davelepka

First off, uless you are headed for a water landing, DO NOT unthread your chest strap. If you should find yourself in a wrap, you'll be happy your chest strap is there. Loosening it all the way to it's sew-over should be fine. Second, here are some reason why you don't want to pull your sldier behind your head. 1. If you slider can come past your links, it will. If it is blocking your toggles, it's also in the way if you need to grab a rear riser for a quick turn after opening. 2. Time spent pulling the sldier safely past the toggles is time you should be using to scan for traffic, locate the DZ, and reviewing your flight plan. 3. The slider behind your head can limit your rearward vision. All of these factors will become less of a problem as your experience builds. At this point keep your attention focused on a safe canopy. Set your rig up so the slider cannot get past your links. This will eliminate any problems with the above situations. After 50 or 100 jumps with your new system, you can easily and cheaply switch over to just slinks, if you feel thats what you want. You will not see much of a performance difference with the canopy and Wl you have indicated. Using a kill line slider above the links will be sufficent to quiet things down, and prolong the life of your lineset. The more complicated you make things, the more likely something will go wrong. Keep things as simple as possible in the begining.

***the instructors would have loaded her up with lead to get a half decent fall rate ------------------------------------------------------ I'm glad those instructors were not teaching my ex how to skydive. She weighs 105 lbs, and the JM's adjusted themsleves to fall with her, not the other way around. Being a student is hard enough as it is, putting lead on a little girl who is already wearing a huge rig is retarded. To answer the original poster, there's nothing 'wrong' with that wingloading, but it will limit the winds you can jump in, and give you an extra long canopy ride, which isn't always a good thing in a student harness. Your JM's shoud be able to work you down to a 230 ish canopy pretty quickly.

1. The big sky theory is for newbies. Anyone who proposes this needs to put more of thier brain into their skydive. It's a big sky, yes, but the plane is dropping all of us in a little slice of it. Knowing the direction of jumprun, and your relation to it will allow you to pull at most any altittude you wish. Tarcking off the line of flight while looking up the jump run for the group after you will let you clear your airspace. Canopy tracking after that will add to your safety. It's a small slice of sky we're using, keep track of it and manage your skydive accordingly. 2. If exit separation is your concern in pulling high, you better keep your PC in the pouch until 1800ft on every jump. Any jackass who is going to exit right on top of you will also hum it right down to the basement every time. This guy will smoke past you even if you pull at 2500ft. 3. Making it clear to the entire load what the time between groups is, AND WHY, is key. Informing newbies of how the windspeed vs. time thing works, and how when the wind is up you can give more time in the door, without ending up miles away from the DZ will ease thier emotional response in the door. Experienced jumpers can build respect for exit separation in the 'cool' culture of the DZ. Telling stories about 'losers' who hop right out early, and how using your head and being patient is the way to go will change the behavior pattern of newbies.

Re-read which ever post you're reffering to. You may have missed the word 'not'. I said that not having them in your hands will severly hamper you if you should need them. Of course I may have forgotten to type the word 'Not', but if you read the posts, I am 100% pro toggle-in-hands at all times.

I'm not suggesting that landing with rear risers is in any way wrong. I'm saying that not having the toggles in your hands gets you ZERO increase in performance, and will SIGNIFICANLY hamper you if you should need those toggles at some point. Emergencies, by thier very nature, are unexpected. Be prepared for them in every way possible, especially when doing so will not adversely effect your landing.

***All we can do as people that are "in the loop" is protect ourselves from harm and teach others to do the same. ------------------------------------------- Lets not forget to protect ourselves from those outside of 'the loop'.

I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you on this one. Pulling the rear riser with your toggle in hand is no different than without. The toggles relationship to the guide ring (AKA full flight) does not change when you pull the rear riser. Togggle in hand or not, it remains seated against the guide ring during the input. Regardless, is not a safe practice to land without your toggles in your hands. The rear risers are too sensitive to inputs to be effective in emergency situations. A low turn, unexpected traffic, or gusty/turbulent winds will present problems better suited to toggle initiated recovery. As discussed in another current thread (High speed stalls?) Brian Germain explains this very fact in reference to digging out of the corner, and how the increased sensitivity of the rear riser can more easliy lead to a high speed stall. This would also apply to an emergency carve to avoid an unexpected obstacle mid-swoop, where your toggles would give a higher degree of control by providing a greater range of motion pre-stall, helping to dampen any over corection or ham-fistedness brought on by the emergency situation.

