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Very nice explanation. I think you can see this weathervaning effect happening when planes take off in a crosswind; in that case they also experience a little relative wind from the side. They move a little bit downwind, but at the same time turn their nose into the wind. Like in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CBHHBi1aTw (Or is this effect that you can see purely due to pilot input?)

John answers all your questions and more in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-mUyy1fhjE definitely worth an hour of your time.

Skydive Spain and Skydive Algarve (both run by British people) also have a no-refund policy. Annoying, to say the least. They are not close to where I live, so I'm not interested in "you can use those tickets when you return". I may never go back there, and in the mean time I have money on manifests all over the world :-( About a year ago I went to Algarve for a week. Shitty weather most of the week, and not a lot of jumping due to wind, rain and clouds. Manifest was NOT busy at all. So the result of this policy: we bought 5 tickets at the beginning of the week, after that we got scared that we might not even make another 5 jumps. So we bought 1 ticket at a time after that. How is that for extra work for manifest? At the last day we wanted to make a last jump, bought a ticket because you can't manifest otherwise.... and then jumping got cancelled for the rest of the day. Still no refund for that last ticket. Really pisses me off, and I don't think I'll go back there soon, even tough I love the dropzone in every other respect. By contrast: when I went to Empuria Brava I dumped a load of cash on my manifest and at the end of the week I got back what was left. So much easier! And so much less work for manifest! IMO, the only reason for this policy is simply making money on jumps that are not made. Because most visiting jumpers will either never return, or they loose or forget their tickets.

Belgium is not the Netherlands. Thats like saying the US is the same as Mexico. I am sure you wouldn't want to have anything to do with them? For the record, nothing this ambassador said is even remotely true. Sure, we have some problems, but nothing like this idiot was claiming he never said.

Agreed, so don't do it agressively. Gently also works! I have never been able to collapse my canopy (Crossfire 2 129) with an agressive move, and I've tried pretty hard. Both from full flight and from flying in deep brakes at almost stall speed. I know the original Crossfire had a problem with collapses, so I thought it would be nice to try it up high. Stalling it is much more likely, which is also a big risk in turbulence. IMO, increased airspeed helps to prevent this. Flying slow (in brakes) makes a stall more likely. To be clear I'm not pulling my fronts as far as possible; just a little bit of tension is enough to gain some speed and add a lot of power to the flare. A parachute is not a paraglider. Paragliders are scary!!!

Just guessing here: maybe the powers that be (or were) decided to assign only one category per canopy? And based the classification on the flight characteristics of the sizes that would be most common out in the field? Having a canopy assigned to multiple categories, depending on size or wingload, would become really confusing Could be that the Firebolt is perfectly fine as a beginner's canopy in the larger sizes. Ben, best to talk to your instructors. You are right. It turns out there is some discussion regarding this canopy, at least one local rigger and, according to him, the manufacturer do not agree with the classification of this canopy. In fact they think that this canopy is a good beginner canopy at low wingloading. So it seems that the classification is in this case a bit too conservative, at least for the large sizes and low wingloadings. With regard to it beïng slightly elliptical: Today I learned that this is also the case for the PD Navigator, which is a great student canopy.

In some countries (I live in one) they won't let you jump a firebolt if you have less than 400 jumps. Low wingload helps, but - at least according to the people who make the rules over here - this no canopy for your experience level.

Technically, the required power is more dependent on downward velocity. Moving straight down at 1 m/s (terrible L/D) results in the same energy per second as moving down 1 m/s while simultaneously moving 10 m/s horizontally (pretty good L/D). Therefore the trick to making this idea work is to design a very slow descending canopy, regardless of L/D. To be honest, I don't see this happening. Until now I ignored efficiency; taking this into account makes things much worse.

According to very basic highschool science: Not a chance. Flying a parachute takes approximately 3 kW. The source is the potential energy (height x weight), all of it eventually converted to heat. E = mgh [J] P = mgv [W] m = 100 [kg] g = 10 [m/s^2] v = 3 [m/s] (vertical speed) P = 100 x 10 x 3 = 3000 [W] From wiki: During a bicycle race, a well trained cyclist can produce / sustain close to 400 watts of mechanical power over an hour and in very short bursts over double that: 1000 to 1100 watts. So you would be far from able to maintain level flight, let alone climb. Well, unless you can build a parachute with a very very very low vertical speed.

Just want to add: Don't take my post as an advice, it's just what I think works for me. Input from real experts is appreciated!

