freeflyguy

sheesh. here it is, I think

Hah. Thanks. But just so you know who you are getting your advice from, I attached a picture, of one of my less successful swoops last spring. Barry is in the foreground, demonstrating the versitility of a samuarai as a floatation device. That is me in the back. I was so proud of myself for making it through the flags, I kind of forgot about the rest of the landing. oops. "Pull your strings" "Fun is when stupid goes good, Tragedy is when stupid goes bad." james here it is

I'm reluctant to give specific advice to a specific person, because it is hard to say, without seeing them fly. But generally. I think it was the Icarus website, talkin about the vx, the guy was saying that a lighter loaded canopy or one that doesn't dive as much, will have to be (gulp) hooked lower, because the recovery arc is so quick. It sounds like you may be coming out of your turn a bit soon. If you are going to double front risers. That is a safe way to go. I have never jumped a cobalt, but was under the impression they dive pretty well. At your wing loading, I wouldn't expect it too though. I don't much care for a quick release of a riser. I like slow carves, and slow transitions. What you might try, ONLY if you are as consistant coming out of the corner at the height you say is. Set up a bit lower, but instead of having to go to both fronts, do your turn with the one riser(90 only, for now). As you come around let it up about half way or so. Keep letting it up slowly until you are ready to go to the toggles. The idea is to carry the speed from the one riser, until you need to flair. As you come onto heading, finishing the 90, you will have almost none, or no front riser pulled down and the canopy will be starting to plane on it's own. If it isn't, then this is bad advice. Please constantly access whatever you are doing, and if you need to change, do it quick. Again, this is something to access for your situation, and your wing loading. If it where much higher wing loading, it would start to carry the dive more. Also, if you are not consistant in the height you come out, the amount of turn you do, and Where you stop. You should work on those first. It is no accident that Andy Ferrington, and his sister Kerri where world champions on accuracy canopies, long before they got good at swooping. Swooping is so much about accuracy. Learn that first, and build on it. j

Good advice. It doesn't have to be a quick violent move. You can just pull your arms in, legs straight for a second, move your head the way you want to go, it will start to turn, then go big and wide with your legs, and leave your arms in. Relax don't bend your legs, and look at the horizon. I like two ways for learning head down. If you can find somebody that is relatively good, get him to do this. Shuttle cock you. That is you both launch. You fly with your arms and legs, You don't hold him. He will hold your jumpsuit, or harness, if you are comfortable with that, high grips. He can compensate for speed difference, so you don't roll over. Before the jump. He is going to tell you he will push or pull you in one of three places, With a free hand. Chest, stomach/hips, thighs. If he pushes, push that area in, if he pulls, push that area out. If it completely goes to crap, and he can't adjust you, that is ok too, because he should be able to tell you why. Most common is arching. Or de-arching too much, or... There is so much that has to be lined up on your head. It is real hard solo to figure that out. But solo, the one big indicator is look at the horizon. Do this on 2 way or bigger too, but it is the one thing you can see with your eyes. Oh, and practice, lots of it. j

I thought I might reply to that last picture Ann sent. It has some good stuff to learn. First the guy in the back, with the multi color jumpsuit, He is doing great. You can tell he has more experience. Pretty square in the body, lower legs pointing straight down. His arms are back a bit, and maybe his torso, but that is likely only to drive forward, to either dock, or catch the other guy, who may have a bit of a backslide. Looks good. The guy in the foreground, blue and white gives you some good info too. You see, arms back, bent slightly forward, and lower legs back. Although he is only a little less than 90 at the torso and thigh. He is probably falling straight down, or a little backslide. Look at what he might change. First, his lower legs. Notice how they are bent back more than the guy in front of him. Those legs will cause a bit of backslide, but mostly, since they are below his hanging point, will cause him to rock forward. That is why he can have almost 90 degrees on his torso, and thigh, but that "L" shape is rocked forward. That also tells you, if you are on your back, pull your legs up to your butt, and it will help rock you foward, similar to the Indian thing somebody else mentioned. Normally, his legs should be pointed straight down, or parallel to the guy across from him. Then his torso. His arms are back to compensate for bending a bit foward. If he moved his head and back backwards a bit, his arms would automatically come forward. That and move his legs apart a bit, and he is good. Lots of stuff to think about. That is why a coach jump is nice. Someone can see what you are doing. Paying for them is for the birds though. j