What is the requirement for a bailout rig in the US? Most Cessna pilots will wear one, but I can't recall seeing many (if any, of course I wasn't looking) in larger aircraft. If one is not required, then the pilot is free to wear whatever he wants (or nothing at all), without any backlash from the FAA.

1. Never let go of your toggles when landing with rear risers. Having them in your hands will make a big difference if you need them. 2. Since you can land straight in with your rear risers, you can handle a broken steering line. Leave it at that. Get yourself another two hundred jumps before you do anything but straight in approaches, and then, get some tips from an experienced swwoper the day you try a 45 degree turn. 3. Don't try to rear riser surf out of a double front approach. Rear risers are good for swooping only if you are doing a turn with a long dive, where you have time to get a secure and even grip on your risers during the dive. The double front approach doesn't give you enough time to comfortably grab the risers after releasing the fronts. 4. It is all about jump numbers. Even the most gifted swooper out there didn't know dick when he started jumping. Every pro will tell you they know more now than they did 500 jumps ago. Why? Experience. Repetition. Exposure to different wind and weather conditions, different canopys and DZ's. 5. Take it slow and easy. You are the poster child (statiscally speaking) for an incident. Be aware of this and proceed with caution.

OK, clarification needed. Adjustment of your opening altitude should be limited to small increments, say, less then 1000ft. If you should realize that you are off the DZ, and want extra altitude, you can dump a little higher to give a bit more range under canopy. When jumping in a group, your opening altitude is limited by the breakoff alti, plus a reasonable track. With a good spot, you can feel free to track right down to your min, opening alti. With a bad spot, you can curb your tracking, and limit it to just enough to achieve adequate separation from your group. Under canopy with a bad spot, even an extra 100 or 200 ft can make the difference between an uneventful off-field landing, or an incident. It is important to keep in mind that even if you have that extra 100 feet, if you have to use it, you have fucked up. Planning ahead, and choosing a safe LZ ASAP under canopy is job #1. If you are questioning your ability to make an LZ, pick one which is closer/easier to get to. I agree that this clarification was needed. I did not consider my audience when I posted, and took some things for granted as being 'common sense'. This does, however, reinforce my point that canopy training is woefully inadequate in modern day skydiving. Aside from the 'no low turns' rule, and flying a pattern, survival under canopy also incorporates proper crisis managment when things go off-plan, and unitlization of resources in forming a new plan. Skydivers of all skill levels should consider if they have thought through possible scenairos, and what course of action they would follow in resolving them. Many times an off-field landing is a non-event, but the time will come when several variables will pile up, and create a hazerdous situation that will require the jumper to think quickly and clearly in order to prevail un-injured.

***I figure any money I spend on training to help prevent me from killing myself under a good canopy is money well spent! ------------------------------------------ Bingo. Spread the word.

a baseball field a good quarter mile North If you were at 2500 ft with winds blowing at 30mph, you would have been able to make a 1/4 mile easily. I'm guessing that with 62 jumps, you are jupming a larger canopy. With a good tail wind, and some brakes or rear risers, you can cover a good amount of ground with a 30 mph tail wind If you were the first group out, expect to be downwind of the DZ. Additonally, the winds aloft should be available to you at all times. The pilot should know what they are, and should be willing to share that with you. With this in mind, you should be able to check your spot, and adjust your opening altitude.

Please don't try to swoop a Navigator. The surge approach the tandems are doing is for VERY experienced pilots only. A double front approach is far safer, but impossible to do with a tandem canopy. If given the option, TI's would use a double front over the surger approach. With a Nav, the riser pressure will similarly discourage a double front approach. The surge approach will have to be performed at an extremely low altitude to work with a canopy of that size. Big canopies have almost no recovery arc, and need to be swooped form a dangerously low altitiude. I have used the double front, and surge approach with a big Nav, and you need to do this at less than 75 ft for it to work (I had 3000+ jumps at the time). Your thoughts need to be on accuracy, landing patterns, and safety under canopy. When you donwsize to your own gear, say a 190 or 170 ZP, you will find that a straight in approach in winds under 10 knots, can give a 20 or 30 ft swoop. When you can perforn this, then think about a double front approach (with coaching from an experienced swooper).