IMHO, stability is only one factor in surviving heavy turbulence. Another important one is the ability to react to what happens. Thats why I like a little extra airspeed. When needed, this gives me a lot more lift to stop my vertical speed. So my preferred solution is to gently put some pressure on the fronts, just enough to gain a little speed. Even that little bit of extra speed gives a lot more "flare power". By the way this does not reduce the combined tension on the lines. The combined tension equals my weight, otherwise I would be accelerating or deccelerating (--> note the word "gently"). It may change the distribution between front and rear risers, but I don't think this this will cause any weird behaviour.

I don't think there are any rules that apply to all EU countries, there are lots of differences. For instance, I am a member of KNVvL (the Dutch version of USPA), which includes additional insurance for third party damage. They only cover the damage that your primary insurance (which is mandatory here I think) does not. When jumping abroad this is mostly accepted in most countries; Belgium, Spain, Germany, US (as long as I mention it to them beforehand), Portugal is no problem. But not in France!! They require an additional insurance and membership of their national organisation. Medical insurance is also something you may need to check. I am covered for anything anywhere because we have good healthcare here. Damage to my own stuff (canopy in case of cut-away, loosing a camera) is a different, optional insurance that is also available here for about E100,- a year. So short answer: I don't know, but you will need to check local regulations

Damn, I missed your reference to the mythological Icarus I thought you were just bashing Icarus canopies.

Maybe, maybe not. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4846634;page=unread#unread

uhhh ok. I must be extremely lucky then, having survived nearly 1000 jumps on a Spanish Crossfire

What about Icarus Spain - does it not exist anymore? Or are there now 3 Icarusses (/Icari?)?

I used to be of this thinking. Just turn it off & you're good to go. However, over time, the batteries can deteriorate and destroy/damage the canopy, etc that is in the reserve pack tray. Jerry Baumchen Why do you want it "off"? Don't trust the software? Are you aware that you cannot really shut it off, except by removing the battery? So even when off, the software is still running, checking if someone is pushing the button? I think this is an additional reason why leaving an expired, unmaintained AAD in you rig may not be the smartest thing. I also think the hairsplitting regarding the exact wording of the rules is not the smartest thing to do. Yes you may get away with something that was not intended. But next update of the rules this will probably get corrected, in the meantime it leads to a text that only lawyers can understand.

You are wrong. There is a video somewhere (cant look for it right now) of a guy trying to do this under canopy. He failed. Are you talking about this one? In fairness, in this idiot's case, he had used a nylon screw to attach the snag hazard, and OP is just talking about adhesive. https://skwrl.smugmug.com/Video/Videos/i-WHSJRJx/A Nope that's not the one. The one I saw was from a guy that intentionally tried to remove his camera in the scenario that we are talking about. He did not have an entanglement; he just wanted to try it (and found out that he could not). I'm 99% sure he used only the sticky tape and no screws. Too bad I cannot find it :-( These mounts are tough, especially after a few months. Edit: That being said, your video is still a nice example. Those nylon bolts are pretty small and I am willing to bet that they are much weaker than the GoPro adhesive. Also, a ringsight has fairly good leverage, certainly not worse than a gopro.

You are wrong. There is a video somewhere (cant look for it right now) of a guy trying to do this under canopy. He failed.

You are very right about this, and this can not be repeated enough.

I understand they protect your ears from getting slapped by risers?

I use 2, mainly for fs4 competition and funjumps. Very happy with the footage and battery life (much more than 10 jumps). Also got the new HypeEye, altough it worked fine at first, the connector is no success, so I stopped using it.

I think this was the plan. One big misstake was made: the weather data was incorrect. During the day the winds were pretty strong, these values were used to calculate the exit point. But we jumped just before sunset, when the winds became almost zero

You don't sound worse than me as a student ;-) On the other hand, you would seriously scare me if I was your jumpmaster. When I was in your situation I made 1 AFF jump. And completely messed it up. It caused even more stress for me, resulting in mayor tunnel vision, bad body position and a no-pull. I went back to basics; simple staticline jumps, 3 a day, until I got more relaxed and in control. Then back to DRCP's until I was confident I could pull stable. Then a 10 sec freefall. This worked for me, but everyone is different so it might not work for you. Whatever you do, discuss it with you instructors first. Some tunnel time might also work. Part of the fear comes from not really knowing what "stable" feels like. Couple of minutes in the tunnel might fix that.

Boy, was it ever... Incidentally, the experienced people with their handcherchief-sized mains all landed 7-9 km off. I'm not disagreeing with you though; 3.5Kft is the best exit altitude for SL. I was on that load.... 13 km's out hahahaha Yeah that spot could have been better. 3.5 K is OK for staticline. I sometimes let students jump higher (6k) if they have more than a few jumps, the winds are low, etc, simply because it is fun for them if they like flying their parachute.