Spizzzarko

I'm packing my 98 VX up into a Jav NJ. It's a little tight, but if your good you can get it done. I have a RS.1 being manufactured currently and will pack up an FX104 into it. The 104 packs like a stilletto 120, and the 98 packs up like a stilletto 135 or slightly bigger.

Man there's a lot of people posting here this sunday afternoon. Is the weather as bad everywhere alse as it is here in Colorado?

Wayne, Don't think I have forgotten about your PM to me. I had a really nice "Ticklist" of swoop things to work on worked up for you but my wifes computer crashed when I hit the send button, so I'm working up the gumption to write it all again. Maybee I'll post it so everyone can look at it. Here's the red and blue lights of the canopy police flashing for ya. hahahaha I would try to find a 150 elliptical and jump it as much as you can so you can find out the differences between the two, then down size after you feel comfortable. I think distance comes more from technique than from a smaller canopy, but there is something to be said about the proper wing loading. I'm now going to go and drink some beer. Every one else have a good night.

Did you stand either of them up? By the way Bryan Stokes keeps telling me to come and swoop him while he base jumps there at Moab. It sounds like fun to me. Besides it would make for cool video. Have a nice day.

Like I have said in some earlier posts the more wing over your head creates more lift. The hard part is to get the wing going fast enough. Airflow is the major part of creating lift.

> This is the type of guy that gets under my skin – You just mention downsizing and he gets all worked up, like it’s the worst thing in the world to do. Even though we all do it, we all preach that it shouldn’t be done. There is one thing true about this that I did try to get attention with my “Downsizing keeps you sharp” quote. I knew that this would grab attention and I wanted to here several opinions on the topic of downsizing. Look man, I'm not all worked up over this. It looks like you have gotten your several opinions and the majority of them say that your logic is flawed. For the most part we don't care what you do, just don't hurt us in the process. Besides if you go in doing stupid shit then you make us all loke bad. Look at Dwain Weston.... Flying that close to the bridge could be catagorized as stupid shit. Did the Base community gain anything good out of it? NO!!! Look at Jan Davis at El Cap. Going in in front of god and country to protest that their sport should be legal in National parks. That set their cause back ten years at least... Not to pick on the base community to much. Look at the guy doing the demo into the raceway in califronia who hooked it in in front of thousands of spectators. These are decisions that these people made that adversly affect us all. I hope this doesn't "GET UNDER YOUR SKIN", but these are people with tons more experience than you, that is if your jump numbers are correct, who are all telling you that your thought process is fucked. I guess we all learn in our own way man.

My FX did some funky things on opening when it was new, but it got a lot better after a bunch of jumps and after I learned how to pack it. I do a pro pack and then when it comes to the tail I just flip it around so the top skin is laying on my chest and then I just cross the two sides of the tail. I flip it back around and then lay it down. It's kind of like: "Stop... Lay it Down... Flip it.... and... Reverse it" Missy Elliot With my VX witch only has about 35 jumps on it... I roll the tail like a stilletto. It works ok, but the vx still opens a little funky. Quite a bit faster than the FX, so I'm curious to find out how much it will settle down with more use... It fly's nice after it opens though.

This whole thing sounds like someone just trying to get attention. This dude has already made his decision to fly something probably out of his league. This shoud all be referenced when we read his sad saga of recovery in the incidents forum. So bad on me for feeding this troll.

You know what????? There's a simple way to alleviate all of this. Just fly smooth. I see a lot of people who are only flying their canopy at the point in time where they are. They never plan for what can and will happen next. You need to be one or two steps ahead of your canopy at all times. You should never be in the situation where you are to low to turn. If you are truly flying your canopy, then you can see the ever changing traffic situation. But if you are worried about stalling your canopy, then go up high and stall your canopy. Practice practice practice. Once you know how to stall that canopy then don't do it near the ground. Then you don't need to worry about it.

I have an older Flat top pro. My Air Force rig is a Vector and the high yoke on it managed to unlatch the bone in the back of the helmet once in freefall. It was a little disconcerning to feel every thing loosen up around my head. I reached back and re-latched it tough, and held on to it through out the opening just to make sure. I would have been a little miffed to loose my camera's. Another problem we had with our shop flat tops was them coming undone on opening. We had the newer flat tops, but they still didn't have the cut away system, and the latch was on the left hand side of the helmet. Bone Head still hadn't made the raised protective cover over there latch yet. We where jumping Talon's with Wide risers, and finding that the three ring would rotate up and hit the release just right causing it to open up. One helmet went in and landed about 300' from me. We managed to get the tape out of the camera and play it on another camera. It was kind of comical to see the video dude trying to reach down for the helmet as it fell away from him, then it started to spin up, and got going so fast that it lifted the tape off the heads, so we never saw what it was like to go in.

Swooping and canopy controll is a serious forum. I'm sure the people who post and read in that forum would not like to have paint ball type spam being posted in it. Besides you could put somebody's eye out with that.

I think a lot of you guys are getting wrapped around the axle about this line lengthening thing. The only real purpose of it is to make sure you do not deflect the tail of your canopy when you are giving a front riser input. You can check your canopy in full flight by looking at your brake lines and seeing if there is a slight arc in them in full flight. If they are taught at full flight then you will probably deflect the tail when you use front's. This causes an ineffecient turn. There are countless canopy's set up this way. It's not a life or death situation to have your brake lines to short. If you are going to lengthen your lines I suggest that you only do it about an inch at a time untill you find that you give no deflection in your tail when making a front riser input!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't just add 4 inches and then go up and jump your canopy and find that it wont flare all the way with out taking a wrap. That would be assinign.

