danielcroft

Rear riser barrel rolls: https://vimeo.com/122025704 Openings: https://vimeo.com/122026246 Loaded at 2.23:1.

For sure. You can't do more than a 90º at Oceanside but definitely worth checking out, it's beautiful there as well. /threaddrift

That is Skydive San Diego. The earlier jumps are a Skydive Elsinore. We have some beautiful dropzones here in SoCal... at least when it's rained.

Well, it's not mine, it's a demo. Still, while I wouldn't buy that colour myself, it's definitely beautiful. https://vimeo.com/121803718 There are my landings from Sunday and I've added all 17 jumps on the VK79 album (https://vimeo.com/album/3291688). Love the wing, so much fun to fly.

https://vimeo.com/album/3291688 Edit: This is an album of the jumps I'm doing with the VK. 3 hop and pops from 12.5 so far. Terminal jumps start today. That's the video from my first jump on the demo VK79 loaded at ~2.2:1. I normally jump a VC84 @ ~2.0:1. Harness input is super, super responsive. The wing wants to turn. I can see how people get into trouble.

Not a fan of draw string sliders...

https://vimeo.com/121428859 That's the video from my first jump on the demo VK79 loaded at ~2.2:1. I normally jump a VC84 @ ~2.0:1. Harness input is super, super responsive. The wing wants to turn. I can see how people get into trouble.

Maybe so. I was able to compare one packer's (I normally pack myself but team training and all that) pack jobs back to back with snaps and no snaps. 5 to 10 without and then using snaps. So, I can't say it wasn't poor slider control but, even if that's the problem it solves, it does have an effect.

You don't need them but they do make a difference.

I'm not sure if they have a demo program, I'd suggest emailing and asking. I can check as well, if you don't get any response.

So, full disclosure up front, I'm sponsored by Square 1 specifically to help with the KISS helmet. I've had mine for a few months and have done quite a few jumps and an hour or two of tunnel time in it. Mostly free flying in the sky and dynamic in the tunnel. Everything from 2 way head down and angle jumps, up to the HD sequential world records that happened at Spaceland. Before I started jumping the KISS, I was jumping Cookie G2s (that's the carbon fiber version) and actually have two, one sky, one tunnel. Right now, Square 1 is in production mode so you can buy the KISS helmet from them in different colors since I believe they have all the color options that the Phantom has (except the KISS is always matte paint). Standard coloring is flat black, you can purchase it with a solid (again, flat) color and a black chin piece or get the helmet custom with whatever color shell and chin piece. I have a white helmet with a green chin, some people may have seen me with it since I've jumped at a few DZs with it. Unfortunately, their website didn't have all these options last time I checked it so, you may want to email or call if you'd like a custom color scheme. The KISS is meant to compete more directly with the Cookie G3 (since the G2 isn't really produced any more) but, since I've never owned a G3 it's hard for me to compare the two. Having said that, I have talked with a heap of people about the G3 and most of my friends jump them and fly them in the tunnel so, I'm not totally unaware of it. If people have questions about the helmet, I'd be happy to answer. As far as I know, Steve Lefkowitz has been rocking his KISS way longer than me, including the 2014 USPA Nationals where it was 35º on the ground.

There is a lot of frustration because many people only want to hear whatever confirms what they already think. You can take someone who is relatively new to the sport, say 100 jumps, and they'll want to downsize because it's "cool". They come into what is effectively an anonymous forum looking for someone to agree with the choices they've already decided to make at which point they'll throw a fit because someone with years of experience and thousands of jumps will reveal to them some of the universe that they didn't know existed. There are certainly cases of people being ahead of the curve and being capable of flying a faster canopy than their jump numbers may suggest but those people don't come to dropzone.com looking for someone to validate them, they'll generally come looking for information that fills in the blanks to what they've already talked to their local, experienced people about and they'll take that back to discuss with those same people. These people train and take the wing they choose to fly (in the case of downsizing) very seriously. Conversely, there are cases (a couple that played out here, quite depressingly) of people ignoring all the advice of the people around them and being seriously hurt and killed. I'd lying if I didn't say there was some ego involved in my own canopy choices and I'd argue that people who deny this are also lying, but I've never come to someone anonymous to ask if my canopy choices were ok. I've asked and got solid answers from people I know and who know me and the way I treat these things. "Solid answers" doesn't mean I always got a "yes". This same mentality applies to all aspects of the sport we choose to participate in, not just our canopy choices. Nice post, hillson.

