matt002

Exiting a plane with a canopy you don't have the skills or experience to land safely thus Having to cutaway is pretty stupid, and probably carries a higher risk than just landing said canopy. Especially as flying the canopy around in the big wide open sky with no ground reference is pretty pointless. If you follow a reasonably sensible progression you will fly and land a velocity for the first time and wonder what the big deal was, that's how I felt the first time I flew one. Why not just wait until you have the experience, skills and confidence to fly and land a velo 90?

The equipment does little to make it safer. Flying small highly loaded wings close to the ground/rocks/trees is hazardous, speedflying is in my opinion more dangerous than skydiving. There are more ways to get hurt. Margin for error is variable, you can fly at high speed in very close proximity to the terrain or you can launch and just fly out into open air. Either way you will still have to land into a landing area is often full of rocks/telephone wires/fences/animals/trees. Take care.

I use Brian Germains terminology Positive: gains altitude after speed inducing input Neutral : Planes out to level flight with no pilot input Negative: Requires pilot input to achieve level flight

I use a Swing Spitfire 11, feels much like a small velocity with very negative recovery arc with the trim full out. I have started to fly with a little more trim as I find it more fun to gain a little altitude and use it to dive at the terrain in linked S turns so carrying some reserve speed in the wing that allows me to attack more and pop up over obstacles, rather than just fly with the trim off in full drive without the extra energy and speed created by smooth harness turns. I didn't like the look of the large speed wings with the stilleto like auto recovery but have been blown away by the performance of my spitfire, didn't realise flying on harness and toggles could be such fun and would not be interested in using skydiving wings for speedflying now. To answer the OP question, the main difference is that no one is there to tell you what to do or not do, a lot of speed flyers would not be allowed to fly their speed wings under the type of regulation you see at a DZ in the similar way to how base jumpers are not allowed to use their base rigs to skydive. I think the risk profile of speed flying is more similar to base, it depends a lot on the choices of the individual, flying out from a large grassy hill in a straight line and landing into a large flat open field has a much lower risk than this for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLKVx60I5BM If you want to fly fast close to the terrain, high performance canopy piloting skills are essential, the side of a mountain are not the best places to first learn these skills. There should be fewer rocks on the landing area of your DZ.

Ask a question where the answer is to improve technique but end up on a double downsize. Nice!

That tends to work on smaller turns like 270s, where I can go from front risers for most of the turn and then harness to finish. In a 450 I need to keep the canopy turning for longer so use harness input to continue the rotation, my hips will already be leading the turn so I can't really throw my hips over. Point being that harness input is only really needed if you can't continue the turn on the risers, I have a spectre 120 for wingsuiting and do my full 450 on front risers.

With all imputs maxed out I try to pull my body towards the front right riser and jump over it kind of twisting and tightening onto the final heading quite hard to explain but gives a much stronger pitch and longer rec arc as opposed to just maintaining the same turn rate with the harness input.

I had the exact same issue, yes you are probably taking the loading off your legstraps, rendering harness input ineffective until you re engage the harness. I have 3 'gears' in my rotation a 450 right turn. Strong double front input. During this stage the loading is pretty much entirely on my front risers, rear risers are actually quite slack from what I have seen from rear mounted video footage during my turn. Harness input is not effective in this mode. This covers 180ish degrees of the turn, as the airspeed builds the front risers begin to pull back and return loading to the harness, leading to gear 2 where I continue the rotation using mostly harness input and whats left of the front riser input (the front risers are almost rock solid at this point) leading to gear 3 which is quite aggressive whole body input to finish the last 100 -120 degree of the turn with a strong pitch and my body level with or above the canopy before the rec arc. So basically if I do a rotation of less than 180, the harness will be in effective for this turn as I can keep the risers in for the full 180 degrees which is probably what you are finding?

That would be true if you could order it without the RDS and get 350 off but you can't so it is 650 more than a standard velo. And by the time you have lined it with 500s, attached a D bag and pillot chute to the low drag attachment point, refitted a standard slider you have basically detuned it back to pretty much a standard velo and paid 650 bucks to do so. That makes no sense to me.

I tried to order one in feb last year, was told sail versions were not being sold anymore just zp that was based on a sales inquiry to Jim and conversations with Nick. They mentioned a new material being developed, a mylar based material, is this the canopy your talking about or is sail being sold again? I wouldn't describe the comp velo as "competition only" just competition specific. I don't see the point on spending the extra money on a comp over a regular velo if your just gonna de tune it by putting 500lb lines on it and not using it for the purpose it was designed for, the difference in performance is too subtle for most to notice unless your measuring your speed times and distances, ie competing.

It's ony available to the sponsored pilots, been that way for a while. Comp Velo is a competition specific canopy not best suited to regular freefall jumps (comes with rds and 300lb line as standard and for subterminal deployments) also quite expensive compared the the regular velo. What's your intended use?

I firmly believe there is not one single input that does the job for all situations. It has been mentioned before in this thread that if you have a strong downwind push, brakes will most often give the best result, minimising decent rate and riding the wind back home. With no downwind push, or very little, rears is often better, so any cross or head wind component and rears is the better option to extend the glide.