I tend to like a long flare stroke. Lengthening the brake lines doesn't change the flare or the bottom end, it changes the flare point in your flare. It moves that "Sweet Spot" down. If you make them to long then you may not beable to flare the entire way. I think the sink that you are talking about is just a psycological thing. You may feel the canopy sinking because you are used to it planning out at a certian point in your flare, but you moved that point a little further down in your flare, so your mind thinks it's sinking out. With the longer brake lines you will not get a buffet when doing front riser inputs. This allows the canopy to gain more speed in the turn, and swoop farther, and as we all know it doesn't matter what you do, but how you look while you are doing it.

I would deffinatly have to aggree with Ian. I see a lot of canopy's with their control lines to short. I would recomend lengthining them so there is a slight bow in your steering lines in full flight. i know with Icarus canopy's I add about 3.5 to 4 inches to the factory steering line mark.

There are a lot of variables to take into account such as DA, wind, speed , how good you are, landing area turbulance, so on and so forth. Let's take your canopy's for example and all the variables are the same. Even at the same wing loading the 95 is going to be slightly faster. It is a smaller wing, and it has shorter lines so there is going to be less drag. In your turn to final (dare I say it??? HOOK turn) you are going to build up more speed than with the 105. Assuming all of the variables are equal. BUT it will not swoop as Far as the 105. Why? There is less surface area in the 95 wing to create lift with. Therefore it will quit flying at a higher airspeed than the 105, again assuming all of the variables are equal. 4 years ago when pond surfing was starting to get big, a lot of the guys were jumping small canopys and going really really fast. They were getting accross the pond alright, but their canopy's where shutting down really really fast too, and you were seeing distance records of 340'. As time went by canopy sizes started to get a little bigger, and people started to perfect the use of rear risers. Subsequently, the distance records began to increase dramaticly in competition. Look at Mr. Shanon Pilcher's distance record of 418'. He was flying a Velocity 103, with a 3-5 knot downwind component. When asked, the meet director Jim Slaton, said the downwind component was "neglegible". So the bottom line is, if all the variables are tha same, you WILL swoop farther with the 105, because you will have more wing above your head to create lift with so you can still fly at a slower airspeed, thus flying further. How much of a difference you will see is pretty much up to you. Each landing is different. Different winds, DA, flare, landing area turbulance, so on and so forth. Ihope this has helped you out.

I heard about that one....

I have been radared at 55 in my hook turn once, but it was a super low turn, so I was in brakes as soon as I was out of the turn. I could have gone a lot faster. SO, HOW FAST HAVE YOU GONE SPEED BOY?

Didn't that just make your day? I have been sucked into the black pond of death there at perris before. I think they got a deal from the city and filled it with sewer water, because it sure tasted like shit...

Nice... I've gone just under 320' with my VX, but that's up here in Colorado, so the canopy's shut down a little faster up here.

What's the farthest that you know you have swooped, planned out over the ground, and stood the landing up?

You can also learn a lot by filling your camel back up with beer, getting a comfortable chair, some sunglasses, and just watch every one land for a day. It gets to be pretty humurous some times. I did it this year at nationals - minus the beer.

Here's for Wayne and the invader from the north (Canuck) hahaha. I use rears to land. It gives you a significantly longer surf, but it's tricky to learn. I think every one should practice using rears to land up high. Yes you can land a canopy with a broken steering line. Give this a try... Do a front riser turn (up high of course) and then immediatley jam on the rears as if (god forbid) you have lost a toggle out of your hand or a steering line broke. Watch your pilot chute and the rear of your canopy as you apply pressure to the rears. It will stall at a very high airspeed. Although, the onset of the stall will be very smoothe. Nothing like a toggle stall. You can even hold this for awhile, and watch what the canopy does. Yes you should learn how to fly in your rears, but like I said in the earlier post, practice practice practice up high. Canuck, I do use my rears up here in Colorado, but I transfer to the toggles when I feel the rears becoming un-effecient. If you see some guy's holding the rears for a long time in the swoop and then jamming on the toggles,they went a little TO far on the rears. It only shortens their swoop. You will have to start your flare higher than you would with toggles, otherwise it will stall out, and you will go from swooping to sliding across the ground. It sucks when that happens, and it's pretty self critiquing when the entire drop zone comes out of the hangar to laugh at you, TRUST ME I KNOW!!! Wayne, The temp drops when you are closeer to the sun, because you don't have the heat radiating off the earths surface to warm you. I noticed you asked this several times in your posts, and nobody responded to you...

PART 2 of the post, Andy2, 2. You are actually mixed up. Recovery arc on smaller higher loaded canopy's is actually much larger. Let's reference the 60 and the 98 equation that I used in my last post. The 60 is going to have shorter lines than the 98. That much you got right, but it's going to have a lot less drag so it's going to lose more altitude in a dive, and it's going to go faster than the 98. It's also going to shut down at a faster airspeed than the 98. The 98 may not go quite as fast as the 60 in the dive, but it will be able to continute to fly when the 60 is about to fall out of the sky.

Ok a two part reply. 1. Riddler, Certain canopy's perform better at certain wingloadings. My VX performs best at 2.2. I'm sure your lotus performs best around 1.5. You should down load the "Wing Loading and it's Effects" off the PD websight under Education. If I were to go on a miracle diet and loose a bunch of weight over night, and then go fly a 60 VX at the same wing loading, I would not swoop as far as I would with my 98 VX. MORE WING EQUALS MORE LIFT.

Oh, by the way, what is a warp program?