cobaltdan

"A good landing consists of smoothly and appropriately transitioning from having the toggles all the way up to all the way down." you do not necessarily want to bring the toggles "all the way down". -dan

the following is a repost from the safety forum under the thread: balance & canopy control exercises......if you find it helpful go back and read the whole thread. sincerely, dan atair "i would like to explain a simple concept for canopy control as i think it would benefit some learning jumpers: on student gear most people are taught a 2 stage flare, when you transition to your first slightly smaller 9 cell zpo sport canopy, you may not have good luck with what you have been taught. flaring is not something you gauge with the position of your hands ! instead understand that you are suspended under your canopy, a weight on a string somewhat like a pendulum. you can tell what you are doing by > feel

this has been the subject of debate for a while. many people believe that sewn corners cause problems for wing suit tracking deployments, others i.e. relative workshop believe sewn corners actually help. who is right i dont know, there are logical arguments to be made either way. the only way this is going to get settled i believe is to do some special video experiments. towards that end we have a miniature camera. its about the size of your finger tip. we currently use it to film the inside of our parachutes during flight and deployment. the plan is to mount it to the reserve flap and film tracking deployments. video should tell all. we are scheduling a series of test jumps late next week. this is not first priority but i will try to get the footage in. sincerely, dan atair

please do not compare the cobalt to the stilletto. the two have little in common beyond 9 cells. sincerely, dan atair

co - steering, putting your weight on your inboard hip during a riser turn (i.e. left riser turn, weight on left hip in harness), will cause your recovery arc to be quick and short. counter - steering, putting your weight on your outboard hip during a riser turn will make for a longer carve. the path your turn takes will be different as well, tighter for co broader for counter.. i normally hold my riser during my carve steady and moderate my weight shift to govern where i want to come out of the arc. sincerely, dan

a competition cobalt vs a standard cobalt is faster. both canopies share the same airfoil and planform, but the comp cobalt has spanwise braces on the nose. this significantly reduces the inlet drag of the canopy and reduces spanwise airfoil distortion on the foward portion of the wing to that of a full crossbraced canopy, (but without the stereotypical negative traits). increased speed, increased lift, increased rigidity, sweet high speed safe, on heading, multistage openings, increased dive but still self recovering, overall for a pro pilot simply more of what you love about the standard cobalt. you can find more info @ www.extremefly.com sincerely, dan atair

skyflyers also require more skill and concentration to fly than a gti. if you simply want to have fun and not stress too much the gti might be a better choice. and besides when you do a flock dive you almost always have to fly 'dirty'. (speeds are always higher than on solo's) sincerely, dan

i started on a skyflyer and that i probably wouldn't recommend. but between the classic and the gti it is not a big difference, i think you made a good choice. sincerely, dan

robert uses this technique on base jump exits. he has been able to go about 70 seconds off arco ! hevent tried or heard of others trying that position it at speed hmm.... something new to try this weekend -dan

hi jg, i am also going to recommend that you consider the 150. at 130 jumps you are still basically a begineer. as a general guideline for a cobalt that would put you in a recommended wingloading below 1.4 given that most of your current experience is on a 170 spectra, i think the 150 cobalt would be the right choice for you over the 135. sincerely, dan atair www.extremefly.com

in our opinion overlapping stitching is not preferable to removing the seam and re-stitching. first: when a seam is removed and then replaced our seamstress' incredibly, take care to re-sew the seam through the original needle marks(we use fabric pullers). if you inspect a re-done seam you will not be able to tell the difference. next: even if a second set of holes were put in the material. the needle spacing is such that both methods re-seam or overlap seam exhibit equal strength, this is not about one vs the other breaking. the difference is with a re-seam we can maintain much higher tollerances. putting in an overlapping seam creates an area with different tension on the fabric. you can visually see this as the material is pulled in causing wrinkles between the stitches. if your goal is perfection, you do not overlap sew, as it makes it impossible to have uniform tension across the canopy's seams. canopies are flexible membrane structures. the inflated shape is directly influenced by construction method in addition to design. random overlaped seams impose change in the tension pattern of the canopy. this changes slightly the inflated shape of the canopy. this is the basis for a series of filed patents by atair. we control the tension pattern on our canopies by design and specific construction. on some canopy designs you migh not notice the difference caused by minor variances in seam tensions but on modern canopy designs it is increasingly more important, to insure consistent opening characteristics, and high aerodynamic efficiency. my partners, insane attention to construction detail is a major reason why we have been able to push atair canopies designs so far. who would have thought that a 9 cell could be ranked 2nd in distance after a year competeing against all x-braced, or that 9 cell designs could prove efficient enough to be reduced to 65' with loadings approach ing 4-1.... as far as laser cutters vs. hotknife patterns: atair is the proud owner of a brandnew laser cutting table. however we do not use the laser table to cut production work. the machine is used to cut prototypes and production patterns. hot knifed patterns are equally accurate to laser cut material, in fact we can hold higher tollerences as far as cuting exactly on the grain. when cutting one rib at at time a cutter exactly places the pattern on the grain before cutting. when laser cutting material all your parts are nested to plot out on to as large a piece oif fabric as will fit on your table typically 6' * 100'. it is not practical to lay a 100' long swath of fabric on your laser cutting table and be able to ensure that if you cut a straight line down the table it will fall exactly on your fabric grain line. sincerely, dan atair -one quick indication of construction quality is to inspect your tail tape seam. look if it is uniform and lies flat or if it is strongly wrinkled between the stitching.

