davelepka

I'm not exactly sure, but I'd guess that like most modern, soft opening canopies, the slider on an X fire is huge. Borrow a smaller one from another canopy, and just use that. Avoid a mesh slider on a sport canopy. Even on a clear and pull, the airspeed from the AC alone is enough to make it brutal. Better yet, just grab your rear risers, and force the thing to open faster in the stock configuration.

It seems that stabs don't do much of anything. The JVX kicks ass without them.

Say what? Wasn't the suggestion made that removing the stabs would cause instability along the yaw axis in turn? Last time I checked the rudder is the king of yaw-land when it comes to AC.

I think they call it a rudder.

This is where I'm confused. Your earlier post said you may have even been 10 ft high on those turns. Are you saying that you are still turning your canopy at 45ft, and that you go from completing your turn to level flight in less than 40 ft? Maybe we're not talking about the same thing, but if you read Stu's post from earlier, he described his time in turn, then his 'roll out', which is the additional straight-line dive the canopy makes in recovering from the turn. Is your roll out only 40ft high? If so, how are you getting your canopy from a high-speed diving turn to level flight so quickly?

Any idea what altitude you're at once you're on heading?

Just to add to the stupidity, I read the non-fatal incident reports in the current Parachutist, and sure enough there was another repeat performance. It seems one swooper 270'd himself into another swooper who was setting up for a 180. These guys were lucky enough to land in some soft mud, and both of them made it out alive. I can only guess that this was at laest a few months ago, but not more than a year ago, just based on how long it takes Parachutist to get things in print. So, to recap, that three times in the last year that the same scenario has played out. The first was a double fatality, the second had no fatalities, and the last had one. So three out of six jumpers involved did not survive. 50/50 odds of living or dying aren't enough wake people up? Thats fucked up.

Does anyone pay attention to what's happening around them? This last weekend was a real bitch. Waay too many people dying or going to the hospital for one weekend. Too many for a whole month if you ask me. Here's the two that really get me - The fatality on May 21, in TX. The guy who rode a mal too long, and cutaway too low. What makes this worse than any other incident? How about the same thing happening less than two months ago to a good friend of mine. Almost a carbon copy of the events if you read the eye witness accounts. The canopy collision in KY. Two swoopers, with one swooping into the other. This is the same thing that happpened last year to another good friend of mine in Crosskeys. Of course the difference between the two is that in the KY incident, only one of the jumpers died as a result. Is that what we learned last year? Go ahead and collide with whoever you want, just make sure to only kill yourself? I think what really gets me about all this is that the only good that comes from any incident is what we can learn from it, and how we can apply it toward the prevention of a repeat accident. It seems that the last two friends that I lost were all for nothing. I know that everyone thinks it will never happen to them, and I'm probably guilty of that myself, but when it does happen to someone, and it's reported, with details, you would think that even the most jaded of jumpers would be just a bit more cautious in that perticular area. I say 'you would think', maybe I need to change that to 'I would think', and accordingly change my already bleak impression of the general skydiving public. I have to admit that all of this hits close to home for me. Less than two months out from one loss, and a year from another, with repeats of both incidents in less than ten days. I also can't ignore the whopper of an incident we had at Aerohio this weekend. As far as that goes, I've got nothing to add thats not already in the incident thread. I wasn't shooting the video, or even on the load. I don't do tandems, or gear up tandems, so I have no information about the use of a tandem harness. I purposely have not watched the video, asked any quesitons, or been involved in the investigation in any way. It's not my business, and I don't want to make it my business. There are smart people working on it, and I trust that they will pull any relevant information they can from the incident. Lets all agree to slow down a bit out there. Lets think about what we're going to do before we do it. Have a plan or three before you get in the plane. Once that thing takes off, you're on a limited time frame. Once you jump, there's no way to get back in. Be ready for what you're about to do, and don't do anything you're not ready for. Sounds like common sense, but this past weekend has shown me that common sense is not always a player in the choices that people make. It's going to take a long spell of incident free jumping to make up for the last week or so. Lets clean it up out there, be smart, have fun, and make it happen.

Keep in mind that becoming a rep isn't like getting hired for a job. If you can sell a few suits, and there's not a rep at your DZ, you can pretty much become a rep. The point is that the rep isn't trained in cust service by the company, so your experience with the rep may not reflect the attitude of the company itself. As such, reps come and go, and when they treat people the way you were treated, they tend to go more quickly. That said, I hear where you're coming from. New best friend? Hardly, but a, "Hey, how's the suit working out?" or a, "That turned out nice, looks great on you", would have gone a long way.

I'm not sure if it willhelp with BASE jumping, but if you're going to do some tracking jumps, check with the insructors at your DZ about where and when you can track. You cannot just jump out on a solo a track where ever you please. You will run into other jumpers airspace, and create a collision hazzard. Even if its not good for BASE, tracking is just fun anyway.

