Stowed toggles...all the way.

[Zoter 0]

Just been doing some reading on some pretty basic canopy control and a thought came into my head....granted its probably very stupid....but its there in my head !!

How many ( if any people) fly their canopies with no input from the control lines....ie brakes stowed....all the way
I'm not talking about highly loaded canopies or high performance canopies, just my big ass docile 9 cell...but just using riser turns....and flare using rears only....no toggles.

Would this be a 'bad ' thing to do for a few jumps....to get very used to flying canopies on risers.

Of course there is the whole issue of having toggles to get away from potential collisons or bail you out for landing.....so I'm talking a series of conservative jumps...away from the 'usual' crowded landing areas.

Anybody doing this/does this...??
Or is this just really dumb ???

[ianmdrennan 2]

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How many ( if any people) fly their canopies with no input from the control lines....ie brakes stowed

If your brakes are stowed you're getting input from your control lines until you unstow them.

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but just using riser turns....and flare using rears only....no toggles.

Trying to land a canopy with the brakes stowed on rear risers? Whatever for?

To accomplish what you're looking for, simply unstow your brakes (like normal), keep them in your hands and fly around on rear risers as long as you wish.

That'll get you used to flying around on risers.

Blues,
Ian

Performance Designs Factory Team

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

I have absolutely flown and landed larger squares in that manner, both seven and nine cell. I have flown and landed one with the brakes stowed till landing and I have flown unstowed and landed unstowed as well when a control line failed.

chuck

[ianmdrennan 2]

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I have flown unstowed and landed unstowed

Unstowed I get (brake line failure) but why with your brakes stowed? Toggle hang up?

Blues,
Ian

Performance Designs Factory Team

[Zoter 0]

Ok ....I hear what ya sayin.....have the brakes unstowed ....just in case ! but fly on the risers....all the way down.
Do people do this at all....not as a learning tool.....but as a preferred method of flying the canopy?
Also....granted ...a very critical time for this setup is the landing...
If attempting a rear riser landing and overcooking it......could you practically be bailed out by having the toggles in your hand...? would you ahve enough time /or would any toggle input make any difference to the outcome?
(assuming a straight in landing where the rears have stalled out the canopy at a nominal flare height)

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

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I have flown unstowed and landed unstowed

Unstowed I get (brake line failure) but why with your brakes stowed? Toggle hang up?

Blues,
Ian

Both toggles jammed on a demo rig that I did not pack. No biggie, it was a SharpChuter I.

[Brains 2]

Chuck and Ian are far more experienced than i but i will give it a shot and if i am wrong, then by all means listen to them not me.

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Do people do this at all....not as a learning tool.....but as a preferred method of flying the canopy?

Not that i know of but it is a good learning tool that i still use.

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Also....granted ...a very critical time for this setup is the landing...
If attempting a rear riser landing and overcooking it......could you practically be bailed out by having the toggles in your hand...?

Personally, i never take the toggles out of my hands and i like to land with rears. I have missed a rear riser on the switch from fronts and i was damn glad i had my toggles to bail out with.

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would you ahve enough time /or would any toggle input make any difference to the outcome?

Yes see above.

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(assuming a straight in landing where the rears have stalled out the canopy at a nominal flare height)

I don't believe anything short of a good PLF will save you if you stall your canopy at flare ht, regardless if you are using toggles or risers to do it.

Never look down on someone, unless they are going down on you.

[Zoter 0]

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I have missed a rear riser on the switch from fronts and i was damn glad i had my toggles to bail out with.

I didnt think about that...prob because I let go of my fronts a while before its critical to flare.......very good point though in this threads context.

