Spizzzarko

A little breeze helps, but sometimes there is a little sliding and running. It really depends on the pilot. I have a buddy who jumps a xaos 27 78 up here, and he loads closer to 3.0. His landings are extremely fast, and he runs his landings quite a bit, but he is a very skilled jumper. People jumping the little canopys are not the norm. People jumping cross braced canopys are not the norm either. There's probably only 10 people in the state that activley jump cross braced canopys here in Colorado.

I have about 700 jumps on a Spectre 170 with dacron lines. Yes I have been slammed by it, but I think the dacron lines are the key to even better openings, than a regular spectre. I think the dacron just takes the edge off of opening shock. Grant

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What ever works...

Spectre

I usually tell people that their canopy will act a size smaller up here. Going down to sea level the canopy acts a size bigger, when you are used to being up here. That's the easiest way to describe it.

Here in Colorado we have had DA close to 10500 at a 5500 field elevation. 10500 and no wind equals some fast landings.

Check it, http://www.skydiveaz.com/resources/book_canopy.htm That is all.

What a lot of you may not realize, is that your DZ's Density altitude may be changing 1000+ feet a day. No two jumps are the same. Are you done with your trip yet GQ? Weather here sucks.

I got to put one jump on a katana 120 at rantoul this year. I found it to be a pretty cool canopy. It seemed to me to be rather similar to my Velo. It opened nice, but It lost a lot of altitude in a dive, just like a velo. You had to work it a little to get back froma really long spot, but not as much as a velo. I don't think the katana should ever be taken lightly, because it can get you killed just as fast as a CB canopy if not faster. If I ever felt I wasn't staying current enough for a CB canopy I wouldn't buy a katana, because I think it needs just as much attention while flying it as a CB canopy does. I hope this helps anyone out on their canopy selection. The Katana was a really cool canopy (from the one jump I put on it), but don't take it lightly. I also got to put a jump on a CF 2 129 the other weekend. That was a neat little canopy too. It didn't dive as much as the Velo, or the Katana, but I was able to keep it in a dive (low riser pressure) for a really long time. I felt it had a great glide, and it opened really slow.

I asked John Leblanc about this very issue about a year ago. The way he explained it to me is as follows. Air doesn't just flow from front to back of the wing. Air will flow from the center to the wingtips, too. This air rotating from the bottom of the wing to the top of the wing creates the vorticy. The addition of stabilizers on canopys really reduces this flow from the bottom to the top over the wingtips. It is these vorticees that allow for the increased lift in the "Ground Effect". As we slow down these vorticees are reduced quite a bit more. The speed required for the vorticees to create the added lift is usually only to be had on the smaller canopys. These smaller canopys have a smaller span, therefore they would have to be going at a very high airspeed very low to the ground (IE the pilot would have to be under the earth witch usually slows your swoop down quite a bit) for these vorticees to have effect on a skydiving wing. As far as the new JSX having no stabilizers, I don't know how that would effect the flight of the canopy. I would think that the reduced drag of not having the stabilizers would probably have more of an effect on the swoop than "Ground Effect" would ever have, but this is only speculation on my part about the JSX, as I havn't seen one fly or land. Things tend to get to Colorado about 5 years later than they hit the mainstream skydiving industry. Dual piggyback harnes systems are just now becoming popular here, but there are still a few die hards who will not give up their chest reserves!!! hahahahaha

Ian, I rarely wear weight because I'm a fat kid. I also thought of the performance gains of a few pounds of weight (IE less than 10 LBS) in RW was fairly mental. Although 10 lbs can be a rather different story under canopy. I did wear 8 lbs the other day on a camera jump, videoing another fat kid, and it plus camera gear plus tha giant sandwhich I had for lunch really made a difference in how the VELo performed. I would really recommend wearing weight instead of buying another canopy. Good point.

Who the hell do you think you are, and what's your problem man? What have I done to you to deserve your snobish response? I don't see your name in green.

Dude Give TWNSNDS 104 FX a try. It's a good CB canopy. It opens awesome, and has a lot of lift. are you going to be out there On Sunday? If so I will see you there at your DZ on Sunday. As far as the loading goes, well a lot of people thought they had to load the CB canopy's up quite a bunch to get good performance out of them, but now a days people are thinking that you really start to lose performance after 2.0 to 2.2. I feel really comfortable in that range at this altitude, but if you go down to 1.8-1.9 at this altitude you really aren't losing that much either. As far loading goes, I would get the biggest canopy you can and wear weight to bring you up to a certain loading! I jumped a CF2 129 last weekend. It was a pretty neat litlle canopy. It was slow compared to the velo, but you can get a lot of range with it. It was a pretty cool little canopy. I would like to try a smaller one some time, but the 129 was pretty cool. I hope to see you up there on Sunday, I think I'm going to work on Lazyboys!

