EvilLurker

I'll agree with what AggieDave says, try some different DZs, I've found the best times are often at the smaller DZs that are run for the love of the sport vs. making as much money as possible. If I drove an hour and a half to find out the DZ was closed and they had lied to me over the phone, I'd be upset, too. Call them back up, tell them the situation, and see what they say. If in fact they were feeding you a line, I'd never go back there. That's pure BS. I hope you find a good DZ with people you enjoy jumping with, it makes the sport much more enjoyable. Your post makes a lot of good points, but don't expect a whole bunch of people here to admit it.

I got a frameless backpack at an Eddie Bauer factory outlet store that made a perfect gear bag. It has shoulder straps, a side carry handle, a full-length zipper up the back, a drawstring top and a tie-down top flap. There's no way you could get a deployment with your rig in there. I paid $29 for it. I just looked to see if I could find an item number on it, but no joy. You might give them a try. It's been about 3 years since I bought mine.

I made a couple of jumps at Pakenham, too. I had a lot of fun, but it sure seemed the beer light went on early. (Not that that's always a bad thing, but I wanted at least one more jump). I packed my rig and had a pint or two instead. If you want to jump, get there early I'd say.

Well, it was a 500 sq. ft. 11 cell PD canopy with a 52 HP Rotax, and if you kill the power it's exactly like flying a tandem with a high wing loading, except you're steering with your feet. With 2 people it had a suspended weight of around 600 lbs. Under power, it's very easy to fly, but you learn a lot about ram-air parachute operation flying it around. If you fly one, watch for power lines (and that's GOOD advice) Solo, I could climb at over 800 ft/min. You steer with your feet instead of your hands, but the steering line pressure is so brutal you have to. I could grab the steering lines and flare/turn, but if you're flying cross-wind you need to use your legs, because your arms will give out. I never flew a paraglider, no idea how that is. Probably a hell of a lot of fun, though. I'd say there's no difference between flying a powered parachute with the engine off and a tandem of similar size, except you can screw the landing up a lot worse and walk away. I'm not gonna post anything, and if they don't like it, they can kick me off the site. How's that?

From what I've read here, you should take anything posted with a grain of salt. Don't fall into the trap that high jump numbers equals good advice, ot that low jump numbers equals bad advice. I don't respond to posts unless I have had a similar experience or know the answer. You'll notice I don't come off as a "skygod" making statements that I put forth as gospel. I will challenge people's posts that I disagree with and ask questions, and it doesn't matter how many jumps they have. If you see me posting BS, call me on it, please. His Q is valid in what way? More of the "I have a few more jumps than you so I'm the expert"? He never did say what the problem was with my advice, so I suspect it was a decent set of techniques. Notice I said "in my experience" "I think" and "it seemed"? Things written like that you take with a grain of salt. I didn't say "always", "you must" and "never". I will add that some canopies most likely will get you back upwind better using front risers while others will not. You'll have to figure that one out on your own, none of the ones I jumped had a longer reach using fronts, but I see the possibility. I'm no longer a USPA member, so I'll leave the personal info blank for now, if that's alright. I have a significant amount of time flying powered parachutes, too. That's probably worth something in the canopy control department. Time equivalent to several thousand jumps worth of canopy time. Take that with a grain of salt, too, if you like.

I made many jumps with a Dytter and I never heard the thing go off unless I was under canopy. You might want to borrow one and see if you can even hear it before you lay out hard-earned cash like I did. I guess my ears REALLY plug up. I have normal hearing on the ground, after I do a Valsalva (squeeze nose shut and blow to clear my ears). I never heard anyone else say they couldn't hear their Dytter, so maybe I'm some kind of mutant.

I have a Silhouette with quite a number of jumps on it (probably 500, I bought it used). I really like it, you might want to demo one and see what you think. It always opened nice and soft, light toggle pressure, easy to pack and lands nice. I know what you mean about losing confidence, I had a Triathlon that caused me some problems, and I got to the point it wasn't fun for me to jump. It takes a lot of enjoyment out of skydiving when you start doubting your gear. Good luck on your choice.

I kept my original rig for a couple of reasons: we have a lot of downtime here due to the rain (sometimes almost 6 months) and it seemed like a pretty good idea to make my first couple of jumps of the new season on a bigger canopy, and it sure comes in handy if you ever want to make that next load and don't have time to pack. I made a couple of nice sunset loads on my extra rig, and caught a chance for some RW loads because I could go RIGHT NOW. If you offset your repacks, you can have one with the rigger and jump the other one for a week. I loaned it out a couple of times to friends, too. I don't see any downside to having 2 sets of gear besides having to pay for twice the number of repacks and having to buy another Cypres, if you feel it's necessary. I had one Cypres and moved it to my primary after the first jumps of the season.

