faulknerwn

You'd probably want a 160. If you want to commit to a true CRW canopy (unable to be used for freefall) you'd definitely want a Lightning for CRW camps and such. If you want an all-around canopy which works well for both freefall and CRW, Triathalons and Spectres (preferably with Dacron lines) are a good choice. You wouldn't be able to use those on big-ways, but they work well for 2 or 3 stacks around the dz..

I have 18 inch risers and absolutely adore them. You'll have no problem reaching the slider or the brakes with that size risers...

That's it! Sarge actually gave me a cane toad to wear on my CRW rig! its very cool...

You can ask Brett Higgins about that. :-) He actually got to use his pull-out reserve (his rig is legal in Australia and therefore could be jumped at the CRW record). Its a quite cool setup I must say - I actually would like to have a pull-out reserve - but its definitely not AAD compatible :-) (The rig has a pud for the reserve pc attached on the main lift web on the left side. Its funny glancing over at someone and seeing no obvious reserve handle :-)

That was my first mal. I had borrowed gear, 199 jumps and it was the sunset load.. I had never had a chop before. The slider stow was caught up in the cascades and no amount of anything was getting that sucker down... I had time to play with it but although the canopy was open and flying straight, as soon as I touched my toggles at all it would stall. No right turn, left turn or flaring. It was especially tough cuz it was borrowed gear with no "safety devices". It was a thousand times over the hardest choice I ever had to make - spinning mals or CRW wraps are much easier choices. I chopped, eveyrthing landed on the dz (which made me proud since I spotted) and lots of liquor and beer were drank...

Out of curiosity - how big are you - what kind of wing-loading did you have on the 150? W

Good luck making it through DFW in that time table. Customs there last time for me took forever - I had 2.5 hours in between flights and ended up sprinting to barely make it. What a mess.. W

I've heard a couple of people mention being over the limits on their student jumps. What are some of the "progressive" dzs - like Skydive Chicago - using for student canopies and how would they fit on their chart? Most places around here are still using more traditional/larger canopies, but I know that Skydive Chicago always had a unique program... If their numbers are higher than typical - how would their students/graduates fit in? W

Yeah - I'd love to see some numbers - but its definitely going to be hard. Even among the same sized canopy - some manufactures like to trim their canopies with a very steep trim, and some with a very flat trim. And that could dramatically affect how well a canopy might recover from a panic turn for example. And heck - some canopies are known for their more challenging openings - Spectres have a lot more consistant openings than Stillettos. Especially for young jumpers who haven't had a cutaway - moving to certain styles of canopy can dramatically increas the risk. I know the Dutch (I think) not only have canopy size limitations, but canopy class categories. Which makes sense in a lot of ways. While someone with 100 jumps might be ok at a Spectre at 1.1 to 1 - we probably don't want them on at a Stilletto of identical size. It would have to be a continual process - they seem to be coming up with new sorts of parachutes all the time.

Its not fast compared to the 150 - put put a 120 lb girl under a 120 and I guarantee you you'll leave her in the dust. Its interesting - having spent almost 2000 jumps doing CRW under Lightning 113's - I've seen a lot of things. In recent years, we've gotten _very_ good about keeping the wing-loadings very similar. I am religious about waiting out in the front (and side) of the formation and make sure all my other small folks know to as well. 143's aren't as bad, and 113's are the worst, but the formations normally outrun me. If I get behind a formation - even on front risers the formation is often outrunning me. There was one 16-way I was on where we were doing run-backs. That means after the first formation is built, we break, the pilot runs back several hundred yards, dives down and we rebuild. On these runbacks - with 160's up top, the formation would be above me and past me (without me doing anything) by the time it came my turn to dock. They were impressively fast. Look at the pictures of the big ways - it was designed with the big canopies up top and down the middle. Normally the outsides want to cup forward because they are the only part of the formation which have a free end-cell - everyone else has 2 grips taken on them - the outsides only have 1 so they tend to want to outrun the formation... We arranged to have bigger canopies down the center line, and we actually have the opposite affect - the outer wings are almost being drug backwards. The 81 way was flying as fast as I was - which was amazing. They normally slow down. The big canopies are definitely solid as a rock - they don't turn very fast and are not as twitchy - but they frigging fly fast forward..