i havent read all the replies (29) and am running out the door to go jumping. i just wanted to post a quick note as i think this post has gone off heading. my views on mcdonalds is that they are the most successful food chain in history. why? excellent business strategy: the majority put their needs in the following order of importance: low price, fast delivery, consistancy, quality, design. i am an engineer first, a businessman second, and have always prided myself as not being part of the majority, so to speak. as such i adopt the less successful, but more personally rewarding for me, strategy of placing our order of importance reversed from the above. sincerely, -dan

hi mark, the demo sent to you was not sent by atair, but by eg sky technologies. funny, we offered to directly ship you one immediately with no risers as we were waiting for an order of risers to be delivered (with hard housings). the canopy from eg was supposed to ship via fedex in a timely manner but since it was not being sent by us this out of our control. we are generaly flexible on allowing people to keep canopies longer, especially if they were not able to jump them enough. heather tells me she simply relayed the due back date to you based on 2 day shiping to you, she made an oversight in not figuring the longer deliver for the postal delivery, but if you had simple asked to keep it longer she would have of course said ok. i would understand the post if you asked and were denied, but you made no request. my appologies for the canopy from eg sky arriving late, contact heather or stacy in the office and arrange to keep it for the full 2 weeks. sincerely, dan atair

as your rate of turn increases so does your vertical speed. i.e. a slowly executed 360 can loose less altitude than a fast 180. sincerely, dan

stating that pd consistantly manufacturers in high volume good to avarage quality in construction canopies is hardly a bash. the post is a bash on the people that state 'if is is not pd it's junk' when thay have no idea how to judge construction quality. with regards to atairs relationship with pd. we are simply fellow parachute manufacturers as well as healthy competitors. there is no animosity between us. sincerely, dan

do pm's work on dz.com? when i try to send them i get an error screen and when people have sent them to me my box reads 0...? ? -dan

several people have told me they have sent pm's on dz.com but i have not been able to retrieve them....? direct contact information for anyone interested is: atair aerodynamics 718-923-1709 ph 718-923-1733 fx office hours: m-w-f- 9:30-6 , t-w 9:30-3 email questions : use the form on our web site www.extremefly.com the form includes fill in frames for information needed for us to answer many questions. i.e. it is amazing how many serious emails we get that read " what size would you recommend for me, blue skies, krusty" with no other information. sorry if anyones pm's have gone unanswered, please contact me at the office and i will be glad to talk. sincerely, dan

i poked my nose into the talkback forum and read some posts slamming another canopy manufacturer and spouting the ol' if its not PD its sh^t comment. in the first year atair marketed canopies i heard this far too often. what upsets me is that this is simply programmed blind faith. every time i run into this statement i lay out a canopy and ask them to please specifically show me what to look at. 99.9 % of the jumpers and unfortunately many riggers have no clue what to look at to gauge the quality of construction on a canopy. i.e. -many canopy companies if they run out of thread mid seam they will simply overlap and continue. atair does not. if the seamstress runs out of thread 2" from the tail seam the entire rib ream gets redone. we only accept seams that stop on a tape. pd and precision do not adhear to this. -an atair seamstress is responsible for a canopies construction from start to finish (less bartacking). once begun no other seamstress will touch that canopy. it is more time consuming and not as cost effective as a work cell factory enviroment used by our competitors (different seamstresses for different operations) but by using 1 seamstress you can assure far higher tollerences. (you can have 2 top rate seamstresses even working on the same machine with the same fabric puller and you can get different tensions.) -atair holds match mark tollerences of 2 mm and overall leading edge tollerence of 10mm. -etc.. it does it make a difference, definately, it is one of the reasons we can land 9 cell canopies 30% smaller than pd has. it is one of the reasons a 9 cell cobalt is ranked #2 in swoop distance after a full year competing on the paraperformance proswoop circuit, beating out a huge field of x braced canopies. pd is like mcdonalds, they consistantly pump out avarage to good quality canopies. but they are not, the highest quality available. we have been in the process of generating a video for the last 6 months, explaining each construction detail of a canopy. we have shot footage at every step of the manufacturing process in our factory, plus factory footage from our raw material suppliers, and interviews with key personelle. atair is not as big as pd, we can not manufacturer as many canopies or be as inexpensive but i absolutely guarantee that we holds higher tollerences on our canopies than pd. and as far as research, development and testing : atair has spent 100% of it profits over the last 3 years + and additional $550k on r&d. i do not know what other companies spend but i doubt they come close....we received a huge amount of interest from industry manufactures inour developed test equipment. with the exception of 2 military contractors, the consensus is that at $15k the equipment is too expensive for their r&d program. we have performed over 400 datalogged test jumps on the cobalt canopy. other companies make unsubstantiated claimes i.e " absoiutely and without a doubt...exhibits better opening characteristics than any other parachute on the market" , with absolutely no recorded data to back them up. how many companies will demonstrate a high speed freefly deployment for you: none. how many companies have live tested canopies deploying at up to 250mph: none... blind faith is not for skydiving, at least not when it comes to your equipment. its best to learn the how and why's and make your own educated decisions.... in an industry that is significantly 'all about fashion', i propose it is most fashionable to simply know your sh^t. end of rant... sincerely, dan atair aerodynamics www.extremefly.com

