cobaltdan

as far as jumping an elliptical canopy at a light loading, i do not have a problem with this. in fact i think it can be a very good idea depending on specifics. i wish i had done this. i instead transitioned quickly pucshing loadings on sabres and then switched to smaller ellipticals. i had to unlearn many bad habits developed from flying the sabre and learn new technique. itr would have been much better to start out on a lightly loaded elliptical . the idea that ellipicals are inefficient at light loadings is a misconception. a good design elliptical canopy will ALWAYS be more efficient than a square one, at any loading ! if your goal is to jump a pocket rocket, why not perfect your skills on an elliptical at light loadings. even at light loadings ellipicals will require you to develop skills that will directly translate to flying ones at higher loadings. the same can not necessarily be said for squares. sincerely, dan

a note on extreme loadings: jim slaton has test jumped atair alpha/impulse canopies at loading up to 3.6# !!! this is not a competition wing. stock cobalts and competition cobalts should handle even higher wing loadings. eric butz of team atair (chuck blue & brian harrell, eric butz) is 260# out the door. his highest wing loading to date is just below chuck's at 2.73# but he has been on me to train for a 4:1 attempt on a stock cobalt!!! i reluctantly agreed, provided he jumps a trident rig for training. i.e. a strict training regimen, progressively increasing loading. at the 4# loading i would insist he flys our dataloger and performs mock swoops at altitude. he would be required to chop and land under a second main until we see dead consistant swoops on the datalogger (our dataloger can plot out in 3d the flight path flown). sincerely, dan atair

begineers at light loadings on a cobalt will typically experience at first end cell closure on one side. almost always the closure is on the same side every time. in coaching i ask the jumper to try shifting their hip a little to put a slight bias on the opposite side of the end cell closure. sure enough the next jump they will experience end cell closure now on the opposite side. everyone at first thinks they are symetrical on deployment, its not until experience the above do they realize otherwise. with understanding of this new skill, it usually takes beginners only several jumps to dial in perfect openings and after several dozen weight shift starts to become instinctual and second nature. btw. cobalts are not very prone to spins. having your weight slightly asymetric on deployment will typically result in closed end cells on one side and a corresponding turn. the rate of turn is low and not to be considered a spin, a slow simple toggle flare will inflate closed end cells. as far as my personal packing technique: basically a straight propack, i push the nose in (i dont bother to roll), i do roll the tail tight always, and i put my bag in the container with the pridal facing the pin. i do this as i always deploy in a track, note this trick works very will with my rs and nj javelins as the bags are basically square, it may not work well with some other containers. sincerely, dan atair

freeflir29, you might want to seriously consider: >>> a different canopy

on a cobalt demo questionare form mike krouse wrote: "i really like the way it flies ! its extremely stable yet fun to fly. the openings are very respectable for an elliptical. although, i doubt you could load on at 2:1 and comfortably land a straight in approach...it has a nice flare, thanks, you may be hearing from me soon" btw he has 200 jumps and jumped a 120 at a 1.5 loading. Mike: straight in landings at high loadings on a cobalt are easy: but still require appropriate skill and technique: i land my 95 loaded at 2.21 straight in all the time, without even taking a step ! i did my pro license with my 95, 10 peas landings in a row, all straight. i can send you video of lougi and mike stevens flying a cobalt 65 straight in to a no speed landing. lougi was loading at about 2.8. this is a required skill, if you are jumping a canopy and loading that you can not land straight in every time, YOU ARE JUMPING THE WRONG SIZE CANOPY ! perhaps some of the other swoopa stahs could post their experiences and pointers. sincerely, dan atair ps. GOBBLE GOBBLE everyone!!!

