Double Front Riser Help

[YISkyDive 0]

Hey guys,

I've been working on my double front risers for over 50 jumps, but im finding that i am having a consicetny issue figuring out the recovery arch on my triathlong 210 loaded @ 1.1.

I sometimes find myself holding the risers long and getting into a shallow corner (with tail input its completly save-able) but im trying to learn how to have a complete recovery arch without tail input before even considering a progression.

The question is, how does one learn the recovery arch with out hititng the ground. I know the triathlon is one of the worst canopies for swooping.. but its slow and fairly safe.. so thats why i am using this.

If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free. As i said i have 50 double front jumps already, i just want to get way more consitent on point. I also have read Brian Germains book on canopy control.

Thanks for any help.

Dave.

[AggieDave 6]

  Quote

The question is, how does one learn the recovery arch with out hititng the ground.

By progressing slowly and spending a LOT of time doing solo altitude clear and pulls. On those clear and pulls use a good altimeter like a Neptune to get a decent judge on the amount of altitude used. It also gives you a good feel for the amount of time used and what it feels like.

Obviously the best thing to do would really be to get some good 1 on 1 canopy coaching from someone like Scott Miller or similarly regarded canopy coach.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[NeedToJump 0]

The only way you are going to get help with what you want is to talk to the experienced swoopers at your dropzone and have them watch you. If you've been practicing double front riser landings for over 50 jumps, you only have 100 jumps total and you're finding yourself in the corner then you really need to talk to someone who can watch you.

To add a disclaimer: I highly advise against attempting any more double front risers landings before talking to an experienced swooper / canopy coach at your dropzone. Practice all you want up high (before entering the landing pattern) but be conservative when landing. A 210 loaded at 1.1 can *easily* bite you if you're not careful. Be safe.

Wind Tunnel and Skydiving Coach http://www.ariperelman.com

[YISkyDive 0]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Yes, i have been talking to experinced swoopers, but my DZ is small with all A lisenced skydivers, except for myself and another gentleman.

I have lots of "aerodynamic" information and video of my first 35 attempts, which where actually very irresponsible on my part last year. Those were attempts to do "perfect" double front approches versus a safe margin of error. Looking back, i am unimpressed... i could have easily hurt myself on some.

But as i made 5 jumps this season i am not finding myself in the corner.. but still giving some tail input..
maybe 15% toggle input for correction, my goal is to be about +5 / + 10 feet, and coast into a flair. The thing is i cannot tell what the diffrence between 30 and 60 feet is, for a better than large extent.. i find my self looking very steepily at the ground and not the horizon.. or up more, is there some sort of a realitive degree to the horizon i should be looking for?

NOTE:i just want to express that i am expressing the utmost safety while doing these landings. I understand that even a .8 wing loading can kill.. this is why i am still on double fronts 50 jumps later, and probably for the next 50 to 75 easy, maybe even more.

I Just dont have any swoopers at my home DZ making it hard for any realiable input, and the videos i have show an obvious error of holding my front risers to long, but now i need to figure out how to fix it. I have been "high" on the latest of my attempts, but i am just trying to figure out the technique i should be looking for to be judging both alt. loss, and alt. refrence.

sorry for the novel.

dave.

[hookitt 1]

Without coaching ... trial and error is the only way. If that's what you have available, then keep up with the reading and keep up with gradual learning.

Practicing up at altitude is a grand Idea. Also as you bring it lower, you already know when you are in the corner so don't do that.

The desired affect is pulling down the fronts, letting the speed build up, easing up on the fronts and easing into the brakes in a fluid motion. The key word here is fluid.

Timing that is another story. It's not a long story though. You're at 100 jumps, you've been practicing already and that's fine. Do the clear and pulls and wring out your canopy, stall it, crank on the front risers, have some fun. Do it in clear air and do all radical maneuvres above an altitude you're willing to cutaway at.