The Katana is a significant step up in performance from a Vengeance. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're only reason for switching canopies is the issues with the openings. This combined with your lack of currency makes a step up in performance a bad idea. If your reason for switching was that you had mastered your current wing, then maybe increasing the performance might make sense, but simply not liking the openings doesn't add up to a need to go faster. Just becasue your accelerated canopy progression has been trouble free thus far is no indication that the trend will continue. You're no different then all of the others who thought they could go against the grain, and eventually got hurt becasue of it. None of those guy saw it coming, or thought it would happen to them. Be careful.

No reason. The wind speed thing is the only factor, and truth be told, generally the higher the wind speed, the less you want to be jumping, even if your canopy is fast enough to push through it. Wind related phenomenon such as gusts, turbulence and general instability are all magnified with wind speed. Additionally, with the spot needing to be further away from the airport, anything that gets you under a good canopy lower than expected such as line twists or a cutaway are more likely to result in an off field landing. Remember, the whoel reason you're so far away is that it's a high wind day, and now you're off field. Jumping in higher winds isn't all it's cracked up to be. Save your jump money and go see a movie or whatever. Go back on a nicer day and jump twice as hard to 'make up' for the wind day.

You're in a slightly different position than the subject of the thread. Your current WL and canopy are anything but high performance, and even if you did donwsize and switch to a Stiletto, it would still be a ways off from 'high performance'. That said, your example is a perfect illustration of my point. You're happy with your canopy and the performance even though others seem to think you could to a smaller, faster wing. You have made your selection as if you were in a bubble, devoid of influence form the outside world. You found something that suits you, and makes you happy. You have the perfect canopy at the ideal WL.

I wouldn't think to be the case as far as mfgs go. They all have a range of canopies, and I think they would rather see a guy get what suits him well today, and then buy another in a year so as his skills develop. Not to mention the bad press of an incident, or just an unhappy jumper. I think most of it is peer pressure, though not direct peer pressure, it's more of a percieved peer pressure. Jumpers feel that they have to fly a certain canopy, container, or jumpsuit to fit in or be cool. Another big part is overestimating their ability, or underestimating the canopies demands (sort of one in the same). The worst part about all of this is that none of these factors are real. Nobody cares what you fly. If it's airowrthy, and you do a nice job with it, all people will notice is the nice job. As far as the canopies go, I really think that Pro swoopign has hurt the sport in this area. Jumpers see the pros and thier selection of wings and WL as being 'ideal', mostly due to the fact that they win comps on that equipemnt. This has lead to the widespread belief that you are giving up performance if you're not at that WL, and has pushed jumpers to always be focused on getting to that WL. Jumpers are still looking down the road at their next donwsize when their current wing is fine, and they may actaully have bettter results with their current wing plus some extra experience. It's actaully pretty fucked up, and again, it's not even a valid line of thinking, just an odd phenomenon that has cropped up in the last few years. Whats really amazing is that these jumpers ignore the obvious buckets of experience and talent that got the pros where they are, and that many of these guys jump different wings at different loadings for non-comp jumps because they find them more fun and accomadating for fun jumps.

I think you're missing the point of my post. The idea is that you have a limited degree fo flat turn that is possible while retaining sufficient airspeed and toggle stroke for a flare when the turn is complete. The OP was asking about high degree or aggressive flat turns. These types of flat turns can be made, however, they leave in a shitty place as far as flight after completing the turn. You've used up all available airspeed and toggle stroke, and are in no position to flare the canopy. Seeing as a flat turn to avoid an obstacle will be close to the ground, this is a shitty state of affairs. The difference between your post and mine, is that you're working within the confines of a properly executed flat turn, and I am addressing the improper execution of a turn, and discouraging this course of action.

A flat turn should not be aggressive at all. It's designed to get you out of trouble at the last second, and you should never fly yourself that far into trouble that you need an aggressive flat turn to get out of it. Any flat turn of more than 90 degress is a huge mistake on your part, and you need to rethink your flight planning before jumping again. Here's why - you can turn a parachute without alititude loss well past 90, up to and even beyond 180, but these are not flat turns. These are climbing turns, although you don't actually go up. What you end up doing is getting in front of your canopy, and this becomes a problem when you stop your turn, and take up your new heading. Presumably, you are low, very low, and now your are pointed in a clear direction, but you're out in front of your canopy, and on the verge of loosing altitude very quickly. When you let the toggle up from deep brakes, the canopy will surge forward, and dive before returning to full flight. During this dive, your toggles have very little effect on the canopy, and can't really stop the dive, so if you're too low, you hit the ground. Hard. Doing a flat turn involvbes going into some brakes, combined with a turn. The braking action helps to offset the altitude loss normally associated with a turn. The more of a turn you try to make, the mroe brakes required to offset the altitiude loss. End result of a high degree flat turn is that you come out the other end with little airspeed, and your canpopy back behind you. Not good if you're low. Look, I've seen your other posts, and you seem real interested in the finite details of very specific (bad) situations, and the very specific 'what if's'. Here s a tip - start placing your focus on proper planning, and making good choices, keeping yourself out of these trouble situations. It's just like the concept behind pulling your handles. Have a routine, and stick with it. The fewer choices you have, the less chance you have you choosing the wrong option, and making things worse. At this point in your progression, pay more attention to flight planning, and making good choices, like landing furhter out where there less traffic, and save the hero stuff for later. When you have a few hundered jumps or so, and flying your canopy is a little more natural, you'll see what it can and can't do. Bottom line - a flat turn is a last chance manuver, most likely around 45 degrees. Do everything in your power to never have to use it. If you do, take the 45 or 60 degrees, make the turn, and get ready to PLF.

