NewClearSports

***Really they don't do anything until you get past the 2.0 and even then you want to be closer to 2.2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike, I am curious what you are basing this statement on? Quote Hey Sam, How are you? Well, from my understanding after talking a bit about this in Germains course a couple years ago, is this. What the little X brace pieces of fabric actually do is "Fool the wing into thinking there are more loaded ribs then there actually are". These imaginary load points can make a 7 cell canopy fly like a 9 cell with the line drag of a 7 cell, for example. Now the #1 most important thing to consider when talking canopy performance is the Wing Loading no matter what type of canopy we are talking about. All ram air parachutes no matter what design or platform will increase in performance (Speed) the more they are loaded, however they all reach a point of diminished returns, for most modern 9 cell's this is very close to 2.0, however by adding the X braces it raises this point of diminished returns quite a bit higher 2.2 to 2.6 or something like that. So what I am saying is basicly if your jumping a 7 cell X-braced at 1.8, you could also be jumping a regular HP 9 cell of the same size and get about the same performance. I would say a Crossfire, Crossfire 2, katana and a few others definetly fit into this catagory. That is all. I'm not saying if your not loading don't jump it, you kick ass on that Xaos, you definetly proved that swooping the pond last year! As for Riser Pressure, you are also very talented at dialing in a new canopy quickly, you also proved that in the CPC this year with switching canopys 3 or 4 times and still doing well, however for those of us not so in-tune we like to start high, and this sometimes means holding the risers (Double Front)even after building up speed and lining up with the gates ect. I'm pretty sure at 1.8 WL you would have difficulties with a velo 103 Definite "PETER PAN!" ;) All canopys have managible riser pressure at the top, esp. after 1/2 brakes, but holding on to those risers thoughout is another story. Would you agree? Look forward to seeing again soon. Summer is on the way. Blue Skies Mike

***sure, give it a try but you can save time by just getting one - you will not regret. yes, I have an attachment point Quote Well I won't be getting one untill later this summer. I already went over budget with the JVX, the second "Pond Rig" (The 1st one was too small), and a new set of 24" risers. If I now told my wife I want to order a $330 US - RDS she would freak. I just thought if you were down at Burnaby during the nationals or something, I would love to give it a try, but I know it's a bit of work to switch. I asked about the attachment point because I thought you could use my slider. I'd be happy to just have a closer look at it! I know I can take your word on how it performs. Hope to see you this season. Mike

Hey Rob, I see you can't sleep either since I know your in the same time zone as me. For me it's partly because I'm still pumped from jumping my JVX this weekend. Boy is that lit'l puppy groud hungry, my 1st jump I was open at 6k and the other group opened at 3k, we all landed about the same time. Sometime this summer I would like to check out your RDS system. Do you think it would fit my 84? Do you have an attachment point on your JVX? Blue skies Mike

Oh, here are some answers to your questions: does the xaos 27 auto recover - NO it is a negative recovery arc, as are all modern X-braced canopys. (+ Recovery arc = recovers on its own and creats lift after a turn, Neutral Recovery arc = Recovers to level flight after a turn, - Recovery arc = stays in a dive after a turn) how does it open? Great how is the bottom end of the flare? Powerfull is the front riser high or low? Depends on Wing Loading. At 1.7 you will be doing chin-ups for sure. At 2.2 it is quite managible does it dive harder then a crossfire but less then a velocity? Again Wing Loading is the #1 variable. It has the potential to dive just as long and fast as a Velocity. is it a twitchy like the vx at wing loading 1.7 It basicly is a VX. Made from the VX's original designer (Precision) with definit modifications, and newer upgrades how does the flare finish? Strong - lots of lift how easy is it to land straight in. easy enough, but what's the point. If your not doing 270's your really only flying it a 1/4 throttle. ( see my analogy at the end) how user freindly is it compared to other cross braced. It has great openings which means you can take it termial without a problem, other then that it needs to be taken seriously like any other X-braced wing. If you have a mal, line twist, poped toggle, your in for a Wild Ride! i heard the 21 is sweet but the 27 offers more flare power. This is True. 27 has more bottem end power. All in all X-braced canopys are alot like Super Sport Bikes, amazing technical wonders, refined and refined again and again by the most experienced riders (pilots) in races (competitions) that are won and lost by 1000's of a second. The average rider will never even come close to using the bike to 1/2 of its potential. Many buy the latest greatest bike to look cool parked by the donut shop on a friday night. Most of these guys can't ride worth a crap and the few skilled riders look over thinking 'what a waist of a beautiful machine'. They were never made to go slow and "tour" around, they were made to race and go fast, very fast. thanks