Suck it up and take it like a man. You fucked up. End of story, stop bitching because you got paperwork over it. If your man enough to do the crime then be man enough to face up to the retaliation.

I have found the velocity to be the most complicated canopy I have ever flown! You really have to work at everything to get the canopy to perform. If you are not going to give 110% devotion to this canopy on every jump, then this is not a good canopy for you. There is no "I'm just going to slack off on this jump" with this canopy. Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome performer, but you can put yourself in a hurting really quickly with this canopy. I have flown almost all of the CB canopy's out there, but I think the velocity requires the most experience and attention to detail. So if you truly have three hundred jumps then this canopy is not for you, no matter what you wingload it at. Ahh yes, the question was about wingloading, and not his profile, but it never hurts to throw in a little cautionary note. I doubt you would let someone you know who has 300 jumps jump a Velocity.

I have had a lot of good experience with Icarus customer service. I have bought 3 canopys from them in the past.

Personaly I jump a velocity 103. I used to jump an FX 104. I alos recomend a spectre 170 with dacron lines. That was my military canopy when I was in, and it never opened hard. Dacron may not be the cool thing right now, but it will save your neck over time. I alos jump at 5-6000' msl so openings are usualy a little faster up here. In my opinion the Velocity is a Very complex canopy, so if you are not a canopy pro you probably shouldn't jump one.

Ususally video is performed by the cadre of the military teams AF and Army for the two ways. If that is not possible then ground to air video is used. 4-way video is filmed by the teams own video guy or by a military cadre. Sometimes they use the local camera flyers in a pool. Style is filmed in ground to air.

Thank you.

You are comparing apples to oranges when comparing the pilot to the manta. The pilot it going to react a lot quicker to input than the manta will. So flaring a little low will give you the result that you experienced. You are absolutly correct about the practice flares. Someone once told me to hop and pop at altitude, and just do flares, and to feel the point of lift that will only sustain your suspended weight. That point of lift can be a constant but your hand position is not a constant. I didn't really realise what that person was saying untill I did many of these jumps and then it clicked. It means only flare as much as you need to to produce the amount of lift to maintain an altitude.

DZ's may be called progressive by doing this, but it doesn't change the facts that, ZP canopys are faster than that of F-111, and in my experience, students need to be afforded every opportunity to survive the jump. Putting them out on faster canopy's is not doing the student justice.

A hybrid canopy has a ZP top skin. And yes more speed = more lift, but do we need people with low jump numbers going faster, when they can't land slowly? Chachi F-111 still has it's place in this sport. You are saying that you would put students out on Big Sabres. First of all ZP has a tendance of opening a little slower than F-111. I don't need a student cutting away from a Snivel thinking that its a streamer. Second. Look at the cost of ZP canopy's over F-111 canopy's. ZP costs more. I'm sure your DZo would find a way to delegate that cost on to you. Third. ZP is faster than F-111 canopy's, so you are saying that you would extend the first jump course even longer and adding more clutter into the students head for them to think about when they are putting their life on the line (in their own minds), and they are spun up on adrenaline! How much do you actually recall from your first jump? Fourthly Big f-111 canopys usually have milder stall characteristics than those of ZP canopy's (the SAbres). How many times have you seen students flare high? How many times have you seen students turn themselves into line twists by yanking and banking on the togles? I had a friend die because he cranked himself into line twists down low earlier this year? What kind of notoriety will your DZ get when you start to kill students, just because you didn't "like" f-111 canopy's. Do you see where I'm heading with this?

This is a reply to all of you: Those of you who are telling this person that she should goto a ZP canopy are out of your minds!!! She can't land what's she's got so let speed it up for her, and see how she deals with that! What the hell are you people thinking? True F-111 with 900 jumps does not land like new f-111. F-111 tends to start losing performance in the flare after 20 to 30 jumps, but a properly sized F-111 canopy even with 900 jumps should still have enough flare for her to have a decent landing. If anything maybee she should upsize!!!

When did you get the flames? It looks good, but it would look better with Stars!