Go back to those settings.It only takes a few jumps for you to adjust to the longer lines, but it lets your canopy fly the way it was designed to. Let them out just enough to pull a front riser all the way down with no buffeting or tail flutter. Alot of pilots get used to how the canopy is set up, and then want it to saty that way. Give it ten jumps or so, and you won;t even notice it anymore, except for the clean riser turns, and higher speeds on landing.

What are they charging for video? Did that go up or down? Whats the two or three year history of the video price, video pay, and the price of a slot. Keep in mind that the slot ocst is rolled into the cost of video. As the slot price goes up, that money has to come from somewhere. If the video price hasn't changed in a few years, there's your $5. If all the camera guys are OK with it, have the DZO raise the price by $5, and get your back up where it belongs.

Yep. Without a doubt. There are also guys who look promising, but have just been lucky so far. If you could tell me, in advance, which guys 'get it', and which guys are just lucky, then you might have something. If you can't tell me that, you're taking a chance that a guys luck might run out at the wrong time. The solution is to err on the side of caution for EVERYONE. A jumper who 'gets it' can make excellent progress, and have alot of fun leanring to swoop while following a more mainstream progression of canopy types and sizes.

You might be trying to interject a little too much reality into the show. So far you have a plane crash, with alot of survivors, one of whom was wheelchair bound before the crash, but now walks just fine. Thats OK, but the magnetic property of a key is out of place?

Why did I think this was on Velo? Either way, the all the ideas I had will work on any canopy. Remind your friend that every canopy will bang open every now and again. Making it open faster all time will just make it that much closer to that, and most likely will have more openings where the slider loose, and run down the lines at Mach2.

I wonder how well this method will play with Vectran or HMA line? What was the rate of non-releases, and what was the typical course of action in the case of a non-release. I know on a Velo, one brake that won't release is a deal breaker. Game over.

Was this a knot that would allow full usage of the toggles after you relaese the brakes? Or did you just check the opening, pop the barkes, and fly it down on rears? I'm having trouble picturing a knot that could go through a guide ring. You could also try - Add an extra set of links to all the line groups, effectivly shortening your brake setting by an inch. Or get the small Velo slider from PD. It speeds up the openings a bit and gives it less time to search. Or just install a new cats eye, and jump the thing. My favorite option - tell your buddy to stop being such a fag and just jump the canopy. There's a shitload of Velos out there, and 99% of them are set up at factory specs with the big slider. Just grow a sack and jump it.

I've got a question maybe you can answer. I saw a show a few years ago, which I think was made in the 80s or early 90s, it was a sci-fi thing, kinds like the twilight zone. The premise was a guy was in a 'hatch' and he was linked via video to a few other hatches. He was instruced to enter a code into a computer at regular intervals, as were the other hatch people. The hatches were all video linked, so they could talk to one another. Anyway, the story was that aliens were tyring to make contact. If they were freindly the hatch people would be set free. If they were not friendly and took over the planet, the hatch people could trigger massive nuclear attacks to destroy the earth, and the aliens. They triggered the attacks by not puching the numers into the computer. In the end, I think the last hatch person to survive (supposedly the aliens broke in to the other hatches and killed those hatch people) had to make the call to destroy the planet, but at the end of the show there may have been some indication that the whole thing was just a psycological experiment. It's almost a carbon copy of the LOST hatch premise, except that this show was first. Do the LOST fanatics have any info on this? Did the writers just steal that whole plot line or what?

No, your question wasn't rediculous, what's rediculous is that the information is around that would even cause you to ask that question. At some point, people figured out what WL was just too much for competition. Then they backed off of that a hair, and called it the 'ideal' WL. Now everyone thinks that if they're not at the 'ideal' WL, then their giving up all kinds of performance, or, like you, that they're underloading. Both of these are false. You can jump any canopy made at 1.5 or 1.6, and get great performance from it, and enjoy the hell out of it (except the Cobalt, don't buy one of those ever). I still think you should stick with your Sabre2, and just get some one-on-one coaching. The coaching will make way more of a difference than switching canopies, and the Sabre2 is a nice wing to work with.