[marks 0]

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Ok ....I hear what ya sayin.....have the brakes unstowed ....just in case ! but fly on the risers....all the way down.
Do people do this at all....not as a learning tool.....but as a preferred method of flying the canopy?
Also....granted ...a very critical time for this setup is the landing...
If attempting a rear riser landing and overcooking it......could you practically be bailed out by having the toggles in your hand...? would you ahve enough time /or would any toggle input make any difference to the outcome?
(assuming a straight in landing where the rears have stalled out the canopy at a nominal flare height)

by all means yo can land just about any canopy with the rear risers. but before trying it you need to know your stall point for the toggles and also the stall point for the rear risers.

when you stall a canopy with the rear risers your airspeed is going to be faster than when you do it with your toggles, and a rear riser stall is going to be more abrupt and sneak up on you, so before ever trying to land with your rears you should find this point and how the canopy acts before during and after the stall... do this up high.. like 2000 ft or higher... there is a slight chance in creating a malfunction when stalling a canopy, small chance but it is there....

[Zoter 0]

Is it good practice....high above a hard deck...to actually 'stall' the canopy.....??
I mean of course I have practiced to just above the stall point.....but is it a good idea to actually push it to a complete stall......on rears....prior to attempting rear riser landings??
Any benefit?
Or is a 'close to stall' attempt sufficient

[Spizzzarko 0]

yes

[marks 0]

well i will be honest with ya, i HATE stalling my canopy. it scares the hell out of me.. some peeps think it is fun... i dont like it, but i do know exactly where my stall point is and i do know what my canopy does when i stall it. i know this because ive tried it. doesnt mean i have to do it every day. actually i probably will never do it again with this canopy. but thats me. ive done it i know how it acts, and im not doing it again..lol...

the feeling of flying backwards and the canopy folding back up is not a feeling i like too much..

[Spizzzarko 0]

I agree with you, but I strongly feel that people need to know what it will take for their canopy to depart controlled flight. The rear riser stall is very smooth in the onset, and there is no reason to continue to keep your canopy in this configuration. The reason for stall practice is to know when the canopy will depart controlled flight, in all conditions. Another good reason for stall practice is to learn stall recovery. You and I know that dumping your controll inputs when you are stalled, is not a smart thing to do, but others out there may not (by the way a smooth and slow release of your controll inputs is the proper method for stall recovery).

[Brains 2]

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You and I know that dumping your controll inputs when you are stalled, is not a smart thing to do, but others out there may not (by the way a smooth and slow release of your controll inputs is the proper method for stall recovery).

VERY good point. We had a newbie learn that a couple weeks ago. They heard someone talking about finding the stall points and decided to try it without asking about it first. They feel about the way Marks does now.

Never look down on someone, unless they are going down on you.

[Zoter 0]

Spizzarko.....have you had any adverse events in your elective canopy stalls and their recoveries??
In terms of stall recovery.....is'letting go' of input really a bad thing.....what can you expect from a docile canopy 'letting go' as opposed to a smooth release of control inputs...

(edited to make sense !!)

[Spizzzarko 0]

Ya, that stuff kind of sucks when it spins up after a stall, and having slack lines is not cool.

[Spizzzarko 0]

Just letting go is actually a pretty bad thing. This will cause the canopy to violenly surge forward, and it may not do so in an even matter. This can cause line twists. Self induced line twists are not a cool thing. I had a friend kill himself one year ago today by cutting away from self induced line twists at a low altitude. He probably would still be skyjumping if he only flew smoothly, and didn't get himself in that situation. Another thing that can happen is slack lines. Slack lines are never a good thing, as you are not in controll of the canopy with any of your lines slack. Also slack lines can cause malfunctions.

I have stalled a pd 300 for several hundred feet, and trust me it doesn't really want to stall straight. It want's to spinnaround. To fly it on heading in the stall requires a lot of work. A lot more work than not continueing to stall it. The spectre 170 is the same way. The more you fly in the stall the more chances you are taking. If you are going to do this stuff do it up hi. I hope this helped you out.

[marks 0]

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I have stalled a pd 300 for several hundred feet, and trust me it doesn't really want to stall straight. It want's to spinnaround. To fly it on heading in the stall requires a lot of work. A lot more work than not continueing to stall it.

shit. on a hot humid day in georgia that might be the only way i could loose altitude, instead of gaining, under a wing that big..