I think it was about 1.1 but absolutely. He definitely was smoking me. I had a much greater descent rate - but forward speed absolutely. His was a 9-cell Sabre2 I believe, and mine was a 7-cell Triathalon, but you'd be surprised at how much faster the big canopies fly than the little ones.. I think most people think of little canopies as so fast because they're used to seeing average-sized males under the highest performing canopies (Velocities, Extremes etc). Throw a small 120 lb person under a Spectre and its night and day difference.

They will definitely _turn_ much faster but their forward speed is much slower. So its a trade-off - both can kill you. On the large CRW formations, the small canopies are always on the outside. That's because they are so much slower than the large ones. The big boys are up top and down the center because they're hauling ass... And having watched a lot of crash landings on Lightnings of identical wing-loadings but different sizes, the big boys look like they hurt more - most likely because of the extra speed and mass... Its a trade off though - a big boy can go to an elliptical when he wants to go "twitchier" but a small person already has twitchy but usually wants to go smaller for speed... It really is interesting watching how the relative canopy sizes in an environment when you know everyone is practically identical on the wing-loading. Everyone can smoke past me in speed, but I have much more minute control because it takes so much less effort to get my canopy to move or turn. This chart seems to not taking into account the greater forward speed of the big canopies (which can definitely kill ya) and placing all the blame for canopy problems on the twitchiness. A few months back I watched a guy loading a 190 square (Sabre 2 maybe?) just a hair over 1 smoke past me under my 1.5 loaded 99. I think the forward speed is more likely gonna cause injuries than the fact that the smaller canopies turn faster.

We're not talking at 50 jumps here. The charts wouldn't let them jump a 1.3 wing loading at 500 jumps! There's a HUGE difference between 50 and 500. And heck - the big boys can load at something like 1.7 on this chart.

It used to be that way. I had to practically promise my first-born child to PD to get one back around '96 or so, but there were at least 3 on the last record. There was at least 2 more people who could have been on 113's weight-wise but for various reasons jumped a 126 with weights instead. Of the last 4 people to dock on the 70 way, not only were all 4 small women, 2 of the 4 were jumping 113s, and 1 more could have been. I've been really pleased at the growth of the number of women doing CRW. It was only 5 years ago that I was the only female at practically every CRW camp. Now there are usually 5 or more. As the sport grows, we'll get more and more women which will make this more of an issue. I think about 10% of the 85 way was women. I remember when I first started doing CRW - (at 115 lbs) they had me jumping a Prodigy 175 with 30+ lbs of lead + gear. I didn't do very much of that because it sucked so bad and I went back to doing CRW on my Jonathan 105 (not a good plan, but I didn't know about Lightnings back then, and Spectres and Triathalons didn't exist yet.) W

Definitely better :-) But I'd like to see small people at least be able to do CRW before 500 jumps - the PD 113 is halfway between your sizes so they're kinda left out... (FYI - 155 exit weight is pretty much the max we put on 113's typical) W

Absolutely true that small men are going to have the same problem. It could very well be that John has changed his attitude over the years. I just remember meeting him and talking to him (and I remember this cuz this was the same camp I jumped with Roger Nelson and Derek Thomas so it sticks in my head very clearly.) John literally handed me the rig with the 135 in it, and even was kind enough to look their old demo stock that for sale to see if there was anything of that size appropriate for me. Its weird - I remember very clearly back then much preferring to jump the PD 170 (F111) over the Sabre 150 (ZP) because the PD was much zippier. The 135's didn't worry me at all speed-wise - they were still quite slow. Only problem I had was packing the suckers. And this was years ago - I remember everyone thinking I was nuts for preferring the bigger F111 cuz it was faster and more fun.

It doesn't even have to be that large either. My first night jump was on a 1-1 loaded Monarch 135. Well let's just say I discovered where the ground was when I plowed full speed ahead straight into it... I hiked back to the dz with a bruised knee and swore off night jumps for a while :-) Flaring definitely makes landings better tho :-) W