Guessing from the wingload on your Tri, Here's what I think I'd be trying. As you set up for landing, check your outs and assure that your air is clear. When it's time for the straight in approach, wait till you're at about 100 feet. Pull down the fronts a couple inches and let the speed start to build. Some where around 25 to 30 feet ease up on the front risers and the canopy should pretty much plane out on it's own. As you near the ground, ease on the brakes.


If you let up to high just let it go, you're done with the fronts but you're up too high to flair. The canopy will plane out on it's own. then start to sink out again. Don't be fooled and hit the brakes to slow you down, let it fly until you're close enough to the ground to do a normal flare. I can't tell you that altitude, you'll have t figure it out. If you blow it, Feet knees together, brace for impact and PLF. Keep your arms in if you're going to crash, shoulders like to dislocate if you reach for the ground.

Speaking of PLF, now is a good time to go practice. You may need it.

You already know what it's like to be too low. Let go of the fronts and cram on the brakes and hope. That's the part we would like you to avoid so error on the high side and bring it lower incrimentally. The key is to be smooth.

Now that I've told you what you already know... not being a smart ass... I think you do already know what I've said. How to figure out how high you are is a challenge at first.

You say you tend to look steep at the ground and that's ok, you just need to look forward a bit more now and then and to the sides a little as you approach the ground. People are around 6 feet tall, so use them... obviously not too close to them.

Looking steep at the ground is normal. If that spot keeps getting bigger and you don't do anything about it, your body stops abrubtly and bounces of the ground.

One hundred landings is not very many. You sound like you have a decent handle on it but want to know how to do it NOW!!!... like I wanted to
The reason you haven't figured out how high you are is simply lack of enough time in the air to develop a sight picture. Another hundred jumps from now, you'll be doing some nice smooth front riser approaches as long as you keep at it gradually. You have to push it a little bit but common sense will help keep you from injury.

You're doing fine so push it a little but do it in a conservative fashion.... if that makes sense.

The Tri is certainly not a swoop machine but it's a good canopy and will surf just fine.

Hope that helps a little.

Stay safe.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[ianmdrennan 2]

Something to add:

Up high practice your turn and then flaring as hard as you can (pretend the earth is going to smash your legs). It's good to know what the canopy will do and how much you can put in.

Blues,
Ian

Performance Designs Factory Team

[YISkyDive 0]

On that note.. If one will find themselves in an impact position.. what is the proper emergency procedure?

I had it happen once, and i threw my leg infront of me and missed the earth.. but had i hit hard im sure lots of bad things could have happend.

j/w what is a good bail out position, PLF i guess? if you can get there intime

thanks

[ianmdrennan 2]

  Quote

j/w what is a good bail out position, PLF i guess? if you can get there intime

Well besides the obvious answer of not doing it, being relaxed IMO is key. Of course relaxing while flaring for your life is no easy task, but it can be done.

I honestly think the best thing you can do right now is organize a Scott Miller camp at your dz for yourself and all the other pilots. Everyone will learn a LOT. If that can't be done, go get coaching. There is ABSOLUTELY no reason to relearn the mistakes of the past IMO.

Be safe and have fun.
Ian

Performance Designs Factory Team

[AggieDave 6]

  Quote

If one will find themselves in an impact position.. what is the proper emergency procedure?

Well, I've found myself CLOSE (inches close) before.

I was feet and knees together, and FLARE, giving everything I had on the toggles. I was had just gotten around the corner enough to take the hit with my feet and legs absorbing the impact and slide to a stop...that was on the tarmac too.

If I hadn't been in the PLF position and I hadn't responded immediately to my fuckup (low turn) with a flare I wouldn't have walked away from that one.

