breadhead

Post the video?

Had a Cypres like that a few years ago. The following little experiment was interesting. Get another Cypres, one that you know you can switch off. Then switch them both off simultaneously, using one hand for the first Cypres, and your other hand for the other Cypres. Press both buttons simultaneously, use the LED on the correctly-functioning Cypres for timing. This allowed me to switch it off. You'll still need to send the unit to Airtec ...

This sounds very amateurish for a multi-million-dollar project. Are they doing this on purpose?!?

I've tried that a few years ago. It didn't work very well. The problem remained and it led to a malfunction. Tell your friend to be safe and buy a new rig.

Check the amount of slack in the stabilizers, I've had the same problem.

Note that tracking in the Tracking Derby is downwind (often? always?). Very true. True tracking is about max horizontal distance in a limited vertical distance.

http://www.canopypiloting.com/2005%20Freestyle%20rules.pdf When you're ready, you will know. Be careful. Really.

Yes he did, it's on CNN now!

And keep us informed of his replies!

Oh, come on guys, this Walkmonauti thread is really funny, but what "somebody" did to Wikipedia is a bridge too far.

Priceless! From your profile, your disciplines of choice is freeflying. Vector II is not a good choice for freeflying. IIRC, a reserve canopy expires after 20 years.

Wingload requires 6 significant digits.

Cessna 206 versus F14 Tomcat?

AFF

Any pulley system that reduces the pull force with a factor of 2, multiplies the distance you need to pull with the same factor. Considering the length of human arms, it would be impossible to cover the entire spectrum between full flight and deep brakes. Your flare and your landing would suffer from such a modification.

Very interesting idea! Caveat: it would be difficult to do this per event (speed/distance/accuracy), as each event only has 3 rounds. Dropping the worst score in a 3-round-event would be strange. However, for the overall results, over all 9 rounds, I find the idea very appealing. It would be nice to run a few what-if scenario's on previous competition results to see how it would affect the final results. Edited to add: I tried it on competition results I happen to have in Excel. I turns out the impact of the proposed rule change is minimal. Also, it punishes those competitors that score consistently (as could be expected).

Oh, BTW, the guy in 2nd place right now ("Sabine-Eindhoven", don't ask) is our jump-pilot while flying the Cessna Caravan.

I have one computer on which it loads with Firefox, but not with IE. And on my other computer it loads with IE, but not with Firefox. Weird indeed.

Thanks! It's helping!!

Taking myself as a reference (6'1" and 172lbs), and plugging into the equations above, the kid should have a natural fall-rate which is 12mph less than mine. At least in theory that is Should be possible to fly together, especially if you wear a freefly suit, and the kid doesn't. Let me know how it went!

Considering the others are doing the same thing for crappy photo's of a guy on the toilet or in a restaurant? Unethical would be if one of those silly photo's would win.

Hi all, skydiver Marcel is having some trouble keeping his first place in a local photo contest. Let us stick together, and help the guy! It's a great photo, and very cool publicity for the sport. Go to http://www.woktogo.nl/actie/ and click on "Marcel" on the right. Then click on "Marcel" again. At the bottom of the dialog-window that appears, enter a score of 5 stars. Next, a window will appear asking for your name, address, etc. Just fill in 'x' in every field, no need to enter all your personal information. Finally, click the orange button with the text "STEM". Now, repeat that for the other whuffo-pictures, but enter a score of 1 star, instead of 5 stars. Help a skydiver win this whuffo-contest! Yes, he promised a few cases of beer if he wins. Oh, it is possible to vote more than once if you change your IP address. Like vote once at home and once at work or reset the modem/router. Thanks for helping out, Mike --- PS: Moderators, feel free to move this post to another forum if more appropriate.

No practical experience here. However, from a purely theoretical point-of-view: fallrate is proportional with the square root of mass divided by surface area (that is: sqrt(m/S)). Surface area can be estimated as being proportional to the square of the height of the kid. So fallrate is proportional to sqrt(m)/h From your own fallrate, mass and height you can determine the unknown factor. Plug in the kid's mass & height, and there you go! If you can't do the math yourself, give me the kid's weight&height, and I'll plug it into the equation for you. If the kid weighs half your weight and is half your height, his fallrate will be 70% of yours. So if you are doing 120mph naturally, you'll need to do 85mph to fly with the kid. Would be nice to see afterwards how well the prediction fits the reality.

Totally true. I'm not arguing that body position influences canopy flight. I'm arguing that it does so in both upwind and downwind conditions. The drag for a given body position is exactly the same if the canopy is flying upwind or downwind. A balled up small body makes your canopy fly better. Both upwind and downwind. Some claim that in upwind conditions you should ball up, and in downwind conditions you should make yourself big open and flat. Not true. For optimal performance, you should ball up in all conditions, regardless of wind direction. Otherwise swoopers would benefit from wearing a big wide freefly suit for downwind swooping. Not!

Actually, it is. Paragliders have had this covered for years already. Look for "polar curve". I don't know why this concept isn't used in skydiving. Our canopies have much more impressive polar curves than paragliders. A polar curve plotting fronts, rears and toggles will predict what controls to use in what wind conditions. But also in a strong tail wind you should do so! This is a very common myth. Regardless of whether we are flying upwind or downwind, the airspeed (as felt by our body and canopy) is the same. Tucking up to lower wind resistance is totally a good idea, but not only in the case of strong head winds, also in the case of strong tail winds.