***2nd i love how I ask a question and people say stupid comments like not listening to us and remember that when your counting back from 10. Quote I know how you feel. I got bashed all the time until I removed my profile. So why can't someone that is totaly focused on canopy flight, does mental rehersales of flight path and technique on every jump before bording the plane, that takes all courses and every bit of coaching that is avaliable to them, but has only 900 jumps fly a HP X-braced wing? I don't understand why so much enphesis is put on the "Total" jump numbers. What I do agree with, and also believe you MUST have whether your jump numbers are 500 or 5000 is : -Total comitment to Canopy Flight -Have a plan before bording the plane -Be comitited to many Canopy Flight only Jumps, don't try and mix fun jumps with leaning a new canopy -Have a mentor or coach watch you along the way -Take advise seriously -Take a canopy course (Recomend Brian Germains Hightly) -1st hand knowledge of what a bad landing / misjudgment can do to you. Nothing hit's home more then standing there beside your friend waiting for the ambulance, wondering if he is going to live or die. Once you see this, you truely understand how serious this game is!! All that being said, I agree with the others that you don't need a X-braced yet. Mostly because your not intending on loading it. What's the point? Really they don't do anything until you get past the 2.0 and even then you want to be closer to 2.2 (if you take Germains course he will teach you the technical aspects of canopys to learn why this is true) I went from a Cobalt 95 to a Velo 96 and was majorly disappointed. The Velo felt Huge! and after about 100 jumps on the Velo I got an 88 Xaos-21 and love it. The last thing I thought I would add, your X-fire is a kick ass canopy. I have been out swooped many times by X-fires and X-fire 2's. In my opinion they are a X-braced canopy without the X-braces. Really you can load them quite a bit, and they just get faster and faster. Blue skies Mike

In Jims defence he is the only one that has the balls to say "you can go a size down". & optimum WL is ...., and it actually is! Everyone else says "refer to the charts" which is a bunch of bs. I bought my 1st X-braced (A velo) buy the chart under "Expert" and it was WAY too big. I could do chin up on the front risers. Sold it after 100 jumps for a much smaller Xaos and loved it. I finally got to jump my JVX 84 hybrid this weekend and it is Awsome!! If I was to buy a Velo 90 would be my optimum size, but when ordering my JVX i knew to order an 84 buy what I read on jim's site and our E-mails. My JVX is perfect, can't wait to jump it again ... and again, and again... Anyway, Velocity's are like belly buttons and A-holes, Everybody's got one, even your grandma. JVX's are Sweet.

I have a question about these amazing hands free tricks I've seen. How do you get a modern X-braced canopy (with negative recovery arc) to fly level without any input? A few years back I had a Cobalt (Which I believe is neutral or positive recovery arc) that if I dialed in during a swoop, once bumped into level flight would maintain level flight without any control input for a few seconds, then I would have to give it graduated input untill shutdown. Now on my Xaos-21 I havn't been able to do this. Although my swoops are longer, I have to force the recovery arc with rear riser input and maintain a small amount of input on the rears to maintain my level flight. Is there a tecknique that can pitch the canopy back when entering the swoop that will allow you to release the controls and maintain level flight? Are advanced swoopers modifing there trim for tricks like this (maybe longer / shorter links from front riser's to rear)? Is it more of a wing loading thing? On my Cobalt i was at 2.0, on the Xaos I'm at 2.2 Or is it a whole bunch of things combined that mean you have to find the perfect wing for you to do these amazing tricks? Maybe my new JVX will let me go hands free this summer, although I doubt I will be willing to let go of the controls. Over the pond or not, this is still crazy stuff! Thanks in advance for any input (no pun intended) Mike