Ya, but mostly for learning. You seem to be beyond the initial stage. I think maybe I could have said it better if I said, "never less than 90". You are right. If you push it out, that is the way to vary your speed. But to learn it is easier to put a solid number, or position in your mind.. It is easier with less variables, or things to think about adjusting. Look at Ann's pictures on the first page of this post. You can see she is forward, arms back, and less than the 90. She may be falling straight down, but it is because of all the compensation she is doing for leaning forward. (I don't mean to pick on you Ann :) ) When I was learning to fly on my head, I spent many a jump in a sit/stand. That is, I would get blown off my head, then just go to a stand, to try and keep up with the others on the jump. That is a valuable skill. If you keep everything else the same, raise your arms straight up. They catch a lot of wind too. I am not sure how well that works in a sit. But if you are allready in a stand and need more speed. That works. yep yep yep. j

Nice post Canuck I'll add this. He is right in that it is not all relax. In a sit anyway. On your head is different. A very important 'angle' ,to learn with, is make sure that regardless, you keep 90 degrees between your thighs and back. A lot of the reason people put their arms back is because they are leaning forward. Look at pictures of people with arms back. They will almost always be leaning forward. If you lean forward, you drive backwards, putting your arms back stops that. So it is bad habit. If you are square in the back and thighs, you will have a better chance of falling straight down. Then push arms back to go a little forward, and forward to drive back. As you get better, you can use your torso to do the same thing. It is tough to teach. But I remember when I was learning. I would keep that rigid 90 degree. If I went on to my back, I would pull my calves and feet up to my butt. That seemed to help rock me back forward, then start pushing feet back down. If you are a slow faller, you would start pushing your thighs down, to make a greater angle on your torso and thighs. You can fly that anywhere up to a stand. Keep your torso verticle though, because you will drive in the direction opposite of where you are leaning. Tear it up! j

Hey, maybe it is kind of like a speedstar, but the base just keeps running away. Instead of waiting for people to arrive. I don't know.

We call it a Flocking dive.

The best is rear risers to plane out and surf, then the last part of your landing go to the toggles. No, Never release the toggles. I'll tell you why this is Very dangerous though. If your a pilot, you will understand Angle of Attack. That is the angle the relative wind is hitting the wing (parachute). A wing will stall at any speed, even very high speed, if that angle of attack becomes greater than what the wing is designed to fly at. When you land with the rear risers, you are only changeing the angle of attack of the wing. If you are too deep in the corner and give it too much rear riser, the parachute stalls, and you keep going down. The only way to recover is get the wing flying again, that is let up on the rears. That will likely not be a pleasant option. You crash. All you can really do is dump the rears and stab with the toggles, but it will probably be to late anyway. We have a video of a guy doing this. The canopy was starting to plane out, then it just quit flying, although fully inflated, and he just biffed into the water. His shoe almost hit the camera man. Funny, but only because it was over water... Planeing out with a toggle is different. Again if you are a pilot, you know about the Chord of the wing. The greater the Chord, if you can put it like that, the greater the lift. It is a line between the leading edge and the trailing edge. When you pull down the rear of the canopy (with the toggles) you increase the chord. This results in greater lift, which will swing you forward and start lifting you back up. It is much harder to high speed stall with toggles. With the rear riser flair, you don't increase the chord, only change the angle of attack. With the toggles, you don't change angle of attack, much, just increase chord, and lift.

On the higher loaded canoies, a harness turn will cause a very fast rate turn. I opened at 9k on that Xaos Friday and just played with some things.. (it is loaded at 2.1). A pure harness turn with no riser input will gradually increase speed until you are smoking. If I took it to 360 degrees, it would lose about 750 feet, and by the end have good speed. Not as much as a riser turn though. I have seen Andy do a pure harness turn on a canopy loaded at around 2.9 and it results in a fast turn and swoop. I think the advantage of a harness turn is it does not mis-shape the canopy, like a front riser. But it is not as easy to fine tune as having both risers in your hands. The speed gain is limited too. After a 360 on mine, the pressure builds so much, it won't really keep getting faster. You can only apply so much pressure with your harness. Try it. The lower the wing loading, the less you will get, but just about any canopy will get some harness turn.