I think you need to re-think your choice of skydives, not your color selections. If you cannot maintain reasonable proximity with another jumper, neither of you are ready for two-way freeflying. More solo jumps, and jumps with a more experienced freeflyer to establish your baseline skills are needed before venturing into two-ways.

Things do happen quickly up there, but every oppertunity you give your slider to spread out and get a firm seat on your stops will help the opening. If a cell or two was to grab some air as the bag stripped off the canopy, before the line groups had spread out, your canopy would begin to inflate, and force the slider down prematurely. It's a big struggle between airspeed holding your sldier up, and your canopy trying to spread out and force it down. As you slow down, air pressure on your slider will decrease, and the canopy will begin to win the fight, but every but of help you can give your slider in the early stages is beneficial.

***Was wondering if a braked turn would of been more appropriate at that altitude. ------------------------------------ There was no 'turn', it was a heading correction. Braked turns should be reserved for emergency obstacle avoidence. A down or crosswind landing in a clear area is preferable to a braked turn, If the turn is preformed improperly, you risk increasing your decent rate (and the severity of the subsequent impact). A down or cross wind landing will have a similar decent rate to an into the wind landing. Your horizontal speed will be higher, but that is easier to mitigate with a PLF or butt slide of some sort. In the landing in question, the question was asked if half brakes might have helped. After the canopy had planned out, and lost it's forward speed, half brakes would have prevented the surge the canopy makes to regain airspeed. It would have also maintained the diminished airspeed down to the flare height, which would have translated into a weak/non-existant flare (due to the reduced airspeed). If you let the canopy go to full flight, when it surges forward, and your weight swings back, you need to pedulum forward under the canopy in order to facilltate the nose pitching up, and the canopy ultimately flaring. If your altitude is just right, you risk hitting the ground during this forward pendulum motion. We already know you won't have any flare (there is a delay between your weight coming forward, and the canopy actaully slowing down), but now you add the extra motion of your pendulum, and risk added speed/force at impact. If you do have enough altitude, you will have a great flare, and probably get a nice little swoop out of it. Here's the rub: If you go to half brakes, you are guaranteed a weak flare, and harder than normal landing. If you choose full flight, you may recover and get a good landing, OR you may pedulum yourself into the ground, and impact worse than a half-brakes landing. Yes, it is possible to land some canpoies in half-brakes without a problem. In this situation, we are discussing less than ideal conditions, a last minute decision, and a canopy which is recovering from a less than optimal configuration for its altitude. All of these factors point toward a different outcome than a planned half braked approach and landing in more favorable conditions.

It looks like your canopy was stopped by a gust of wind. When this happens, your weight will swing forward (your canopy stops, and you keep going) which will pitch the nose up, as if you had flared. When the gust subsides, your canopy wants to recover to full flight. To do this, your weight needs to re-center itslef under the canopy. As your weight swings back, it will go beyond the center position, into a position behind the canopy, which results in a short dive. Eventually, your weight will come forward, to center, at which point your canopy will be in full flight. Here's your problem: In order for your canopy to pitch up, and arrest your decent (flare), your weight needs to be in front of the canopy. Your weight had swung behind the canopy, and needed extra time to reach the desired position in front of the canopy. Because you were so close to the ground, you didn't have that extra time, and you landed without much reduction in your decent rate. There's really not much you can do in that situation. Keeping your canopy in full flight for the majority of your final approach is a good idea. You had made a toggle correction, which may or may not have caused to problem, but that in concert with a wind gust, made have made the problem worse. A slight cross wind landing is not a bad thing, and is preferable to last minute corrections. Also, a PLF is always a good idea. I hope you reviewed this video with instructors at your DZ the day it happened. I would defer to thier comments if they are different that mine, as I am just going off a video. Good luck.

