parachutist

On page 2 of this article is contact info for Aero magazine if you'd like a hard copy: http://www.funjump.com/aerocrw/aero_crw_03-2006.zip The other pages in that zip file are related to CRW record stuff

I've had my standard Neptune over 2 years and I've abused it quite a bit, but it's still working well. I always wear it on my hand and I've bumped it into many items on planes. It doesn't seem to care. =] Chris

The stall surge is not good for landing your sport canopy, but it can temporarily increase forward speed and if done at exactly the right altitude it can provide for more lift (due to the extra speed) when flaring. It increases speed because when you apply brakes to initiate the maneuver, the canopy slows down and the canopy is directly over your head, or slightly behind you (in full flight the canopy is slightly ahead of you). So when you let the brake toggles up, your canopy surges forward and you are now behind it. The canopy is racing forward trying to get back to full flight. Once it's in full flight your body is still behind the canopy, so your body swings forward as a pendulum. If your body swings forward at just the right time (about the time that you're ready to start your flare), then you got the extra speed and therefore extra flare. If the swing forward happens too high, then your body will swing back into normal position before flare time and you didn't gain anything. If the swing forward happens too low (after you should have started your flare already), then you're going to impact the ground. When your body is swinging forward as a pendulum you have very little control. Flare won't give you much lift while you're swinging forward. >>someone talking about not being able to land their "small parachute without >>swooping." Which is ridiculous Yes that generally makes listeners say "You've chosen the wrong canopy" Chris

A little bit of input gives a lot of response on that canopy. This will be especially noticable since you're downsizing to an elliptical from a square canopy. the easiest way to stay safe under your new canopy is to know what not to do and what to do: Not to do list: ====================== Do not make hard turns at low altitude (arms all the way up when you are below 200 ft.) Do not try to land in a tight landing area until you are very experienced with this canopy (have big open field area for landing) Do not deploy the first 20+ times at low altitude .. pull at 8k+ ft and play with the canopy to learn its characteristics) Do list: ======================== - Pull high, as previously mentioned. this will allow you to learn how the canopy responds to inputs (front risers, rear risers, and brake toggles) - While above decision altitude (2000+ ft), find the stall point. Pull down gradually on your brake toggles until your canopy rocks back and begins dropping you fast toward earth... then let up on both toggles. This is the stall point and you need to practice it many times up high in order to become familiar with the feeling... If you understand what a stall feels like then you'll understand how to avoid inducing a stall near the ground. - Land in an open area and refrain from inducing extra speed near the ground. this canopy has plenty of speed using a straight-in approach. - Flare only within the range that you learned up high while finding stall point, and flare evenly with both arms (think about your hands and where they are while you're flaring. Keep them both exactly even. The easiest way to do this is to flare with both in close to cener of your body, in front of you. Then there are finicky openings, which you're not accustomed to with a larger esprit: watch the horizon and keep it level when you reach back for your pilot chute and while the canopy is deploying. There is a high probability you will end up with a spinning malfunction unless you pay attention to stable body position during deployment. These ideas are a very brief list of some of the most important issues concerning downsizing froma 150 square canopy to a 135 elliptical, and it is certainly not all you need to know. I suggest at your low experience level looking for some experienced canopy piloting coaching in person in your local area. Spending a few dollars on coaching beats spending tens of thousands in hospital Chris

I think you're indicating an armadillo. The wildlife is fun down in Lake Wales. While Dean and I were out driving to pick up some jumpers who'd landed off, we saw some really tall cranes standing in someone's yard. They were about 4 feet tall and worth stopping to admire. What really made my day on Friday was flying back toward the DZ after an attempted big-way, looking down, and seeing a bald eagle soaring over a field a couple thousand feet below me. It had a very wide wing span. A local told me there's a pair of them, and sometimes they will soar next to canopies that are flying near them. It was a great week in Lake Wales! Chris W

Here's a clip, seems like almost 1/2 the song: http://www.trooper.ca/albums/audio/RoundRoundWeGo.mp3

Ok good. Sounds like you know exactly what I was talking about then :) Chris

Ok there's been miles of discussion about number of fingers in toggles, so I think that's been beaten to death. What I'm wondering is why this happened to you at low altitude. Since this was a canopy that you aren't accustomed to, you should have made it a point to test its behavior up high. Did you deploy high and try all controls, including slow flares and fast flares, trying to see if you could stall the canopy? If you did these up high then it should have alerted you to the behavior of the slider,a nd you shouldn't have been startled when coming in for a landing.

Toggles stowed means slow flight. The slower the flight, the closer the canopy is to a stall. If a canopy encounters turbulence and toggles are stowed, then canopy is more likely to malfunction. Let the front canopy fly. What happens if you unstow toggles on the rear canopy too? Then the rear canopy will fly faster forward and may press on the front canopy. If this happens then the nose of the rear canopy will likely be pressing on the brake lines of front canopy. This can cause unstable flight or malfunction. So I agree with the SIM: unstow the front canopy's brakes, leave the rear canopy's brakes stowed. Make only light turns.

A good place to start is here: http://freedomofflight.tv/public/index.php?which=canopy That's just an introduction though... after that you need 1:1 coaching from the ground, with video. You can find individuals who are qualified to do this at any of the large DZ's in FL. Just ask at manifest, letting them know you're looking for some high performance canopy coaching. It helps to get some coaching for a day or two... then work for a few weeks on your own... then get some more coacing with vid to see how you're improving and to pick up some new goals/techniques from the coach... then work on your own some more, etc.

It takes a whole lot of practice (thousands of jumps): Years of slowly increasing aggressivity and slowly increasing wing loading, learning from experienced canopy pilots along the way. Canopy control schools are the best places for learning how to minimize risks. Even if you're a low-timer who's still working on getting straight-in approaches right every time, such schools can give you drills to work with up high. These drills can teach you about canopy flight and about how your canopy resonds to different inputs such as front/rear risers.