everything here has been posted before and responded to by me and others. please disregard sterotypical misconceived comments about 'all' ellipticals being death machines for beginners and do a back search for more information. the statements in our adds are quotes from people like the head uspa safetey officer and other very respected instructors. they have all jumped cobalts at the loadings they are recommending to begineers. they are not getting canopies for free and certainly would not reccomend the cobalt to their students and the world, if they did not fully believe in the canopy and fully believe it was safe ! cobalts are not stilletos. wing loadings are directly related to a canopies efficiency. cobalts have the highest measured glide ratio of any skydiving canopy. they will be loaded slightly heavier to produce the same foward speed. recommended wing loading for on a cobalt for beginers is 1.2-1.4 slightly heavier than the recommended wing loading for the same skill level on a sabre. atair has a 7 year track record with this canopy and beginners ! the space canopy is identical in planform and airfoil. thousands of canopies to thousands of students ! please learn about available canopies as well as basic science behind your ram air wings. it is the prevelent lack of knowledge and ignorant stereotype opinions that have most manufacturers catering with false information, ie. lying about canopy square footage and calling elliptical canopy designs tapered, slightly tapered, etc... if you like call me at the office and i will be glad to discuss this. sincerely, dan atair www.extremefly.com 718-923-1709

pull the fabric away from a seam. observe how much the stitch holes in the fabric expand. i would be more worried about the mold, this deteriorates the fabric the most. also check with the specific fabric manufacture of your canopy. ie. some fabrics colors change or fade with prolonged uv but with no major change in mechanical strength (we have found this from gelvenor textiles on their zp fabric). and trust your trained rigger. enjoy, freebees are the best... its nice to have a canopy you are not afraid to get wet, sandy, muddy, pack on the grass. or chop for minor mals when you are over the swamp... sincerely, daniel exposure, but the structural properties do not change much.

at the css turkey day boogie simon and i will be giving free coaching (canopy demo's too, of course). i think team wicked liquid (way better than us) will also be out in force with free coaching ! sincerely, dan atair

i woke up this morning to see a huge plume of smoke out my window. the crash is a couple of miles away... i do not know what to say. dan atair

we designed a lens for testing canopies. we built models ranging from 180' to 240'. simply it involves placing a hyperbolic mirror in front of you camera. the beauty of this is that you can take 1 frame panoramic images. (we use it to caputer video of canopy deployment and flying while capturing complete pilot input at the same time). the image is warped like a fisheye, with the major exception that a hyperbolic optic has a single center of foci, a fish eye does not. meaning that the image can be scaned onto a computer and completely unwarped into your panorama shot. you can not unwarp a fisheye picture. check out the attached pic. sincerely, dan

we are currently designing and manufacturing gps guided parachute systems for the war effort. i designed our sdas system (skydiving data acquisition system) to include additional outputs to auto pilot a parachute. with its built in 12 ch differential gps it can fly a parachute accurate to 2m. i started this project almost a year ago never thinking it would become so important, so fast. sincerely, dan atair

i would like to reinforce a great point mike made. many newbies are jumping soft opening canopies which require 800' or more to open. given their awareness and response time are less than experienced jumpers, i believe it is important to remind them: set your last ditter warning for your hard deck. if you miss your hard deck, go for your reserve. no one will give you crap. you paid $50 buck for that pack job, that is what it's for. sincerely, dan atair

>transferring to much speed to lift< are you commenting on your recovery arc being too short and powerfull or are you generating too much lift in your swoop and lifting up slightly? lift increases with the square of the wind speed over your airfoil. if your canopy is lifting up and you want to go straight or down the solution is to change the angle of attack, basically lean on your front risers. also you might want to try a carving 180 instead of a hard snap 180. shift your weight to the outboard side during your riser turn. this will make for a longer approach (safer) and maintain more speed into your swoop as a carve gives you a longer recovery arc. safe swoops, dan atair

thanks guys. sincerely, dan atair

chuck, we will definately get you fixed up. very scary, the cameraman was lucky not to have been severely hurt. think about how much tension was on those micro lines accross his neck before they broke ! dan