Person asks a legitimate question in an effort to learn; gets a sarcastic response? You must be on dropzone.com. Serious answer does not equal a recommendation for you to downsize! As wind speed gets closer to your canopy's forward speed, your ground speed slows down (ground speed = canopy speed - wind speed). When you get to 0 ground speed, your visual for landings become weird (how often do people practice that picture?) and, once you do land, you need to be able to control and deal with your canopy in a fair amount of wind when it basically wants to keep flying. If wind speed is faster than your canopy's forward speed, you start going backwards which, as you can imagine, can be quite dangerous, not only in finding somewhere safe to land but also dealing with obstacles behind you once you land because that's where you'll end up if you don't shut down your wing (yes, people have been hurt and killed). There are procedures for dealing with this scenario should you be in the unfortunate position of having to land in winds faster than your canopy's forward speed - ask an instructor. Mechanical turbulence (turbulence from objects) is another factor that is exacerbated by higher winds and, in fact, thermal activity is pushed in the direction the wind is going so you'll find lifting air (AND the associated sinking air) that isn't visually above the object that's creating it (runways, houses, etc.). All of these things are extremely important when considering whether to board the plane but not so much when you're buying a wing. I say this because you should be able to land your wing safely in any conditions you're going to jump in, anywhere you're going to jump. This means that, while you're thinking of your canopy skills in the context of landing into this wind, have a think about your ability to land this smaller, faster wing *DOWN WIND* (canopy speed + wind speed = down wind ground speed) and cross wind, in emergency situations where you need to react but keep your wing above your head. As many more experienced peeps than me have said, a higher loaded wing will tend to handle turbulence better than a lighter loaded wing but the higher loaded wing will handle any eventual collapse in a much more dangerous way. This is all a matter of scale and people's abilities. There are some people with a lot of jumps who choose (rightly!) to stay on an docile, lightly loaded canopy because that's what they can be safe flying in all conditions given the investment in training they're willing to put into their wing and what they feel is safe for them. I talked with my AFF/I about canopies and other safety issues at least up to 100 jumps and still did after that. You should as well since those experienced people who know you best will better be able to explain these issues to you and know you and your skills much better than some random person on dropzone.com. Asking questions is great, learning is good. When you take information you get from an unknown source and decide to make decisions on it, you may be taking a big risk that you don't understand.

The Pulse has a flatter glide compared to the Safire 2 and Sabre 2. The closer canopy to the PD Pulse is actually the Aerodyne Pilot. The Pulse packs easy because it has the same (similar, at least) low bulk material as the Optimum reserve for its bottom skin. Don't pass up the Storm since it's a really nice canopy, as well. If you have *ANY* chance to demo these canopies, do it. That will help guide your decision (and should do) more than what other people on the intarnetz think.

I hear that, Roy.

It's funny how your perspective changes, I had a similar experience with my first jump on a KA120 (I was jumping a SA2 120 at the time), that transition is more than two steps IMO!

There's a difference between semi-elliptical and fully elliptical. Your last paragraph doesn't specifically mention any canopy other than the Safire 2 which is a semi-elliptical wing in the same range as a Sabre 2 or Pilot. Did you leave out a canopy model or did you find somewhere that says a Safire 2 is fully elliptical?

Whether or not people use harness and/or riser for vmax doesn't mean they'd ditch their dive loops, can we stop beating that horse now? Justin said (and I've heard Ian say the same thing) that you can get vmax on harness alone on turns 450º and above which has been confirmed by flysight. Feel free to argue about why pilots don't use a harness only turn but if you want to argue that they're not hitting vmax, present data to refute or you're just offering an unfounded opinion.

I think this is a really good question. Is a skydiver working on skydiving skills considered a tunnel flyer? I consider tunnel flying a different sport to skydiving albeit with a lot of cross over.

Jojo makes the Chupacabra for the Velo and Xaos. You should get in touch with him if you haven't already. I have used a Chupacabra on a VE90 and a Xaos-21 91, nice openings and it's actually a bit bigger than the PD standard VE removable. I also prefer the way the slider attaches to the PD standard. http://www.thrill-inc.com/

I guess my impression was that the concepts espoused by Schuemann were on a continuum, meaning that there's an ideal but progression towards that planform would yield maybe sub-optimal results until the ideal was reached? On inflatable stabilizers, the anecdotal evidence I've heard is that wings with them feel more controlled and precise while turning but I don't have enough jumps on either to have my own opinion.

I read that paper a week or two ago. I guess what I took (maybe wrongly) from it was that the aerodynamic effect of the Schuemann concept was a sliding scale which is optimized by a completely straight trailing edge? Regardless, you can pull a screen grab from the PD release video if you want to see what the trailing edge of the new canopy looks like. To me, it looks similar to the VK.

Freaking awesome video. piisfish - I checked videos of NEOS canopies online and they seemed to have non-inflated stabilizers, I guess I'm wrong though.

The NEOS has 3 cross braced (or z or whatever they're calling them) center cells. Have a look at the video, this wing has no cross bracing at all but does have inflatable stabilizers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nkok0Tn0z4 New 9 cell non cross braced Schumann planform wing from PD? Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet. Katana replacement? Crossfire competitor?