Lets just say that lesson was driven WAY home. You don't always have to swoop and if you're low, you're low, don't try to pull off something anyways to "save a swoop." Fuckit, land straight in, pack up and try again. That's better then making a divot and getting a $6k helicopter ride.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[PhreeZone 20]

Travel. Crosskeys is less then an hour and a half from your DZ and is home to some of the best swoopers on the East Coast during the summer. The Ranch is less then an hour north of NYC, even Jeresy Shore has some good swoopers there. Get out and get coaching from someone that knows what they are doing instead of trying to do it the hard way and breaking yourself.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[YISkyDive 0]

Thought about it, but i work on my home DZ 5 days a week, so i wont have much of a chance to get out there.

I want to pay for canopy coaching but im not going to be able too until i am ready to bring turning approches into my landings (wont be for a little) and also manage to save up the moeny for transition canopy.

So i guess my options are fairly limited for this skydiving season.

Thanks for all the advice though, on all fronts, because you guys have given a good amount of information on this subject, some of which i wasnt aware of.

Thanks again

dave

[billvon 3,103]

>my goal is to be about +5 / + 10 feet, and coast into a flair.

Germain's book has a section on the 'perfect' front riser approach. (He refers to turning approaches, but it's applicable for double fronts as well.) Basically you want an approach where you have to give minimal input to plane the canopy out. You can't really make the canopy flare on its own; a typical canopy will not 'recover' to level flight, so the best you can do is start the flare near the end of the recovery when you still have additional speed but have lost most of your extra vertical speed.

[YISkyDive 0]

Billvon,
I read this as well in Germain's book.. and was rather confused, would you mind explaining this a little bit more?

I read the whole book once, and the riser approach section like 3 times but this part confuses me just a little.

Thanks.

Dave.

[raymod2 1]

  Quote

You can't really make the canopy flare on its own; a typical canopy will not 'recover' to level flight

I don't know what is the definition of a typical canopy but I used to be able to achieve level flight on my Sabre 150 with no toggle (or rear riser) input at all if I built up enough speed. The trick was getting it to happen exactly at ground level and not 10 or 20 feet up. It was easier to get slightly in the corner and help it around a little bit.

[frenchyflyer 0]

Yup, you're right, I am also able to swoop level with the ground with my Sabre2 150 (wl 1.2) with no input what-so-ever.
With a sabre2 120 loaded at 1.5 it is a bit trickier to perform at ground level but you can also make it plane out on its own (although, as you said, getting just a little bit in the corner and barely touching the rears is easier to do consistently).

This is not true with other canopies such as the Katana, Xfire2 and of course the xbraced tiny ones...

[YISkyDive 0]

Hey guys,

I went throw my videos from florida, and took some pictures of one of my better "result" attempts.

Its under the 210 tri, and you canopy guru's can cratic it.

From what i gather, on jump 68(thatone) i let go a touch late, causing a fairly large amount of tail input to get the level off.. more than should be used? So, if anyone has any suggestion, please by all means use the pictures to explain where "i should" be.. most of my older swoops are similar to that.. now im actually intentionally higher and coast to a flair.

i have the video too, its tiny. if anyone wants to host it for the purpose of cratecing it, i can do that.

thanks guys
Dave

(please constructive comments only, none of the your gonna crater stuff.. i'm really doing what i can to be safe, im just nicely asking for this not to turn into a flame thread after posting pictures of my 18th or so attempt. thanks)

[jumpwally 0]

Looks like you didn't follow thru with the flare all the way to arm extension and maybe put your feet down a bit too soon. My .02 only. I m sure a accurate critique will be by shortly,,

smile, be nice, enjoy life
FB # - 1083

[Treejumps 0]

Something I have not heard addressed is that doing a double front does not really put you into an arc from which you must recover. It is and feels very different from say a front riser 90, and will land differently. This is becasue with double fronts you are merely incresaing the angle of attack and with it, your approach speed. What you are not doing is creating a turn whereby you end up slightly behind your canopy in a shallow dive, from which you must recover from, and ulitmately end up slightly out in front of (due to either the natural recovery, or from applying brakes) and finally a flare.