just wanted to mention :) 42 pro competitors at the para world games 39 x braced canopies 3 nine cell canopies: 2 competition cobalts, 1 cobalt. piloted by team atair: chuck blue, eric butz and brian harrel 4th place speed: eric butz competition cobalt 4th place distance: eric butz, competition cobalt eric does not currently rear riser fly through his swoops an yet still consistently swooped farther than 38 other pro pilots on x-braced canopies, many of whom are very skilled at the more efficient style of rear riser swooping. cobalts are the most efficient skydiving wing to date, with the highest measured glide ratio of any skydiving canopy 9 cell or x-braced. a fact that can be visualized without test equipment when you see a lower speed cobalt swooping equal distance against a faster speed x-brace. as lift increases with the square of the wind speed over the airfoil, you can see there is a dramatic difference in efficiency between the two. sorry about the promotional content above. i am just excited as this was the first para games to have our comp. cobalts entered. sincerely, dan atair extremefly.com

many of our customers demoed cobalts and crossfires head to head. the general feedback we have received was that flight characteristics were a bit different but comparable in performance and that the cobalt has a slightly beter glide and definately better low speed lift/ bottom end flare. the cobalt has staged openings, invented to provide lower opening force at higher speeds. currently live jump tested up to 237mph. (you can request a video showing 180mph head down deployments on our web site). also note the cobalt is based on our 7 year proven airfoil and planform. there have never been any issues of design flaws or quality control. sincerely, dan atair ww.extremefly.com

thanks, its strange to see yourself on tv... also strange to see a 60min interview aired in 2 min. they turned heathers article into a fluff piece.... oh well, 2 min down, 13 to go ... :) -dan

atair will be there: cobalt dan and simon chicken bone (ranch) will also be driving down lesha (ranch) too probably eg from eg skytek driving down from nj andrew from sky's ...... should be a blast !

the max wing loading depends more on the canopy design than the fabric. i load my f111 reserve a hair over 2#/' . as a test jumper i have more than a few rides. it flys and flares beautifully . the thing with f111 is that it will not continue to fly the same, for as long as a zpo canopy. f111 will steadily become more porous with use. the flight caracteristics of your canopy will change over its life. at a certain point you will want to consider retiring the canopy. zp fabric gains porosity much, much slower. you could wear out several line sets before the fabric degrades to a point where it even minorly effects the flight characteristics. btw the above goes towards why we recommend zp pilot chutes over f111. sincerely, dan atair aerodynamics www.extremefly.com

i have heard a bunch of skydivers make statements like 'if i had a parachute on the upper floors of the wtc i would have lived.' this is ridiculous. some morbid math: energy in 1 gallon of jet fuel: 135,000 btu a boeing 767 holds 23,980 gallons. it is estimated that only 3000 gallons detonated on impact, the remaining continued to burn. the explosive energy from both planes = 9 * 10 ^11 joules (10 to the 11th power). this is equivalent to 180 tons of TNT. the energy released from the burning of the remaining fuel is over 5 * 10 ^12 joules, this is equivalent to over 990 tons of TNT. 50,000,000,000,000 joules (a joule is a watt/second) this is how much power was released generating heat from the burning fuel. this is equal in energy release to a small tactical nuclear warhead or almost 2000 tomahawk cruise missiles. the heat energy of the fire was double the total collapse energy of both towers (1,365' tall. 1.25 million tons in weight, collapse energy 2 * 10 ^12 joules). try to fathom what all that heat did, generating tremendous intensity swirling air patterns. thermal updrafts, vortecies, down drafts, etc.... what makes anyone think that if helicopters could not fly through the fire turbulence anywhere near the roof, that a parachute would function ? sincerely, dan atair aerodynamics www.extremefly.com

it might be interesting to re-poll on the building escape issue. there were a lot of immediate reactions to the whole event. but now many points have been presented, and i would be interested to see how many people modified their initial view. ? dan