Must be a UK thing. We try for horizontal and vertical separation where possible. 3000 is considered the 'normal' pull height for groups and solos. If you want to pull higher than this you go later in the exit order. if a group or individual ends up moving along the jump run in freefall, there will be less chance of a skydiver in free fall colliding with an open canopy from the previous group. We have a jump master responsible for arranging the load into this order.

yeah its a good opinion though. If you just decide to pull high, you lose any vertical separation you might have had from the group that exited after you. You should make your intention to pull high know to the load. 3000 feet is a normal pull height for most skydives and is not really 'sucking it down' as you say.

lots of the canopies I have flown will do this at lighter wing loadings. I have a spectre that will do the same on my usual 450 degree turn. Rather than try to finish the turn at the precise height that will allow it to 'auto recover' (which is near impossible to so with 100% consistency and usually not the best way to carry max speed), I aim to finish slightly lower, I use then rears then to flatten out the glide. It is the same technique I use on more high performance canopies in competition, some would say slightly in the corner, and they would be right. Even if you do hit the 'auto plane out' you can still use the rears to continue the swoop and transition to toggles after, you just wont carry as much speed this way. When you finish your turn, you have your maximum airspeed and you are basically slowing down the whole time after that, you cant generate anymore airspeed after this point. If you finish your turn slightly lower than the natural recovery arc, and use the rears to plane out, you basically arrive at ground level sooner, and as a result will have more airspeed than a longer more natural recovery arc from a turn that finished higher. This is of course a direct compromise of safety for performance, and care must be taken not to finish the turn too low as rears might not be enough to keep you from hitting the ground fast.

It surges forward slightly because your transition from rears to toggles is quite slow and there is a definite gap between rear riser and toggle input. The canopy is returning to its neutral pitch (no rear riser input) before the toggle input takes effect. Your rear riser input looks a little late and heavy (to a velo pilot, is that a jvx?), and your still turning a little during your rec arc to get on your line.

From what I can see in competition, there are two ways to go far in distance. Small highly loaded wing (example sub 80 sqft @ 2.7+). Comes through the gate with lots of speed, has less overall drag than a larger wing and covers lots of ground very quickly in the first 3/4 of the total distance but then does not float or maintain as much lift at the end. I see a trend towards this now with the weight limits. Larger highly loaded wing (example 96 -111 sqft @ 2.7). Requires the pilot to be over the weight limits without lead. Big guys basically. Comes in with less speed through the gate covers the first 3/4 slower but maintains the lift longer during the end of the swoop. I think the smaller wings require better technique to maintain the speed. The returns diminish quicker due to technique rather than wing size, but past a certain size I'm sure the returns would tail off completely. I have seen some quite sloppy turns go mega distance with a 18 stone pilot under it.

Agreed. this is my weapon of choice. WL 2.3 - 2.5 Perfect balance for all three events and regular jumps without lead.

Nice to see some new HP canopies being developed, the XF-15 is getting some good results too.

DZ is around 1200' elevation. Wind conditions were light and variable switching from very light cross downwind to very light cross/head winds. Some very impressive flying.

here is the pond at RAPA, my favourite competition pond

Bad Lipspringe CP comp is back on at RAPA. Dates are 8th - 10th July, pond is looking amazing and it could well be the last chance to compete on it.

That sounds about normal for a velo. I also swapped out the slider for a smaller RDS one and that improved the openings, the faster openings were more on heading. I have a comp velo now and the openings are really good, no searching just soft and on heading. I use it for normal skydives with just the slider rather than full RDS. Maybe time PD released a Velocity 2 with the improved openings of the comp velo?

I have a removable chest strap on my swooping rig, it has a stitched loop at one end and is larksheaded to the chest ring. The rig already had this mod done when I bought it but I don't fully remove it, its long enough to be able to move around in the harness a bit for speed and zone, I extend it with a second chest strap for distance. Have tried it fully off a couple of times and don't like the feeling when leaning forward as there is no support. Much prefer the extended chest strap as its long enough to lie flat on but still supports my weight.

Sounds to me like the problem is your bruised ego, its as if you expected this guy to know who you are and what experience you have. Even with your speed flying experience taken into account (base does not count) I would still be confused and concerned in equal amounts with your jumping this canopy. The velocity is made for high performance flight and landings, jumping without any experience of swooping, at a wing load of 1.35, with little skydiving currency, at super elevation just makes no kind of sense to me. Ask yourself, what made him ask about you jump numbers? If I had seen you landing straight in on a velocity 111 in the student landing area, (ie not displaying any sign of the skills this canopy was designed for) and then been asked by you a very basic packing questions that suggests that you had never even jumped one before, and you told me you had 500 jumps I would say the exact same thing. Im not usually part of the canopy police but that fact you cant see why this guy said and acted the way he did warrants a reality check. I think I know who you are talking about too and if it is, you should really take notice of his opinion on this.