"Damnit!! I'm going skydiving!!!" i wish....we have hurricane winds in ny ! guess i will make some more patterns..... -dan

dee, if you are proficient on a safire 169 with 250 jumps, i would have no problem sending you a demo 150 cobalt for loading your requested 1.45. at this wing loading a cobalt canopy will not be faster than your safire and will have better glide/flare/openings. sincerely, dan www.extremefly.com

actually next to the inlet drag, on swoop machines your body is the next highest source of drag on the canopy. sincerely, dan

hey rhino, i'm not trying to give you any sh^t.... just point out that thinking you can do something under a small canopy if you had to, is a good way to get yourself into trouble when that time comes. thats what practice is for on a larger canopy. i.e. up hill & down hill landings are actually alot of fun to practice (carolina sky sports !!!). most people who haven't tried think an up hill landing would be more difficult than a down hill landing. on a swoop it is actually harder to go down hill. you wont know this till you try. i.e. hitting the peas 10 times out of 10. when is the last time you actually did this. alot of us would shrug the task off because we used to do this, but that was a while ago under a different canopy, etc... again i am not trying to give you any grief, just suggest that you actually go out and practice. when is the last time you took a 180' into a 15 mph down wind landing. if you cant do it given planed circumstance on your dz then doing it when you land off into a tight area is definately a problem. sincerely, dan ps i do not consider myself a swoop god, but i love to fly at high wing loads. imo the only way to remain safe is to keep your window of perception as wide as possible by continually practicing. you never want to simply fall into a narrow routine as many people invaribly do.

cobalts are not prone to spinning themselves up. this is first due to the staged deployments. i.e. if you watch a slomo-video of a stilletto or other hp canopy inflate you will see that the entire canopy inflates before the slider can significantly move. as the lines are restricted routed through the slider garomets, the canopy can not inflate to its proper shape. tyhe leading edge of the canopy can not inflate straight and snakes violently until the slider hase moved down. this violent motion directly causes off heading opennigs and can occasionally induces twists. a cobalt differs in that when the center cells catch air the conductance of that air beyond the center 3 cells is limited so as not to inflate the canopy. our choice of airfoil allows you to be suspended farther back under the canopy (instead of under or in front of the nose). watching a slomo-video of a cobalt deploy you will see that center 3 cells act as a drouge to slow you down when the force of 3 cells pushing the slider down over come the aerodynamic force keeping it up, the slider moves down and allow the outer 3 cells on either side to catch air and inflate. the leading edge remains straight and does not snake, the leading edge of the outer cells unroll from the center of the canopy to the ends. even at very high wingloadings cobalts remain very stable and are not prone to twisting or off heading openings. if you twists happen due to body position or other factors, simply straighten your links and they fly dead straight. in the last 800 jumps i have only been twisted up twice.last one i have a video, flying straight kicking out of 5 line twists. (my fault deployed in my usual track but strongly changed heading after dumping. i was spooked by someone suddenly tracking below me). sincerely, dan atair www.extremefly.com

the skydive starts at pull time :) dan

cobalts are imo a superior choice over a sabre2, hornet or safire. the airfoil and planform was developed for a begineer to intermediate wing several generations ago. we created what we believe was the first stable & predictible elliptical design, free from stereotypical negative traits . with refinement we developed our tensioned skin technology and were able to increase rigidity and lower airfoil distortion. this high efficiency combined with the stable nature of the canopy opened the flood gates for an underground following of pilots that highly load our canopies. we definately have a passion for swoop machines, but our primary focus has always been safety. we have strived to improve the sport with our research and development of the staged deployments, and highest glide ratio canopy. in the past the predecessor to the cobalt was marketed under different names. identical was the alpha and space. the alpha marketed as a swoop machine and the space as a begineers canopy. we have produced thousands of 'space' canopies for begineers with a flawless record. i believe the sabre 2 was developed as a direct answer to our developments. some may say it was in answer to the safire but imo the safire flies slightly better than a sabre but openings not much better and efficiency is low (flare is not greatly increased). i believe it was atair canopies that set the stage for people to no longer accept neck breaking openings and fly a design that was stable with dramatically increased glide and flare and low foward speed. sorry if i was a little preachy, i am working on a presentation today and i guess have it on the brain. btw the cobalt has a linear (straight line taper) both nose and tail. sincerely, dan atair