Hmm, thats kinda weird. My sabre2 135 has never done anything like that. You had to have been jumping with people with the same descent rate as you under canopy? So like the others stated it was probably just some turbulance off another canopy. It can kind of scary if youve never felt it.

I caught some turbulance off Paul the other day under his vengence 135 when we were flying by each other. (This is Jeremy by the way B|) Ive never got endcell closure off of it though.

Talk to me more about it next time your at the dropzone.


--I don't even know enough to know that I dont know--

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Spizzzzzzarko,

Great info. I was familiar with wake turbulence but I wasn't knowledgeable about "coordinated flight" or the concept of the canopy not being as pressurized during half brakes. During this incident however, I was far away from everyone's wake.

Gravity Girl,

I may have end cell closure on 1 out of 5 openings. As for the exact type of braked turn, I believe I now remember starting in half brakes, then lowering my left toggle - which goes right along with what you said.

Jeremy,

How's it going? Yea, I remember catching some serious turbulence from someone's wake once. I don't remember specifically who or where but I distinctly remember what it felt like! See you soon.

Thanks everybody!

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Dude,

Sometimes there's just some weird shit up there. The atmoshere has way to many variables for us to understand it all. That's what makes this stuff we do interesting. We live on the ground and only get to play in the air, so we have a far better understanding of our home than our playground.

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Quote

Sometimes there's just some weird shit up there...



Guess that's why I am happy with my airlocks.:)
Even flying my Samurai backward, I can barely get it to loose any air, much less be able to get end-cell closure when recovering.

mike

Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills--You know, like nunchuk skills, bow-hunting skills, computer-hacking skills.

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Great more backwards flying stuff agian...

You know, I have never jumped an airloc canopy, but I understand the concept for them. The people that I have talked to who own the "Big Air Sprtz" canopy's seem to really like them. I guess it like jumping a racer, either you love it or you hate it, but no matter what your still a dirty nasty racer jumper:D;)

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