In the U.S. you're free to open at 13,000 feet, but before you do you'll want to check what the winds are doing at various altitudes. It's very possible that at 13,000 feet you'll have winds high enough that you'll be carried quite a distance. It won't really be much fun if you're forced to try to get back to the DZ or hold for 30 minutes instead of having the chance to play around under canopy. The temperature at 13,000 feet will be roughly 45 degrees F (25C) cooler than the ground temperature, so you might want to plan for that. Opening at high altitude won't damage any type of parachute, as far as I've ever heard. I'd recommend before you do it, you get a report on winds aloft and offset your spot if necessary so you're not stuck up there holding the whole time, or watching the DZ fade away into the distance and have to land WAY out. I've made jumps where the poor Cessna was barely making headway at altitude while there wasn't much of a wind at lower levels. Get some advice from an experienced JM about the spot if you have any doubts. Loosen your leg straps and chest strap after you're under a good canopy and you should be okay. Gloves would be nice, you can take them off once you get lower and stick them inside your jumpsuit.

My experience flying lightly loaded canopies in windy conditions. What part of it do you feel is in error? Or are you implying I don't have any experience?

From my experience, if you're downwind, the best technique for getting back is no brakes and get your leg straps up under your thighs, keep your arms in tight and lean back to make your body area as small as possible for minimum wind resistance. I've tried front risers to increase forward drive, but I think it was a losing situation, since it seemed the descent rate went up more than the forward drive speed aided me. I think a collapsible pilot chute will help you out a lot in this situation, too.

I stabbed down one toggle on a PD-210 9-cell loaded at about .8:1 and got the risers to touch. It would have induced a twist if I hadn't backed off. I was at about 500 feet and it got my blood pressure up. It was very nearly a serious screw-up on my part, I didn't think that big boat would do that, and 500 feet isn't the ideal place to discover it. Be careful.

I'd have to agree with that. I went through IAD program and found that if I kept my eyes on the plane, I started having nice, stable exits without having to think about it. Give it a try, and good luck.

Heh..heh, I did my night jumps with an A license, but don't tell anybody.

Nice poll. Looks like PD is going to have >50% of the total. That surprises me a bit, even though I own 2 of them. I didn't think they were dominating the market like that.

But you have to be naked the entire 2 days, right?

Don't count on that, the night I made mine was DARK. I never saw my 2-way partner again from break-off until he was on final. Don't get the idea "I'll be able to see pretty well", you may or you may not. Plan for the worst, and if you can see, it will be less stressful. If you plan for the best, and then you can't see squat, you will be freaked out.

I guess we'll hear from you again in about 35 years, then?

I understand it's not a user-friendly sport rig, just wondered if there was a valid reason to avoid using one for cross-country if it was available. You cleared that up, thanks.

Or you could do it while packing, sure you didn't get mixed up and twist the bag through the lines while you were putting it in the rig? That way your lines/risers would have looked fine while you were packing. Just a thought.

There's 2 of us? Small world, eh?

I don't really have an instructor. I was just hoping to get some tips from someone who's had a 2-out or a manufacturer's test jumper and whether they tried releasing the brakes on both canopies, and if so, what happened. That kind of stuff is nice to know before it happens to you. I would imagine it also depends on the size ratio between your main and reserve.

Yes, I was thinking that too. I just wondered if you might not be better off to release the brakes on the reserve (or leave the brakes set on the main, assuming you haven't relesed them prior) and try to get a more stable configuration. Yeah, I agree with that, too. In my opinion, the best scenario is having a bi-plane with my reserve "nested" under the main and both with the same brake setting. Or a side-by-side where both canopies want to "keep up" with each other and not turn. Then again, if one or both was half-braked, the sink rate might be lower. So I'm confused.

This is an interesting thread. I've got a question, though, that hasn't really been touched on. You've got a 2-out and it's not in a downplane, I'm assuming your reserve brakes are still set. This should make the reserve assume a higher angle of attack and trail your main, correct? So, is it safer to unstow the reserve brakes and try to get both canopies at the same airspeed, or leave well enough alone? It would seem to me (and I've never flown a 2-out, so it's conjecture), that you would be more likely to get a down-plane if you left the brakes set, since the main is going to want to fly at a higher speed and the reserve wants to kick up and stall. The reserve can downplane tail-first if it enters that configuration, correct? What initially causes a down-plane, is what I'm getting at.

"Safe for use on food machinery." Yeah, that should be fine, if it says that on the actual can somewhere.