Yes this is best method I found to make my Xaos-27 open faster and more reliably. Be careful not to go too deep though. I'd try moving cat's eye up the brake line 1/2" temporarily... try that for a few jumps... then move it up another 1/2" and see how that works for you, etc. While playing with such settings, please do open high expecting that mal may occur.

I don't understand the purpose of that move, Cheryl. It could keep the head from going right to left if you pull your shoulders up against your neck, but that still doesn't seem to inhibit the forward movement which my head tends to do during hard openings. Maybe your shoulders are more flexible than mine, or maybe I'm not understanding the tensing you're referring to. Please elaborate; fillin the blanks for me :) Chris W

Quotei'm curious to know why they seem to be rated so highly.Quote Like Skybytch said, some people are gung-ho about the gear they own. I had a Wings container for a while, I wasn't too amazed. It was just another rig. I sold it and replaced it with a rig that fit me better. Chris Warnock

Packing speed depends a lot on the technique. Most D-bag packers are laboriously stowing each bight of line zig-zagged across the top of their D-bag while I've already got the canopy into the container tray. Freestowing lines in a tail pocket with only 1 rubber band saves a great deal of time in my experience. Maybe your method is faster though.. I'd be interested to watch a demonstration. At one time I thought I could Pro Pack faster than any flat packers. Then I met Brian Pangburn :) Avoiding injuries from hard opening also depends a great deal on technique. People can help avoid neck injuries by using neck muscles to push chin down against chest while throwing out. If your chin is against your chest, then your neck is not able to get a whiplash effect: The head has nowhere else to go and so it doesn't have the same inertia as it would if your head had been up. Head being up allows it to gain speed toward the earth and whack it at the neck's end range of motion. Chris W.

I'm still not sure if I saw that. I squinted pretty good... saw a small stick figure that looked like he may be turning around. I'm still not sure though

PD Zone has a spotlight on Lyn Hannah: http://www.performancedesigns.com/pdzone/pdzone.asp Just click on [PD Spotlight] and check out her story. Way to go Lyn... see you at Nationals! Chris W

Bridal anything is discouraged in CRW... it leads to ball & chain, divorces, emotional strife. Erm, maybe that's just my opinion. =] Bridles, on the other hand, are present on CRW canopies and they are retractable. When the canopy inflates, it pulls the pilot chute in tight againt the top skin of the parachute. This keeps the piot chute and bridle out of the way so that it doesn't pose an entanglement threat to those who're coming in to dock on you. After you land, simply pull the bridle out to full length again. retractable pilot chute is not to be confused with collapsible pilot chute. They are 2 completely different setups for different purpose. Chris

I think it's best to practice up high until you feel that you fully understand the stall point with the rears and you know that you will not stall your canopy down low. Next practice rear riser flares up high, not getting to the stall point... hold it for a few seconds, or until you feel that you're nearing the stall point... immediately transition to toggles. Make it nice and smooth. 30+ jumps or so later, after you're comfortable with the feel of these maneuvers... Then during a jump if you're coming in for final approach... nobody's around, clear open landing area in front of you... 50 ft... reach up and put your hands on your rear risers. Wait.. wait... 12 ft.. pull down a little (1-2 seconds), then release the rear risers (hands still in toggles) flare with your toggles now. You can ease into it like this. (A little this time.. maybe a little more next time that you have a great landing setup) . Whenever you reach up for your rear risers with your toggles in hand, please keep a bit of your attention on those toggles, making sure that you will not let go of those toggles when you release the rear risers. I have seen too many highly experienced people do this and have very hard landings as a result, because they dropped 1 toggle as they released the rears and flared. Chris W.

oops... I was referring to tail pockets

That's what I thought about my Xaos-27 when I purchased it. Brand new, just got released. Approx 50 jumps later I noticed the bridle attachment point was coming apart... sent it in for repairs. It turned out the manufacturer had since modified the production process to eliminate this issue (added some more bar tacks). It flies great now that it's been repaired and now that the manufacturing process has been changed. (Precision was quick to turn it around & even covered the shipping both ways, btw). I do not expect anything that just got released to the market to be bulletproof. Let the manufacturer deal with customer service issues for a year or so and the hidden issues will expose themselves. Issues like this may be just annoyances to experienced hp canopy pilots who want cutting edge equipment, but to someone who's interested in experiencing a X-braced canopy and learning what they're like... working the bugs out is not something he needs to be dealing with. Chris Warnock

Yeah, right, like he wants to be a guinea pig? Mel, I think you've been around long enough to know that it's better to let the bugs get worked out for a year or two. Then buy one after it's been around the circuit and proved itself. Chris Warnock

Personal peference. Even world-class top ranked teams mix them up in the same team... some use tail pockets, some use D-bags. I like them because they make packing faster and in my opinion they make the openings more consistently on-heading. Chris W.

It's been around ever since human eyes evolved because it's not really a trick. It's learning to interpret the information that your eyes are receiving in a 3D environment. When we were kids we learned how to interpret right/left movement for turns on bicycles. The up/down we really had no need for. ("There's a big hill... gotta pedal harder" ... that's all the info you needed) To understand the up/down you can learn how to interpret the information by simply walking down a hall. The same rules apply: The point that does not move up/down or right/left is the point your're going to run into if you keep walking forward. Anything that is moving down in your field of vision as you move forward ... you'll go beyond this. The flight path is a corridor similar to the hall you're walking down

Phree: I think HMA in such a configuration would be prone to tension knots. For HMA-lined canopies I always like to have the lines stretched out tight across top of D-bag. HAve you tried HMA in such a config, or spoken with anyone who has? Chris W