Hooknswoop

Right, de-arch, but don't just bend at the waist, bend your spin up, like a pissed off cat, so that you look like you were laying on the top of an otter wing. Hook

In the owners manual, they list the malfunction codes Hook

Checking the condition and trim of your canopy’s line set is simple. Run up your lines from the container to the canopy the same as the beginning of a normal “PRO” pack. Inspect the lines as you go, looking for areas of wear indicated by fraying or damage. Check the length of your steering lines with the brakes set. They should be exactly even. If they are not even, check to see if they are twisted. A twisted steering line will be shorter than a line that is not twisted and can cause a tension knot. It is best to remove any twists from your steering lines each time you pack. A high wear area is near the loop for setting the breaks. As you fly the canopy, this area of lines is being pulled back and forth through the guide ring on the rear riser, causing wear. Stainless steel guide rings on the rear risers will reduce this wear because they are smoother than the zinc plated rings. When your canopy opens in brakes, the steering lines are under tension. Every time you release your brakes, you pull the tab (the stiff part of the toggle for setting the brakes) out of the loop. This “sawing” action results in tremendous wear on the loop, eventually causing it to break. Another high wear area is where the lines attach to the links. If the slider is allowed to flap as you fly your canopy, the grommets beat on the lines, causing wear. A simple solution is a collapsible (kill line) slider. Vectran is more susceptible to these types of wear than Spectra or Dacron. Your rigger can replace a single line that is fraying or damaged. Some riggers will replace entire line sets, but the manufacturer can replace a line set easier and in less than half the time it would take most riggers. Stainless steel slider grommets and soft links will also increase the life span of your lines. A brass slider grommet impacting a stainless steel Rapide link will cause the grommet to dent and burr. Instead of having a smooth grommet sliding down your lines, the grommet will have a rough surface, wearing out your lines at a faster rate. After inspecting your lines, gather up the nose cells as in a normal “PRO” pack, and making sure that your risers are even and your lines are taunt, compare the length of the “A” lines (the lines that attach to the nose of the canopy). Compare the difference in length of your outer “A” lines (the lines that attach to the nose of the end cells of the canopy) to your center “A” lines (the lines that attach to the center cell of the canopy). When the line set is new, the “A” lines are all the same length, except for a few canopies, (check your owner’s manual). If your canopy has a "Drooptip" trim set up, compare outer "A" lines, then move inward, making sure they are even. As the canopy is jumped the outside lines will shrink (spectra/microline shrinks from the heat of friction from the slider grommets) faster than the inner lines (except with Vectran lines) because they are in contact with the slider grommets more than the inner lines. This uneven shrinkage affects the openings and performance of the canopy. If your outer “A” lines are shorter than the inner “A” lines, measure the difference with a ruler. Then check your owner’s manual or call the manufacturer of your canopy to find out how much the line set is allowed to shrink. If the line set is out of tolerances, send the canopy back and have the manufacturer replace the line set. I have had a line set replacement take as little as one week and as much as four weeks. When you inspect the sections of line with line “finger trapped” inside it, be careful. When the outer line frays, it can look as if the line is not in bad condition because the inner line makes the line thicker. But if the outer line breaks the inner line can slip out and the line will come apart. Replacing the line set of your canopy is a part of the regular maintenance of your rig and will bring new life back into your canopy. A line breaking on opening can result in a cutaway (know ahead of time if you can and how to flare with rear risers) and a line breaking at low altitude could be fatal. Hook

Dug up the other one : Same suit Exit: 13,000 1st 1/2: 85 2nd 1/2: 75 Max: 99 Deploy:1500 I didn't go as far on that one though. Hook

Competion Bev Suit w/ booties, nylon front, cordura booties, inseam grippers, fat double arm and leg grippers. I would love to take a GPS out w/ me on a tracking dive. Send me a GPS, I'll jump it and send it back. Hook

Like Rhino said- make like an Otter wing. Suck up the abs, stay tight, point the toes, lossen your legstraps enough that you can shrug your shoulders as far up and foward as they will go, wear a factory diver and the smallest rig you can. Side view looks like an otter wing. I opened sweating, w/ sore calves, and out of breath. Hook

Jump run was 1/2 mile west of the DZ and into the wind (South), I opened 2 miles to the East of the DZ. I drove the road from where I opened to the edge of the DZ and added 1/2 mile. The pilot used GPS to fly jumprun 1/2 mile to the West and maintain a straight jumprun to keep the competion fair (it was a whole otter load). Pro-Track for exit, opening altitudes and free-fall speeds. I looked it up on Jump-Track Exit:13,500 Deploy:2,100 Free-fall time: 102 sec By my math that equals 76 mph avg speed and a 1.158:1 Glide ratio. Hook

I got out at 13,500, pulled at 2,500 for 11,000 ft of free-fall. Tracked for 2 1/2 miles (13,200 ft) in a RW bootie suit. Better than a 1:1 glide ratio. Pro-track said 75-80 mph fall-rate. This was a tracking competion, so the #'s are real. Hook

# Jumps: 2751 First Jump: 25 JUN 95 2435 Days 1.13 jumps/day Hook

I would compare buying an FX 119 instead of the crossfire would be like using a dragster to commute to work. It could be done, but why would you do that. Pick the best vehicle for what you are going to do w/ it. An FX requires more inspection, maintenance, and attention to fly than a crossfire. It doesn't open as nice either. unless you are profiecent at hook turns already and want to take them to the next level, I wouldn't bother w/ a cross braced canopy. They are specialized for swooping. That is what they do best, at the sacrafice of other things. I would recommend the crossfire. Hook