I agree with DiabloPilot that both the 21 & 27 Xaos' have been known to have great openings. If you now have a X-fire you are use to great openings then either Xaos is a great choice. What I can tell you about my 21 is that it opens very consistanly and almost always on heading. It usually takes 7-800 ft at terminal or 5-600ft at subterminal. It opens best if you do nothing but relax while it opens. I even have a few times where I had a small PC hesitation that caused the bag to spin, causing line twists at deployment, and usually the line twists will come out during the snivel faze with a very normal opening. Only a couple of times have I had line twists at the fully open stage and even with these I was easily able to kick out, losing minimal altitude. (reasons I felt confortable with wingsuit) I jump camera and its great for that. I also Fly mostly head down and don't always slow down all that much before deployment, and it is amazing for that. I hate canopy trafic and like to be the 1st one down, its also great for that. Dives steep and fast, with very managable riser pressure. The only thing that I have been disapointed with is that a Velo swoops further, this is where a 27 will do you better. The 21 has great speed and lift, but the bottom end isn't great. Once the speed is gone it's performance drops quickly. I usually cut my swoop short a little to have some power left to pop it up at the end and land very softly, without needing to run it out at all. I believe the Velo's and 27s carry there speed further through the swoop. I'm hoping this is where my brand new JVX will help me out in competition. Hope this helps

I went from a Comp Cobalt 95 to a Velo 96 and didn't like the Velo. Riser pressure was too high, it stalled on rears easily and openings were crapy, it also just felt too big. I then got a 88 Xaos-21 and love it! It is the best opening canopy I have ever owned. I even have several wing suit jumps with it loaded at 2.1 (don't recomend this though) I now have an 84 JXV but have no intention of ever selling my Xaos. I know I will never get another canopy with more consistant openings. It might not swoop the furthest, but it is an amazing overall canopy!

The really interesting question is how much over the manufacturer's recommended maximum exit weight you are for that Tempo 120? I bet it's a lot. Thanks SAM! WOW! Your not kidding. It has a max of 153Lbs. What's up with that! I've been jumping a tempo 120 for 7 years now with 2 rides and I never knew how overloaded I was on it. A PD 126 is good for like 250 Lbs. Next Reserve will be a PD for sure. Anyone want to buy a couple tempo 120's ??? Oh and it looks like I now have a couple Jav NJ's for sales as well

Can anyone tell me how big a main I can safely fit into : Javelin NJ - C-18 with Reserve - Tempo 120 Main will hold (105, 120, 135 ???) Thanks.

Yea, I'm not jumping it untill I have my swoop rig put together. One of the best reasons was given in the rigging forum. If I get a PC in tow and then dump my reserve, Once the pressure is off the main D bag will then release most likely giving me a 2 out senerio or worse. NOT what I want on my 1st jump with the JVX. Well as you know Rob the weather here in Canada is crap right now anyway. It's just hard to get such an awsome new toy and not be able to play with it right away :)

I'm going to ask my rigger, but I thought I would ask here as well. I just got my new JVX 84 Hybrid (Top Skin Sail)in the mail today and as you probably know it packs very big! Wings W-4 (Sized for a 105 conventional Main currently have 88 Xaos-21) After a few attemps I managed to get it in the D-bag and closed it up, BUT it is Tight, Very Tight. It took alot of mussle to close, but I havn't yet lengthened my closing loop. When I tested pull force to open it the pin poped easy enough but the whole rig lifted off the ground before the bag came out. I had to shake the suspended bridal to get it to finaly fall out. Besides a PC in tow, what other mals can occur because of too tight a fit? What do you think, would you jump it ?? Thanks for you help!

I'm going to ask my rigger, but I thought I would ask here as well. I just got my new JVX 84 Hybrid (Top Skin Sail)in the mail today and as you probably know it packs very big! After a few attemps I managed to get it in the D-bag and closed it up, BUT it is Tight, Very Tight. It took alot of mussle to close, but I havn't yet lengthened my closing loop. When I tested pull force to open it the pin poped easy enough but the whole rig lifted off the ground before the bag came out. I had to shake the suspended bridal to get it to finaly fall out. Besides a PC in tow, what other mals can occur because of too tight a fit? Thanks for your help!

I know a guy that bought the steel links from a hardware store and had two of them break on his 1st jump on them. They were cheap china made ones. I know the grade used for skydiving is much better, but I would take soft links any day over steel links.

Ya, that makes alot of sence, the pop up style swoop is only really for maxing out distance in a competition. Most other swoops are level and low to the ground / water as well as the dragging tow, or carve ect. Ok so a similar entry speed into the gates swooping level and low VS the pop up technique would have a difference of What ?? 100 / 150 / 200 ft ??