With double fronts you may find an inconsistancy where somtimes you do great, and often you will feel like there is nothing there to flare with. This is because when you let off of your double fronts you could be putting yourself out in front thereby flattening your glide and ultimately eating up your flare power very quickly.

To correct for that you have to let up gently and gradually, and start your flare the same way. With the canopy you are flying you just won't get that much usable speed to land with, and the timing is quite tricky. Even a front riser 45, timed properly will give you more to work with and put you on the track to learning more about canopy flight and landing.

As always, YMMV.

Cya.

[AggieDave 6]

  Quote

doing a double front does not really put you into an arc from which you must recover

Any maneuver outside of straight and level flight has a recovery arc, including double fronts, the canopy still has a recovery arc.

The recovery arc is the time and altitude from point of maneuver to level flight again.

Then again, Scott Miller might be wrong and this is what he told our jumpers yesterday when he was doing the advanced course at my DZ, but I tend to believe Scott.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[alan 1]

Dave,
I'm a no name, my credentials are in my profile. I've evaluated canopies for Brian Germain at Big Air and George Galloway at Precision. Both deemed my reports as worthy of publication.

Each landing is going to be just a little different than all of the others, but you try for consistency through repetition and evaluation and correction.

All I have to go by is the pics with no knowledge of conditions. My guess is low or no wind.

Pic 1: Looks just fine.

Pic 2: My impression is you have let up on the front risers too early/high. That is OK, you will learn this as you evaluate/correct/re-try/ re-evaluate. Smooth and easy is the key and go slow. Make small adjustments as you delay the riser release. The riser release should be fairly slow and smooth, if you just let them go, the canopy will want to level out all on its' own right away and you will be too high. Too high is better than too low.

Pic 3: Again to high, you are fairly deep in brakes and bleeding off your lift. After releasing the fronts, a smooth but fairly fast "bump" of the brakes of only a few inches will pitch you under the canopy and level it out. Try less deep in the brakes but a faster "bump" and work it down a foot at a time. Again, better too high than too low. This is a very critical part of the process and probably the most difficult to learn. You just have to try and try again to find that "sweet spot" a little at a time.

Pic 4: This one looks like you are pretty close to a full flair and still too high to extend your legs and touch the ground. That is where you want to be during the surf. Legs should be up and you should be flying the canopy close enough to the ground so you could extend your legs and touch it if you wanted to. You do not want to be in full brakes during the surf. After you bump them and plane out, smoothly add just enough more as you go along to maintain that altitude of your bent legs just a foot or two above the ground. Conserve your energy/speed/lift.

Pic 5: This is about what you should have looked like in Pic 4 only closer to the ground! I hope that is not confusing to you. It is why you had to run out the landing. Pic 4 you were too high and too deep in the flare. Pic 5 you backed off the flare and tried to surf but most of your air speed and lift were gone, although you still had some ground speed left. Now Pic 6 comes up, meaning the ground is there now and you either didn't go back and finish the flare or there wasn't any left.

Pic 6: The end result is your feet are on the ground and the canopy is now unloaded. That means it is no longer supporting your weight. That means it wants to fly again! So now here you are with your feet on the ground, running out what airspeed your canopy had left and it wants to keep going now because you just took its' load off. Milk the surf for all it is worth and when you finish, finish all the way. You should not be in deeper brakes in Pic 4 than 5. That means you are "pumping" your brakes and that is not efficient, among other things, it disturbs the laminar airflow over your airfoil and reduces the available lift and you get nothing in return for it, you don't really lose much of your forward speed. You want to loose all or most of your forward speed
(ground speed) at about the same time you loose all or most of your lift and air speed. That should be when you put your feet on the ground. Know where (control input) and when (air speed) your canopy will stall! That means practice a few stalls up high and clear of other canopies and know that a stall occurs before your canopy collapses or "fortune cookies". You may want to review stall recovery from your first jump training. You want your feet on the ground just before the canopy stalls. You look like you are very close to that point in Pic 4, but well above the ground yet. You want Pic 6 to look more like Pic 4 in terms of your flare. This is as tough to learn as finding that sweet spot.