Looks like somebody has a subscription to Mens Health

I don't mean that you would bail at 90. That would put you heading the wrong way. I mean that if you Plan on doing a 270, but due to traffic, or whatever you realize before you start your turn, you are low, instead of trying to whip a quick right hand 270, you make the decision to do a left hand 90. It puts you landing at the same place, but gives you a bit of altitude to work with. The fewer variables you change in a situation, like landing site, the better off you are. It is kind of my system of checks before I commit to the turn. I have seen, and done myself, earlier on, people that plan on a 270, 180 or whatever, and don't change that plan when they and everyone else knows they shouldn't be doing that. It can happen when you have a stack of people at the pond that you end up low. I agree, you should be able to land, crosswind, down wind, whatever. Even if you have to slide it out on your butt. But not all landing sites will allow you to land in any direction. Our pond for one. We have trees on one side. We only have so many places that are acceptable for a safe landing. But, like I say, this is my plan. I think it is most important to have some plan that will allow you choices. Whatever works, just have a plan.

You might check out my comments on the post a week or so ago with the title 'XAOS-21'. I did the same thing you are talking about, to about the same wing loading. Chuck has some good advice above. The big thing I would tell you, is like he said, don't go ripping a big turn looking for a great surf for a while. Give yourself plenty of altitude to bail if you have too. Plus, make sure you know where the thing is going to stop. If you do a practice turn higher than normal, but at your normal turn point, you may end up in the parking lot, or, specifically, in somebody's windshield. :) This is a different subject, but I don't much care for 180's. I feel they don't give you many outs, because you have to commit to turning a 180 to get back to your landing area. At least with a 270, if you know you accidently set up low, just do a nice 90, and you can still land nice, with useful info. But, like I said, I am new to the XAOS, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I'm not Alan, but my 2 cents. It seems people often get caught up in trying to "Read The Manual" to learn to fly a canopy. That may help, but getting lots of practice and "feeling" what it is doing can go a long way in learning a new canopy. It seems some may say the Safire is bad, just because it is different than what they are used too. When I first jumped the XAOS part of Andy's advice was "Fly it like a parachute". The might sound over simple, but what he was saying is feel what it needs to do, don't just listen to set of rules that says 'it dives this much', or 'turns this quick'. He also said more specific things too, but he knows where I am at, skill level wise and such. He also said, "Fly it like a human". That means, 'Don't be stupid'. Translation 101.

What is talked about in the icarus bulletin explains it really well. As far as pulling it behind your head. If it is above your head, it will likely restrict the spread of the risers. If it is below your head, and the chest strap is loosened, you can actually feel the path from the lines, through the risers to your hips. If I don't pull it down, like when I can't because of having to release the brakes early, I don't like the ride, if feels less stable, and a bit more wobbley. More like you are hanging from the parachute than sitting in the harness. That in addtion to affecting the lift and all of those other flight characteristics that are hard to feel, but easier for some technition to measure. Once you get used to it, you won't like to fly with the slider up.

Well guys. I like my safire. What I can say about it is that the flare is just fine. I do see so many people that don't finish their flare. That means, yes, get deep in the brakes. Keep going into the brakes until the canopy stops. It may be different than a sabre, but that is all. My safire loaded at 1.5 can surf across the moon, and still stop without having to run it out much. Check out the picture I attached, you can see I am not that deep in the brakes, and the canopy had a lot left in it before it stopped. Granted, a safire may be different, but not everybody wants apples all the time, an orange is good too. Opens nice, turns nice, flys smooth, and I think they are a great canopy. Have fun.