Ok, I have a question for the hard core swoopers out there. If you able to pull off anything close to a 665ft swoop with ideal conditions, what are your average swoop distances on everyday jumps going to be? I think many of us have had an awsome swoop here and there when everything was just right and we ourselves were shocked to see how far we flew, but how do we become consistant? What should we expect our consistant distance to be compared to our longest swoop? 60%, 70%, 80% or higher? Thanks Mike

P.S. In reguards to these little parts of your blurb. ...With that attitude it is clear that you have never been trained as an aircraft pilot and know little about aerodynamics ...You're clearly a danger to yourself if you think otherwise. I like your statement Try not to worry about the things you have no control over "Less bitching, more jumping" Practice what you preach. I gave up on this forum a few years ago because of stuff like this. To all the guys that have to throw this type of crap into every topic, your not doing anthing good for this sport.

Any wing can stall at any airspeed and at any attitude. Ok, after refreshing myself on Brian's Parachute and it's pilot book I now see where I was confused. The attitude of the wing is not always directly related to it's angle of attack, although most of the time it is to some degree. For other's like myself that were confused by this statement if you pull your rear risers you can increase your angle of attack without changing your attitude, and a high enough Angle of attack will create a stall at .... Any Airspeed or any attitude. Ahh - ha . So I got it now. Am I safe to start flying my parachute again? How is that 96 Velo I sold you doing? I'm waiting on my new 84 JVX hybrid. Cheers Mike

The JVX is not the 1st to take off stabilizers. The Xaos also has no stabilizers, Read about there StabilRib Technology on there web page. I think with small HP canopys heavily loaded, the stabilizers don't do much more then flap in the wind, while with bigger bulkier parachutes you can see them doing there job helping to keep the high air pressure under the canopy.

CRWdogs use that trick all the time. Its called warping the canopy, and severely degrades the performance. Very useful trick for when you need to make your canopy slow and sinky! Is it safe to try with a small HP X braced Canopy?

Any wing can stall at any airspeed and at any attitude. Really? This leads me to believe that Stalling is a random event. If I believed that I would never fly. I'm not sure what I'm missing, but don't we try to fly at airspeeds and attitudes that will NOT allow us to stall?

I really agree with you. Body position as well as body drag has a big effect. And this is really interesting in itself. For instance, I'm a tall skinny guy, which means I don't weigh much, but have alot of surface area. I notice a considerable difference when diving my canopy (Xaos 88) after a Freefly jump (High Drag Freefly Suit) VS. when doing a hop and pop in a T and Shorts. I often wondered exactily how this is effecting my swoop. For example when I'm in a steep dive and the canopy and myself are horizontal relative to each other racing for the ground conected by our lines, one of us either has to slow down, or speed up to start the recovery arc. It is almost always the canopy slowing down (Letting up on the Front Risers) that begins the arc. BUT what if I could start the arc instead by ME speeding up ??? ie. I start the dive with my body fully extended and once into the dive close to Canopy Terminal Velocity, I ball up (Speed Up) and induce the recovery arc phaze in that manner. This would certainly seem more effeciant. I also certainly think this will be more of an issue with smaller and smaller canopys. It would be interesting to find out the effects of body position (Body Drag) on a very small wing like Lugi's 39. Supose there is another pilot out there same weight as Lugi but is 6' tall. Could he also land the parachute the same as Lugi? I doubt it! Any other thoughts on this? Please join in.

To get things started. Flight controls that I know of. L-Toggle, R-Toggle L-Front Riser, R-Front Riser L-Rear Riser, R-Rear Riser L-Harness, R-Harness Also various combinations of the above Flare & Brake L & R Toggle Dive L & R Front Riser Lift (Relative to normal flight) L & R Rear Riser Also have you ever thought about how much our wing loading changes with various manuvers? Pull a high G turn = Increased wing loading. Pull a 2 G turn and my 2:1 wl goes to 4:1 !!!

After reading the Camber thread, it got me thinking about our wings and how different (more complicated) they are from rigid wings. It is quite amazing in how many different ways we can manipulate our parachutes. I can think of at least 8 controls every parachute has as well combined with the pendulum motion of being hung beneath the wing we also have a large variable wing loading. Shall we brainstorm about our flight controls and there effects? We all know what happens when you pull a toggle or a riser, but what would happen if you pull your right front riser and left toggle at the same time? I don't know, do you? What do you think will happen? Cheers Mike