I wouldn't put a person with 40 jumps on a 105, but a 100 lb girl who has 300 jumps on a Spectre 107? I think she's probably safer on that than the big boy jumping the Stilletto 150.. Back when I was learning to jump, I weighed in at about 115, and at about 50 jumps I went to Lake Wales with some friends. I didn't have any of my own gear, and PD was there at a booth. They started me on a Sabre 150 and after watching me on 1 jump, John Leblanc himself had me jumping a 135 and suggested that be the perfect size for my first canopy. I ended up finding a cheap Monarch 135 which I jumped for 50 jumps or so, then put another 50 on a friend's Jonathan 136, before buying a Jonathan 105 at around 200 jumps. Heck, I only had 6-700 jumps when you made me the Jedei 92. But twitchy is such a relative term - if I had to land unconscious under a canopy right now - I'd take my Triathalon 99 in a heartbeat over a Samurai 120. I wouldn't even consider the Samurai - its a much more radical canopy despite its bigger size. Using your chart, for a small woman - the only way she would be allowed to get more performance is switching from her Sabre2 120 to a Stilletto 120 or something similar - rather than switching to a Spectre 107. I find it hard to believe that someone could claim a Spectre 107 is twitchier than a 1 size up elliptical. I know a lot of women who really love the Spectres because they aren't twitchy and their openings are predictable, but they like the smaller sizes because they're easier to fly. So many options are being taken away from small people. Its the reason I love 7-cells so much - I can get more speed by going smaller without getting the radical openings. I've got my share of spinning ellipticals and I hate it. Its why I've gone back to small 7-cells - I get most of the benefits of a higher wing-loading with much less of the risk. Small != radical. Small can be radical, but they're not one and the same.

Only if you're a bigger guy - small women at 500 jumps are still limited to a .9!!!!! wing loading - point 9 - that's a goofy restriction - big boys can load at .9 on their first jump - not just 500 jumps later. Absolutely smaller canopies are more responsive, but the large disparity in allowed wing-loadings is not right. The key to remember is that small canopy does NOT mean radical. More than one 7-cell square is available below 100 square feet.

But according to your chart, its ok for a 200 lber to load a 120 at 1.6 at 500 jumps, but a 110 lb girl loaded at .9? I guarantee you that the guy jumping the 120 at 1.6 has a WAY more radical canopy than the girl? I'd say that even if you put the girl under a Spectre 97 for example - at a 1.13 wing-loading at 500 jumps - the guy under the 120 at 1.6 wing loading is still more radical... Canopy type is a big factor here - non-competition CRW in this country has pretty well settled on a wing-loading of 1.3-1.375. I can think of more than one person who wouldn't have been allowed to be on the world record by this chart - all small people. Big boys would have been fine. This basically would ban women from doing any sort of serious CRW at all until after they had greater than 500 jumps, while the big boys can have all the fun they want. I'm all for having recommended wing-loadings and I kinda like the add .1 wing loading for every hundred jumps, but keeping women from doing CRW or gaining canopy knowledge just because they're small seems goofy. I like the Dutch way which also categorizes canopies into classes - I would have less of a problem saying you have to have x number of jumps to jump an elliptical and x number of jumps to jump a cross-braced, than keeping a woman from jumping a 1-1 loaded docile 7-cell just because she's small. Even at the same wing-loading, there's just night and day difference between a 1-1 loaded Spectre versus Samurai versus Velocity. Is it safer to have a woman on a 1-1 loaded Velocity rather than a 1.3 loaded Spectre? That's what would be encouraged by not allowing women to progress. W

I completely agree with you about the small women. I understand the small canopy thing too - its ok for someone with an exit weight of 200 lbs but not for someone with an exit weight of 135? That's goofy - small people are completely hosed here.. Just because you go smaller doesn't mean you have to go radical. I absolutely adore my Triathalon 99 - in fact I just bought a second one cuz my old one is getting so worn out. Given the choice I'd rather jump my Tri 99 than _any_ elliptical 120. The Spectres and Triathalons certainly feel safer at a smaller size than the larger ellipticals - but there's not even any options on your chart for a smaller person to jump a smaller "safer" canopy. Just because its smaller does not mean its unsafe - it can actually be more docile than the larger canopies.

Send in the Clowns

I jumped near Tokyo, and while it was expensive as heck, I had a great time. Wonderful people, really nice and friendly and welcoming. Other than the ridiculous prices (and the cold weather - February - BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR) it was great... W

4 Aircraft, Casa for the base, 2 Otters flew by at 15, and the trail Casa flew by at 12... No mals or wraps on the record jumps.. Don't recall any mals during the week but I could be wrong about that. A handful (4-5?) maybe of cutaways in the week before the record...

From what I've seen Lightnings open slower, but you do have to take into account that these were the very big boys (the base) and opening at 18,000 feet (well only 15,000 feet msl in perris but still)...