article posted with permission from author: Personal Parachutes: The Ethics of Safety Many of us since the attack on the World Trade Center have been asking how this could have been prevented. And if it could not have been prevented, how then could we have had more survivors? As daunting as it is to think of, a parachute appears to be a logical and effective means of escape. After all, Leonardo DaVinci conceived in 1485 the first parachute specifically for the purpose of escaping safely from fires in tall buildings, and there have been countless other inventors and engineers who have worked on similar ideas since his time. Why then have we never seen this technology in use? Simply put, it is not necessarily a good idea. The recent events have led the public in a state of helpless anxiety to seek protection, reassurance, and a means to escape. Thousands of gallons of water have been sold, as well as a multitude of flashlights, antibiotics, gas masks, and now, personal parachutes. Several companies have taken advantage of this new demand by marketing parachute systems to office workers, hotel guests, emergency workers, and high rise tenants. One example, “The Executive Chute” is being advertised as a “last resort” when fleeing a structure over 20 stories. While the idea of marketing an emergency escape system itself is an admirable idea, it is highly irresponsible to sell these parachutes to people without adequate training. Their web site makes it seem like anyone could just pop it out of their desk drawer at work and saunter out to the nearest ledge and leap to safety. Another company, Precision Aerodynamics, is marketing the “Emergency Building Escape Parachute System”. They compare the need for an EscapeChute for people in high rises as similar to the need of a life preserver when traveling beyond swimming range from shore. People need to understand that this is not as simple as putting on a life vest. While their web site does say “training required”, they also promote the EscapeChute as an easy and obvious choice: “By following simple instructions, the parachute is automatically deployed for you. All you have to do to initiate deployment is to jump out the window and away from the building. Simple steering and landing techniques can deliver you to the surface with confidence”. A video is provided with purchase of the canopy, which may falsely lead people to believe that this is all the training they need. B.A.S.E. jumping, for the most part illegal in this country, is the extreme sport of jumping off of stationary objects (Building, Antennae, Span (bridges), and Earth). Buildings are the most difficult, even for a highly experienced jumper. Morpheus Technologies, which provides one of the only legal US training courses for B.A.S.E. jumpers, will not even let anyone sign up for their courses unless they are already a licensed and experienced skydiver with a minimum of 200 jumps. Even then, their training is intensive and rigorous. Kathy Gillespie-Jones at Morpheus says “As a manufacturer of B.A.S.E. specific equipment, we feel a responsibility to the general public. There is no quick fix in this situation. A background in skydiving and a very thorough training course are needed to even begin to pursue what we look at as a SPORT. Even then, we can die!” B.A.S.E rigs contain only one parachute and there is no back up, as typically altitudes are so low that it would not be possible to deploy a reserve in time. Packing must be perfect as well as your body position when jumping off the building to provide for the best chance that the parachute will open properly, on-heading, away from the building and with adequate horizontal separation. There are so many other variables that need to be taken into consideration when executing a base jump just under good conditions, such as exit height, wind patterns, piloting the parachute, just to name a few. An experienced and trained B.A.S.E jumper under good conditions is going to be a highly different model than a panicked inexperienced office worker, who would in all likelihood be severely injured or killed using a parachute to escape from a building. For a novice even with training, the lack of conditioning would cause a sensory overload which could prevent them from being able to react and properly use the equipment. Fire within a building would take this to an entirely different level of risk. Greg Yarbenet, the inventor of the slider which made modern parachuting possible, did studies about fifteen years ago, researching the effectiveness of escaping from a burning structure with a parachute. ”Parachuting from a burning building has to take into account the very unusual wind patterns that develop from a very hot rising air mass that is being replaced by the cooler, lower air that is now funneling upwards to replace the hot air.” He clocked the thermal updrafts at over two thousand feet per minute at the top of a test burning building. Air near the ground began to swirl upwards in a small vortex that changed the velocity and direction according to doors, windows, and other building shapes that allow the air to find the easiest path to the flames. Rising thermals off of the top created sudden downdrafts on the leeward side. Yarbenet found that any normal size parachute would not function well in such turbulent conditions, and could be pulled back up in the strong updrafts or collapse in the multiple vortexes along the sides of the building. Daniel Preston, of the New York based parachute company, Atair Aerodynamics, has mixed feelings on the subject. When asked if he would work in a high rise without his B.A.S.E. rig Preston answered “definitely not”. He believes that people should be given all the