Hmm. I haven't completely explored it yet, but I have been jumping the XAOS-21 100 lately. I have a 98 on order. It will be here in a couple of weeks. My first cross brace, but I will tell you what I know, so far. I have jumped a lot of stilletos with the heaviest loading on that a 120 at about 1.9. My impression, is that a stilleto is a little more flighty than even a XAOS loaded at 2.1. On a stilleto at that wing loading, it seems if you have bad line twists, you get a reserve ride. I haven't spun up a stilleto, But I did spin up the XAOS twice. The first time I saw it coming, gulped and kicked the wrong way, during deployment into another twist. It opened, and began flying straight, much to my surprise. So I kicked out of it and off I flew. The other twist, I saw it coming on deployment, waited, and it just spun out of the twist on it;s own the last bit of deployment. Overall, I think they are even more stable than a stilletto. As far as a velocity. I have jumped the 111 a couple times. It seems to dance around a bit more on opening. And really doesn't "seem" to be loaded a lot lighter than the XAOS 100. The other thing about the XAOS openings is, you don't want to hop n pop from 2000. Or at least I don't. It seems to have consistant, long opening. Nice, but a bit unnerving at first. As far as landing it. I finally got one perfect swoop the other day. Nice carving 270 starting at about 7 or 800 feet. The thing just keeps on going. I was a bit on the high end of the place to turn. But I like the dive, it gives time to set up for the landing. I could feel the g's loading real heavy in the harness, before I gave it input to plane it out. Then just a small bump on the toggles, and start the landing. Holy Smokes. Most of my other turns have been very conservative, coming out of the dive before I had too. With that in mind a straight in landing is no big deal. Just flare it all the way out, slide 20 feet or so, run 10 and you're done. It will go forever though. You must be able to judge where you will end up, or you will hit something. My thoughts, but like I said, I am new to a crossbrace so I can't tell you everything about them. I am very careful, and talk about almost every landing with some of the incredible canopy pilots we have here at Kapowsin. Skymonkey knows who I am talking about. Be Careful, but overall, it seems to be a nice canopy that I will have fun on for a long time.

Wow, that IS sad. He explains here he is a pimp. He Sells flesh. But what is so very sad about that is that even though he has a stable of people like us to sell, they won't even give it up to him for free. He STILL has to pay for it. That must have one big ugly/dumb stick that clubbed him.

I have to weigh in for Infinity too. My choice.Great price, great people builiding them, the reserve pilot chute is almost strong enough to hit the ceiling if you deploy laying on the floor, and the rig just dosn't do anything wrong, at any attitude you may find youself in at freefall. Super comfy under canopy too. I jump where they are built, so many people here use them. So, beyond being a bit bias, I can verify everything I said above is true. Besides, if something where to go wrong with mine, or yours, I can walk upstairs and have Kelly or Mikey fix it. They are cool.

Besides all that the above have said, Sabre 2 or Safire can't help but surf better than a lower performance main. I friend of mine went from a trialthlon to a little heavier loaded safire. He was amazed how, "It just keeps going", on his landing sequence. So, ya, technique is supper imortant, but the canopy will make a trmendous difference too.

"You should know EXACTLY where you are.. " I wish I lived in a perfect world too, but then I guess I wouldn't even need the reserve. "What's the difference between a hop&pop and a 10,000ft freefall?" About 7500 Feet. No, the difference is, In a hop n'pop, here, we self spot, and always get out with a large landing area directly underneath. Freefall is different in that we often get out with large forest or pond underneath, and deploy over same. If I was fool enough to play with a mal til 1200 feet, I might end up lunching on a fir tree. So I make the call Before I get out of the plane each time. It is easy to say, 'Pitch at 3k or so, play with a mal for no more than 5 seconds, then go for handles'. I wouldn't waste time looking at an altimeter under a bad mal. As far as spotting, I completely agree with DiverDriver on the post on spotting. Our Otter pilot never does us wrong. He has the GPS and knows current winds at four altitudes. I have seen more people land out (or cause others to land out) from not trusting the jump light, then I have ever seen from the pilot give us a bad spot. That is our pilot though, on our dropzone.

Me? Mine? I don't want to get flamed, but it all depends. We do a lot of hop n pops here. Some lower than what others call their 'decision altitude'.Basically it is the same as yours, but a bit lower. I chopped a baglock this summer and was under a reserve at 2500. There was no need to mess around anymore. If, I am under a basically level flight line twist, and I know for sure that I am over a good landing area, I would play with it down to 12-1400. But that would only be after a hopnpop, where I knew exactly where I was. After a full altitude freefall, it would be 16 to 1800

Hey Head Honcho. I just tried to update my profile. You don't mention the xaos as a canopy. Not that the world is ending or anything, but... Thanks for the site. j

Hey, cool new poll! My question is, looking at the results, What is your definition of 'Decision Altitude'? Your's may not be what the pollster had in mind. If not, it is time to think about it.