Aside from possible damage to yourself if you have a problem, you could also damage your canopy. I've seen some line burns across the tail of a canopy using an RDS that was bag/PC shackled to a non-removeable slider. The openings and removal went fine, but the tail needed some new panels after just a few jumps.

The end cell does not have to be a scaled version of all the ribs. Many aircraft wings have a different cross section ay different points along the wing (especially high performance wing). Why would a cnaopy designer limit themselves to scaling the same shape, when differing shapes may provide better performance? Are they doing this? I don't know, but I'l leave the possibility open, where you have ruled this out completely. I agree the canopies are made in the same factory, but is built to Brian Germains specs, the other to PD's specs. If PD did come up with some newer construction techinques, as much as they may value their business relationship with Big Air, I doubt they would share thier findings. Again, this may not be the case, but you have refuted this as if it were a fact you had first hand knowledge of. The line set provides the shape of the canopy. As much as air pressure and the cut of the fabric provide a shape, the line tension is responsible for a greater portion of the shaping of the inflated wing. Yes the fabric is cut and the lines are sized to fit together, but the line lenght itself would be a better judge of how similar two canopies would be when inflated. Addtionally, the spanwise curve of the canopy has a good deal of influence on the flight characteristics. Ever notice how flat a Velocity is? Or how much curve there is on a Navigator? Considering that a great deal of effort has been put into the noses of modern canopies (formed, partially formed, X-mods on the VX, H-mods on the Cobalt) is seems that this is an area where a great deal of tuning can be done for greater performance. Why you have minnimized the inportance of differences in this area, I do not know. I would also doubt that you have actually made the in depth, side by side comparison that you claim, the validity of which I still question. There have been Katanas flying around for awhile, but they were the test units, generally sent out only to trusted friends of PD. It seems unlikely that anyone falling into that catagory, with a test version of a new product would allow you to lay it out, and make the measurements/comparisons that you have claimed. Having been invovled in skydiving, and with some ties to PD through the development of the Spectre, Velocity, and Sabre2, I do know hoe they handle thier test untis, and how they develop thier products. You are making a good number of assumptions that are not correct. I have nothing but respect for Brian Germain and his products. PD is not using them a pattern for any of their products. Really.

Just wondering, do you really think that laying one un-inflated canopy next to (or on top of) another could give you a reference to say they are the same? Woulnd't you think that differences in line length, and slight differences in the construction would give you a compleetly different inflated wing? Furthermore, if PD was releasing a Samurai copy, why would they have taken so long to test it? The Samurai is a proven canopy. A copy could have been released last summer, and probably sold in a good quantity at that time. Why would PD sit on a proven design and wait untill most of the country was snowed in to release that product? I am not commenting on the airlock issue, just the assertion that the Katana is a Samurai in disguise.

Reading that made me ill, and ruined my life. If he gets any of that CBS or Jackson money, I'm going to sue him.

It looked like maybe a 45 degree crosswind, and his swoop was straight in line with the course, just on the outside of the blades. I think the cross/down wind set up had him come out of his dive too far downwind. If he had been more over the water before the swoop, he would have been in a better position. As for the spectators, at least they can run fast....

film still has the edge in look and versatility --------------------------------------------------- It does look better than video, but how is it more versatile?

You can purchase a used container which will fit your canopies, and that is close to your size, and have the manufacturer re-size the harness to your exact size. Before you purchase anything, get the serial number, and call the manufacturer. They will be able to tell you if they can re-size it to fit you, and the cost (typically around $200). If you can find an older 'beater' container to get you through a couple hundered jumps, you could buy it and have the resize done for a reasonable out the door cost. Resale on the container should be good. I have tried to sell a container with a small harness that held small canopies (sub 100 sq ft), and every call I got was from someone who needed to hold larger canopies (150, 170), so there is a market for the small harness/bigger canopy combination. Good luck.

If there is no claim to ownership or copyrights, I don't think this situation applies to the 'Picture is worth..' thread. The footage is being requested for personal use, and the user would not profit in any from it's use. That thread was directed at publishers, producers and advertisers who were either under-paying, or not paying at all for footage or images used for profit. I almost think this would be a good situation for some jumpers to have thier footage edited into something, as long as they get a copy in the end.