facts, allowing them to then seek training and make an educated purchase. However, he is against the selling of escape parachutes to the general public. As a New York company, Atair finds the ads for these products to be in horrendous taste, dangerously misleading and opportunistic. One company, B.E.S. even showed a banner of one of the towers being hit and people falling to their death. “It is specifically the way these products are being marketed that is irresponsible”, says Preston, “B.A.S.E. jumping requires training, period. It is not something you can just learn in a few hours from reading a book or seeing a video. The first step is to learn how to skydive. With a couple hundred jumps under your belt, you could consider learning B.A.S.E.” Preston estimated the survivability rate of some of these personal escape parachute systems to be less than 50%. That means that half of the people jumping would probably die. Other industry leaders estimated the survivability rate to be less. By comparison in skydiving where everyone is trained and licensed, fatality rates are less than one in one hundred thousand jumps. The majority of those fatalities are caused by pilot error under a fully functioning parachute. While it would be arguable that one should take any chance in the case of extreme emergency, the difficulty with that is determining what exactly is a last ditch situation. “I could envision many situations where people would be likely to jump when they don't have to”, says Preston. It is estimated that 70% of the people in the World Trade Towers escaped the through the stairwells. According to Cliff Schmucker, president of the Parachute Industry Association, “there’s obviously people out here trying to make a quick buck in a bad situation….At least one person was looking into congressional relief for the liability issue.”. This would be disastrous, as it would remove accountability for improperly designed, tested and marketed products. Dan Poynter, a well known publisher and writer of educational and technical texts on sport parachuting, says “sure, if you are a base jumper and on the 28th floor, keep your rig at the office, but for other people it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense”. Poynter believes “a parachute could work for some people in some cases, but there are many, many questions to be answered with regard to practicality, cost, training and design.” Atair manufactures a B.A.S.E. parachute called the Troll and states that the parachutes accumulated one thousand live real world jumps before it was offered for sale. What is being marketed by many companies as escape systems, is untested technology. The way that it is being marketed is misleading and sensationalist. “While I am not against the possibility of escaping from a building with a parachute”, says Preston, “there are so many things that need to be taken into consideration, and which seem to be overlooked in these current products.” “you can not just take an off the shelf para-glider reserve parachute, put it in a container and market it for a wholly different, far more complex and demanding application…its not safe.” The systems being marketed at this time have appeared on a variety of television shows and are gaining a lot of publicity. “From what we have seen”, says Gillespie-Jones, “The harness seems to be extremely awkward and the point in which the static line connector is located is very prone to cause an entanglement with the body. We witnessed complete failure by a company representative to put this system on properly. This was done on the Today Show in a controlled environment. There is no way that a person in a panicked state could begin to equip themselves properly in a timely fashion.” It is very frustrating to see the direction that this whole thing is going in. Companies seem to be jumping on the bandwagon, offering parachuting equipment that in any other application would take months if not years of research and development, drop testing and live testing in a variety of environments before there would even be a consideration to sell to the public. What transpired in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania is absolutely tragic and it was horrifying to see those people jump from the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, jumping with many of these escape systems that are being marketed in the aftermath under those same circumstances may not have saved lives, but only extended them by a second or two. written by Heather Sinclair ©October 19, 2001

"The way it stands now, anyone who wants a BASE rig for building escape must do enough research to know who makes them, what they're called, what size they need, what deployment system to ask for etc. and this is a good thing - it's a built in safety mechanism that prevents completely clueless people from using them. " not true, a bunch of companies are marketing click and order systems, some even one size fits all. one i find particularly appauling is executive chute. they are all over every tv show you can imagine pushing a 16' diameter apex down round paraglider reserve in a fudged harness. the whole thing can fit in a purse. most of us are not too familiar with round technology, but an apex down paraglider reserve is not designed to be used alone. they are very cheap and open fast, but oscilate unstabily and required the drag of a partially collapsed paraglider to stabilize it. you do not cut away when using a paraglider reserve. sincerely, dan atair

motives within this thread have had absolutely nothing to do with sales of atair canopies. as far as my information it was direct from icarus' 'jyro' paul martin in a taped discussion. sincerely, daniel preston