I hope this is useful to you, but take it for what it is. Free advice from the internet! Good luck to you and remember, smooth control inputs are a good thing. Jerky rapid movements cost you lift. Learn to be efficient with your inputs, pumping costs you lift.

alan

[Treejumps 0]

I think that is a good way to simplify it for teaching, but I'm certain that if you watched a double front approach you would a path of flight that resembles and arc, but rather straight angular flight that is steeper with double fronts. WHen you let up on double fronts there may be a very tiny short arc back to standard glide path, but it would look, and more importantly feel like you just go from one glide to another.

This is how I started to learn swooping and I rememeber it well. sometimes these landings just don't go well and there seems to be no reason why. I was explaining what I had encountered when I went through this 8 years ago because it sounded like what he was dealing with.

Scott who?

[YISkyDive 0]

Alan,
Thanks for the input.. but one thing im not sure of is my realse.. i actually think im low.. because in the video i attached (really low quality.. but should do the trick) it appears to me that i am "aggresviley" , not "smoothly" A) realsing the fronts, and B) letting the canopy level off..

but your comments very much helped, and thank you for your time in writing that post.. if you wouldnt mind just looking at the video and quickly re-evaluting.. id be much apppreciative

(right click, save target as)

Thanks again!

Dave.

[alan 1]

Dave,
Hi and low are relative terms and each of our perceptions will vary. What I may term as high may seem low to you because our experiences are different. At this point a pitfal you may encounter is to try and over analyze each jump. Try to look at the bigger picture and see trends over several jumps, bearing in mind that wind conditions and other factors may vary form jump to jump. Sometimes those variations may be small and insignificant, sometimes they will have a big impact on your perception of what is happening. An example would be the debates here on how much altitude you loose on a turn to approach in relatively high wind as opposed to no wind. Some people will argue that they have to start their turns higher on windy days because they loose more altitude in the turn because of the wind. Others will argue the opposite. The truth is, the canopy's flight is not changed by the wind, just its' track across the ground and the jumpers perception of how that affects altitude and glide path. The canopy does not feel wind, it does feel turbulence. But, enough of that, I think you see my point.

So, are you too high or too low in the video. You perceived yourself as too high. I would encourage you to try this. When a more experienced jumper offers feedback on what he or she saw, cautiously give them the benefit of the doubt and instead of debating it with them, give it a try. Trust a little bit. That means make small corrections over several jumps. Evaluate and see if their assessment was correct and helped you improve. I'm not saying that to be critical of you because your question isn't arguementative, it's cautious. That is a good thing. I'm just saying that to go out and give it a few tries is sometimes more productive than focusing too much attention on one piece of video. I hope that makes sense to you and doesn't come off as being critical.

A little story here. A few years back I was giving some coaching to a friend on freefall. I had become his mentor and was investing a great deal of time and money in helping him learn Ff skills. We hit a big hurdle at 360 center point turns while falling straight down. Nothing I did worked. I tried every teaching trick I had in my book. No matter what we said, did, tried or practiced, he always made the turn in an arc around his feet or knees. Finally after many jumps and many $$$ out of my pocket for my jump tickets, I said "I have to give up, I just don't know what else I can do to teach you this. I'm out of tricks. You will need to find some one better than me to get you past this." He then admitted that he had been saying one thing and doing another. He listened intently to my coaching, and said yes, I'll try that. Time and time again and yet the same thing over and over. He finally admitted that he wasn't trying to do what I had been telling him, that he was afraid he would hit me in the head with his feet as he made the turn the way I wanted him to, so he was doing it his way!!! He let his perceptions interfere with his trust in my abilities and had not been honest with me. That nearly ended our friendship and it did end my mentor relationship. I guess if he had been paying for all of that coaching, he would have been less inclined to be worried about the coach and placed more value on the advice. Maybe that's why people like Scott Miller are so popular and successful, they ask to be paid for their expertise and it stands to reason that their advice is better because you have to pay for it. You know the addage, You get what you pay for. That is not meant as a slam on Scott or the jumpers who make money by getting paid for their expertise. It is more of a comment on the type of jumper we now have in the sport. Things have changed. I grew up at the end of the era where the older jumpers mentored the newer ones, it was the idea of giving back to the sport because someone did the same for me.

