denete

What does brown do for you??? SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

You convinced me. Feel better? SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

I think I'll change flights. All I can picture is the beans scene from Blazing Saddles. SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

You won. SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

Okay, I wanted to get another sampling of the rationale for a "safety mantra" of mine. I know that I shouldn't wear an exposed belt when skydiving. How do I know this? I know this because my instructors say to not wear an exposed belt when skydiving. Here's the question. Why do you avoid wearing a belt? Or, do you wear one anyhow? (and by "you", I mean literally you...not me) Thanks for the info. - David SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

Sure, go ahead and rub it in man. But my teams won today.

Dammit J, I've got a bunch of red bandanas. Now what am I gonna do?! Switch dropzones? I bet I'll have to learn a whole new dance for the rumble scene too. Dammit!!!

I'm getting up early to drive to the Farm.

Can I use a trident?

Good job dude. Stay safe, stay happy.

LMAO Good one Billy.

Are you serious? Please, I want to learn more. Give a more detailed explanation of your theory, because it sounds like you're saying that some of the people at that dz don't know right from wrong. Who exactly are you talking about? I assume Tater. But, who else? Please share. - David SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

It's moose mating season, and I'm getting lucky tonight!

I like that idea.

But you'll have a place to hang your coat.

I absolutely understand what you mean. Perhaps I'll feel that way in the future, but as for today I don't really have a frame of reference to make that prediction. Thanks for the realistic point of view. SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

Damn! My idea is faulty! (I thought you were looking at the canopy as the variable regardless of experience, but you're just looking at level of experience when the pilot downsizes...my bag.) SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

(Hypothetical response #1) Well then, I guess you've accomplished everything. You've lived you life. I'm still living mine. (Hypothetical response #2) I'm with you on that one. If I were a person like you, I wouldn't do it either. - David Get on living or get on dying, because "someday" never comes.

I dont see too many experienced skydivers jumping big Mantas or Navigator 300s. Oh, I thought you were asking for data? I figured it would be good to look at the same data on skydivers who don't downsize. But I guess if you don't see it, it must not happen. Best luck to you with that approach. Personally, I don't see too many "experienced" skydivers dying under big Mantas or Navigator 300s. But then again, I've only been reading the reports for a few months now. (and yes, I know that you can die under any size of canopy) SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

I think NWFlyer has the best answer, a good briefing. But, I did have one off landing and my time with GoogleMaps paid off. It helped as soon as I used the accuracy trick and saw that I wasn't going to make the dz, I turned to set up for my first choice off-field site. Just remember that GoogleMaps wont give you power-line placement or terrain information (apart from shadows). I had to use my memory at that time to remember that there was an incline in part of the area, so that I could avoid it and land in the flats. SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

What about someone who NEVER downsizes? I guess that would be the control group for this armchair research. I've been over this in my head a lot (thanks to these threads about downsizing and safety), and I don't really see a good reason FOR ME to entertain downsizing in the future. I like watching swoopers, but I don't have any interest in doing that myself. Perhaps after I witness my first extreme impact I wont like watching swoopers any more. I don't know. Probably the only transition that I see in my FAR OFF future would be to a canopy that has a better L/D...or the addition of a second reserve.

So you get a couple of the 2" super-balls. Embed a piezo "screamer" in it that is impact activated. After a safe cutaway with enough time (and wits) to toss your balls, pull a couple out of a pocket and chuck them in the direction your canopy is heading. A couple of lithium batteries should keep them screaming for several hours. Get close to the general vicinity and you'll hear them having a little conversation. It'll get you as close as your estimation of drift can get. By the way, I got this idea after playing with a chotchki clear super-ball that had LED flashers inside. They would start flashing after it hit the ground and keep going for about 30 seconds before shutting off. If you used a Nerf ball (about the size of a baseball+), it might drift similarly to the canopy. You'd have to activate it manually though, but it would be less bulky to carry in a jumpsuit. SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

Because GREEN poop is funny!

That's normal. Weathervanes can be designed to point INTO wind or AWAY from wind. It just depends on how the weathervane is designed, no? The physics aren't the same for a regular rigid airplane with a tail, and an inflatable flexible wing with no separate tail. Next. I'm not a physicist. I'm not an engineer. I've just been paying attention to things that fly for a few decades. Take what I write with a grain of salt, I could be pretty far off the mark. Some of my ideas may be hard to follow without seeing them and most are "that looks about right" theories. Good luck. Okay, so a traditional configuration aircraft has a forward wing, trailing fuselage, and aft empenage. The pitch dampening comes from that span of the fuselage and the horizontal tail surfaces. With a typical square canopy, this is mimicked by the suspension lines and the pilot. The pilot and gravity work together as pitch dampeners. The traditional aircraft is usually modeled with the wing, fuselage, and tail in a horizontal plane (or pretty close to it), and the airflow happening in that same plane (no high AoA test examples, just the plain-Jane model). Gravity is our "motor", and it pulls in a constant direction...down. Think of the angle at which the relative wind (assuming a dead-calm day) is hitting us. To put it in the traditional airflow model, we would have to turn the suspension lines close to parallel to the ground with the pilot being the furthest forward point, and the canopy the furthest aft point. Now we are looking like a traditional canard. Because of the freaking AoA of the canopy, it is functioning more like an under-cambered wing with dive-brakes. Having taken gravity out of the equation, where does roll-control come from (still thinking in this sideways model, this would be the same as yaw in our normal canopy flight)? Well, it should come from warping the canopy or from twisting of the pilot below the canopy. The pilot as a rolling surface control would look a lot like the Gossamer Albatross' canard (a floating canard that can be rolled). So what does all of this matter? Well, when you put us back in the normal configuration (pilot closest to the earth, canopy closest to the sky), we've got a lot of mass under the canopy. Because of the tension on the suspension lines, the pilot is going to be affected by wind and will pendulum out longer due to mass. Once the pilot moves out of center under the canopy, you have swiveled the canopy in some manner and changed the profile. It is now more likely to be affected by the wind while the pilot pendulums below it. Yeah, right...sure. That was with constant wind. You have to remember that air doesn't just travel parallel to the earth. You are constantly flying through a "river of air" (thanks Dave Thornburg) which boils and flows. So, you are hit by lateral and vertical changes more often than you might think. For everyone that says wind doesn't matter and that canopies are always moving through air the same way no matter what the wind speed or direction is, I say pffft. This is true after the canopy and pilot come into "agreement" with the wind, but that is not an instantaneous happening. It takes a little time (thanks Newton). Throw a raft into a river and you'll see it happen. The raft will actually accelerate and come up to speed with the water (close enough), but it doesn't happen instantly. During that transition time, we're on an invisible roller-coaster in the air. Unexplored? I'll bet some guys at NASA and others around the world would disagree. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-045-DFRC_prt.htm http://www.engr.uconn.edu/~adstc/publications.html And there's always: Advanced Recovery Systems Wind Tunnel Test Report by R.H. Geiger and W.K. Wailes. A Pioneer Aerospace Project for NASA. Tests of large ram-air canopies were performed in the NASA-AMES 80 x 120 wind tunnel. Results for various angles of attack and wing loadings are presented. August 1990, NASA Contractor Report 177563. Please take all of this lightly, and remember what I said about "that looks about right" theories. - David SCR #14809 "our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe" (look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)