Good report on the Crossfire. as for HAVING to go fast to land an FX or any canopy for that matter, not true. If you can hook it and land it, you can fly it straight in and land it. At some point in your swoop, you slow down to the normal speed of the canopy, and either a hook or straight inb landing would be identical from that point foward. Why not get an FX? A X-brace is like having a dragster, if you don't want to go REAL fast, why bother w/ the hassle of a dragster? Hook

You can talk to PD, but they will bore you for about 10 minutes talking about rubber bands, line bite size, body position, and then tell you the Sabre doesn't open hard. Have a rigger put a pocket on the slider. Hook

Thanks- that makes a lot of sense. How much then does the size of the slider affect snatch force? Following the same logic, bigger slider means bigger snatch force, all other things being equal. Hook

I have thought about a flexable re-pack schedule. Say 180 days until either the reserve or the container are 2 years old, whichever comes first, then 120 days. And the rigger can change it to 120 day- re-pack cycle if the rig is jumped a lot. This puts a conflict of interest (more re-packs=more $) on the rigger, but riggers are supposed to have integrity anyway. And if a riggerr routinely changes the re-pack cycle on rigs to 120 days when it doesn't need to be that way, he will find himself w/ less business. Hook

I think it is a complicated issue. Take two jumpers, one under a 100 and one under a 200. Both have a 1:1 wing loading. assume same technique and ability. Which one can swoop farther? At the same speed the 200 pound jumper has twice the kinetic energy than the 100 pound jumper, but the 100 sq ft canopy will go faster, creating more kinetic energy, but probably not twice as fast. the 200 lb jumper will slow down faster than the 100 jumper because he has more drag. So its a trade off. Too many variables, fat jumper, muscular, etc...We probalby won't figure this one out completely:-) Hook

"Take Luigi at a loading of 1.7:1 and J.C. on the same model of canopy also at 1.7:1 and as far as swoop -distance- is concerned I think J.C. is going to win just because his body carries more energy." I disagree. That would put Luigi under a much smaller canopy. At the same wing loading, a smaller canopy has less drag, a higher top speed to trade for altitude in a swoop. This is why small girls get plenty of performance at lower wingloadings than their larger male counterparts. A VX-60 will go faster than a VX-120, all other things being equal. Swooping is trading altitude for airspeed and then airspedd for altitude as efficiently as possible. Hook

I disagree. If a canopy takes 1000 ft to come for the last stow to come undone or 500 ft, you are travelling the same speed and the canopy will open the same. The time the d-bag spends getting to line stretch has no impact on how fast the canopy will inflate. Once it is out of the bag, and the lines are taunt, the canopy will inflate at the same rate regardless if it takes 1 second or 30 seconds for that to happen. the overall opening altitude, from PC toss to full canopy will be shorter on a larger PC, but the opening should be exactly the same (for a kill-line PC). Once the canopy is out of the bag, the PC is collapsed and has no effect on inflation of the canopy, so big or small, smae opening. Hook

"And remember that most reserve pilotchutes are over-sized to begin with (36 to 42 inch diameter). They produce hard openings if used on mains." I have always wondered about this one, and have a few spirited discussions about it. If the size of the PC (assume it is a kill line) only affects the amount of time between pull and the canopy coming out of the bag, why would a canopy open harder w/ a larger PC. I can see faster total deployment because it comes out of the bag sooner, but the canopy shouldn't inflate faster........?? I agree that manufactures use one size reserve PC because it is cheaper, one TSO, one size for manufacturing, etc, but which size are they made for? I would guess the middle sizes and the the smaller containers the reserve PC is over-kill and the larger containers, the PC should be bigger. I know that on my 2 tandem reserve rides, waiting for the reserve to come out of the bag took a while. And I know the fury 220 takes longer to come out of the free-bad than my 109 does. Seems like the same distance for inflation between the two after the canopy is out of the D-bag though. Hook

In my original post, I was assuming identical inflation speeds, the big point was different size and therfore weights reserves being deployed by the same size PC. The total difference in deployment altitude can be affected by the longer time it takes for the canopy to come out of the bag. And why not larger PC's for larger reserves? Are the small containers have too big a reserve Pc or do the large containers have too small a reserve PC? Hook

And small???? Hook

Not to steal your thunder phree, cause you are right, but give yeager the best aircraft and he is unbeatable, or was....I guess....you know what I am trying to say. Give the best canopy pilot out there the best thing on the other end of the Vectran and he/she will win every time. Hook

Remember- a 7 cell will have a thicker airfoil section than a 9 cell, all other things being equal. I've got an old clipper 195. I'll jump it as is, then chop off the ribs and top skin and compare the openings. Cool another test jump! Hook

Gen Chuck Yeager had an argument w/ another pilot one day. The other pilot thought that the airplane was more important than the pilot. Chuck thought that the pilot was more important. So they got two aircraft, one that was vastly superior to the other and went up and dog fighted. Yeager won. They landed and switched aircraft. Yeager won again. Give the ten best canopy pilots in the world Spectres and let everyone else have whatever they want, they would have a very hard time beating all/some/any of the Spectre's. Hook

The 5 in & 7 in measurements, where are you measuring? And are you measuring a 7 cell and a 9 cell or a 7 cell main and a 7 cell reserve from PD? I have watched my Safire open with the top skin laying on the bottom skin and the ribs completely slack in the between the top and bottom skins then it pressurizes and off we go. Hook

I can compare the launch times of big and small reserves w/ the same size pilot chute and it is a significant difference. I had 6 cutaway on an XRS w/ a 109 and recently deployed a Furry 220 out of a J4. Big difference in the time to get the canopy out of the d-bag at pretty equal speeds. Even worse for an Eclipse tandem reserve deployment- took forever for that heavy reserve. I think most of the time, inflation doesn't play a big role in canoy deployment. I have been wanting to take the topskin and ribs off a canopy and compare the deployments, before and after. Hook Hook