Why the story? Well, you and many others here are correctly advised to get professional coaching. That is great if you have the $$ and are located where that is easy to do. You have it tough in that respect, and even tougher because you are at a DZ that doesn't appear to have experienced people to mentor you. You can learn by having fun, just jump as much as you can, and get as much out of those as you can. Have a plan for each jump, just something simple and easy so it doesn't detract from the rest of the fun. Learn a little at a time. Right now, what you are learning is a combination of "sight picture", the "sweet spot" of the flare, and efficient use of your control inputs. Basics. They will never fail you. Sight picture is just altitude.........being too high or too low. There are different ways to learn it. Look, use your eyes. Remember what you see, then evaluate how it came out, make adjustments, evaluate if they helped or not. Some people will use an alti as one tool to learn this. Some people will say that is dangerous. Still others will say use one but only certain ones that are very accurate. I say use the best tools available to you but always use your eyes and common sense. Error on the side of not hurting yourself or others.

For what it is worth, I have several jumps on a Tri 210 as an experienced canopy pilot, so I have some idea of how they fly and respond. Can't remember the WL, but it was probably about 1:1. It is a good canopy, you can have a lot of fun on it and learn your basics. When you move on to a different canopy, you can take the basics with you, but you will have to learn the personality of the new canopy. It will never end. There will always be new refinements and new techniques to learn and master. I'm pretty sure you were too high, but you thought it was low due to your experience and frame of reference. Thinking you were too low, you just let go of the fronts and went to brakes before the canopy had a chance to fly and recover from the fronts. Your stab at the brakes probably had the canopy close to a dynamic stall at that point and you never realized it, you eased up on the brakes because you knew it is not good to flare from there and you wanted to get a little of the surf. By then you had sunk to the ground, running, with the brakes eased up and nearly did a faceplant when the now unloaded canopy started flying gain. The old faceplant! Man, I wish I had a jump ticket now for every one of those I have done!

Again, I hope you find some of this helpful. I've been trying to stucture my replies to you in such a way that others can look at the pics and vid as well and use this as a tutorial, or supplement to their other resources. Once again, free advice over the internet, take it for what it is worth. There are many responsible people on this forum and it is well moderated. You can be pretty sure that if I was telling you anything that is blatantly dangerous out of ignorance or for some sick kind of amusement, someone would jump in and point it out. Keep posting, I don't mind helping. Mail me $50, I'll have you swooping the crap out of that Tri in just a few months.

alan

[AggieDave 6]

  Quote

I think that is a good way to simplify it for teaching, but I'm certain that if you watched a double front approach you would a path of flight that resembles and arc, but rather straight angular flight that is steeper with double fronts. WHen you let up on double fronts there may be a very tiny short arc back to standard glide path, but it would look, and more importantly feel like you just go from one glide to another.

Good point, however I would still disagree with you.

From my experience I would still state that any maneuver still has a recovery arc to return to level flight.

Are you stating that the instance you let up your double fronts you instantly return to level flight and your canopy isn't continuing in a recovery arc as it bleeds off the added speed, continuing the dive then pulling up to level flight then speeding back up and then diving to return to the canopy's natural flight level?

World class canopy coach's opinion aside, personally that's what I've seen and felt when playing with double fronts.


I would love it if you prove me wrong, then I'll have the opportunity to learn.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."