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[Zoter 0]

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I hope this helped you out.

It did...you have....
High....yes, high...try, I will
(In the style of Yoda )

[Spizzzarko 0]

I did that when I was in the military, and they got all pissed off, because they thought it was a streamer, that a jumper wasn't dealing with. I held it for quite awhile. They got pretty ansy!

[marks 0]

lol..

[jakee 1,569]

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Spizzarko.....have you had any adverse events in your elective canopy stalls and their recoveries??
In terms of stall recovery.....is'letting go' of input really a bad thing.....what can you expect from a docile canopy 'letting go' as opposed to a smooth release of control inputs...

Well, I'm not going to give you anything like the info that these guy's can (duh) but here's a little story of mine.

Round about 100 jumps or so, flying sabre 190 loaded at 0.85 (docile enough?), had recently been doing a few hop n pops playing about with the stall on toggles and rears. I was sitting on the ground thinking well, its a docile canopy, whats the worst that could happen?
So I went up, stalled it just until the trailing edge was folded and then let up, all the way. Fucking hell!

For a moment I seriously believed I was about to fall into the canopy, then I was being bashed from side to side as the lines on either side would go slack and then taught, slack then taught, and finally ended up with two full twists.
By far the most radical thing that has ever happened to me under canopy.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[davelepka 4]

Just a couple things. Flying with both toggles stowed would only be a factor if BOTH toggle hung up upon release. It can happen, but it's far more common for only one toggle to hang up, at which point you have a another scenario to deal with.

With only one toggle, your canopy will need constant input to fly straight. Landing would be tricky, as you would have to flare with one toggle, and the other riser, or just keep it flying straight, and land with no flare (and a PLF). You could also cut it away and land your reserve. The correct chopice will depend on the situation, the pilot, and the canopy.

If both toggles were stuck, you could fly and land with rear riser input only, however, with the brakes stowed, your full flight (as in no jumper input to the canopy) will be slower than normal. This will equal less available lift with which to flare. So yes, you will start off goig slower, but you'll be less able to slow down further, and will land faster than usual (that speed may be vertical or horizontal).

Additionally, it has been said that the rear riser will have a higher stall speed than the toggles, which is true. The rear risers also have a much shorter control range than the toggles. Both of these factors will be amplified if the approach is flown with the brakes stowed.

[Zep 0]

A note to all.

I think it needs to be said, that for whatever reason you've decide to keep the toggles
stowed and land with rear risers, when your are comming in an low on final approach, Do not bottle out
an change to toggles, unless you are the worlds best plf'er

Gone fishing

[Zoter 0]

I did x2 Landings at the weekend just using the rear risers.
(Toggles were unstowed and there if I needed them.....but I didnt)
I initially did some 3K + rear riser 'stall's ' without incident.....on my canopy the stall point is considerably deep .....but stall it completely I did , which resulted in what can only be described as a 'backwards surge' and alot of canopy movement and noise.
Controlled release of the risers facilitated uniform reinflation without incident ( twists/slack lines)
On the rear riser landings ...
The canopy initially 'planed out' alot faster than I am used to with a toggle flare, but was 'flared' without too much bother.
I did notice on the second landing that 'wings level' control on the rear riser flare during a gust of wind took alot more control than with toggles .
'twas an interesting exercise that I would like to explore more....
By the way....I stood up both the landings
As I am currently getting my jumps for free...filming 4 way....I might concentrate on this and other aspects of canopy control....
Maybe even start downsizing ....

On another note I tried some deep front riser turns (at about 3K) and pulled the front riser rapide link down to well below the level of my chest strap...
All I really experienced was a noted increase in vertical descent but no appreciable 'diving turn'........
This was tried on into wind and downwind runs.
I'm still thinking about how that works.....
Opinions...appreciated