RichM

Absolutely. It hurts less to learn all Bills canopy skills under a bigger canopy. If you get a container made for a 170 you can fit a 150 in there later with an adjustment to the closing loop length. Don't be rushed by people, do your own thing, then you can say when you visit them in hospital Rich M

I've been on 2 such loads here in the UK, although I'm way too old to be graduating It's an extremely cool thing to do, followed by a major piss up of course ! Ours needed to be setup as a demo jump with the BPA by a demo leader, written permission from landowner and Uni, and Police notification. All participating jumpers had to have the relevant demo rating for the landing area. Local DZ hired us a Turbolet 410 for a reasonable(ish) amount. And we all needed a calming down briefing prior to take off - its a very buzzy thing to do. Just remember you are a skydiving ambassador to the public. Don't swoop it into the creche section of the crowd. Stupid comment but tyhe adrenaline sure makes you want to show and it isn't the place or time to do it. These are some of the most kick ass dives I've done. Get out there and have fun Rich M

This is new information to me, thanks. Do you know how common this is? I haven't heard of it before. Rich M

I think most, and certainly my ProTrack and Timeout, beep on the way up to indicate they are working and remind you what height one of the triggers is set too. I accept that an audible could stop working between this point and passing through this height on the way down. Unlikely, but not impossible so it will happen to someone. Wearing two reduces the possibility of double failure to insignificant, but costs more. Rich M

Hook, that raises an interesting point about the use of visual altis over audibles (I am assuming that you normally maintain alti awareness using your visual). Visual altis clearly have an advantage in that they are an analogue display and you can look at one anytime to see how things are going. Whereas audibles are just trigger devices and only tell you when you pass through the three set heights. Visuals are (mostly) mechanical devices anc while not pefect they are exceptionally reliable whereas while audibles are also extremely reliable, the batteries can run out and usually do so on the flightline

I believe the post Alan refers to was taken to it's own thread and can be found here http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=217044;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread Rich M

I had some sage advice given to me to cross my legs during the surf; not mantis position but just lay one foot across the other so that it's comfortable; and only uncross them when I am going to touch down. It taught my brain to fly the surf like an aeroplane landing. The foot slide comes next

Thoroughly agree, hear flatline and chop with no further ado. Mine is set to 1800. I regularly advise people around my dz to set their audibles this way for this reason. Funnily though, a couple of weeks ago mine went off due to a low deploy (ProTrack said 1600, yuk), and because I'd never heard my ProTrack flatfline before and it turns out it's actually more of a warble than a screech, I remember wondering what if the batteries were going flat rather than realising I had bust through my hard deck. Having realised I now have my brain set for that sound. (Low deploy was due to low initiation, was due to long track after lower than planned break off, was due to my f**k up in other words). It's worth knowing what the noise sounds like, dunno how you set one off while on the ground though. Anyone? Rich M

Thanks Wendy & will do. It turns out he is still responding to emails to his address as published in 1994. Rich M

Hehe, sorry to trigger your relapse But now you put it like that, you're very probably right. Fwiw, I'd not thought about it in that detail, I just have slams, normals and snivels; these being approximated by the altitude lost between starting the reach and looking at the alti under an inflated canopy; rather than a measure of how long the canopy has the slider up. I completely accept my error and I sure wish I hadn't posted that paragraph now . Now where's my beer! Rich M

We have a slightly unhinged NZ instructor here at Headcorn, really nice bloke but completely off his trolley. 2 weeks ago he was in an accuracy competition under a stilletto, but he wasn't swooping, he was bringing it in on full brakes and shuffling it down to the pad (wingloading unknown, canopy is 120, guess his weight 12 stone or more). He has 6000+ jumps and really knows his canopy! This is not recommended behaviour, hehe. Rich M

There have been a number of sad cases where people fought their malfucntioned canopy into the ground without attempting to cutaway, deploy their reserve and save their own lives, or prevent injury. I define malfunctioned here as a canopy that is not controllable, or not landable. You already have a hard deck in your head, and that is a very good thing. At 3,500ft twists are just a nuisance factor. If you still have twists at your hard deck then it becomes a malfunction - you cannot land that canopy safely. Get rid of it and get under one you can land safely. Another complicating factor is maintaining the discipline of staying altitude aware while struggling with a canopy. You know you were out of the twists at 2000ft, so you looked at your alti then. Didi you look at your alti while you were kicking out of the twists? The answer should be "often"

Hehe, ok I might have exaggerated a bit with 50 lbs, my kit probably wieghs less than 10lbs . But my crossfire has 1000ft snivels everytime which is why I chuck at 3200ft Rich M

She should, and if not someone should help her work out why - she nearly killed the camera man. Canopies flown by camera flyers general snivel for a thousand feet, it saves them having their neck broken by the rapid deceleration of 50lb of camera gear attached to their head. The cameraman normally deploys in place, that column of air is theirs. Was she low on the formation and dumped in place and above normal pull altutude? That might have killed the formation members too. Was she off to the side and couldn't see the formation, tracked in a random direction and ended up under the camera man? There are lots of possibilities. Whatever the cause, the result clearly suggests that she is not ready to be part of a 4 way team. But it is important to gain the learning value from this experience. I agree the cameraman yelling does not help her, but she nearly killed him. He was probably very scared and shaken and emotional. Near death experiences do that to most people. If you know her see if you can figure out what happened for her. Good luck. Rich M

Imho, there isn't any such thing as a canopy that will stay in the dive, just different radiuses of recovery. The way I figure it, this could only happen if the canopy produces exactly the same drag as the skydiver for nil recovery arc, or less drag than the skydiver for negative recovery arc (in which case it wouldn't have a natural glide path but would try to fly straight at the ground all the time. But theres no way any current inflated canopy produces less drag than the suspended skydiver, so the pair acting as a system will return to natural dynamic stability where the skydiver is suspended under the lift point of the canopy. Just my 2c Rich M

Richard, glad you here with us, fundamentally your execution of your emergency procedures saved your life and thats good news. Posting your experience here and offering others a learning opportunity is also very applaudable, thanks. I'm a bit concerned that the above statement suggests that you are not interested in learning from this yourself, cutaway #1 does not a cutaway expert make, but I'm guessing you didn't intend your post to read like that. Blue skies brother Rich M

I'm converting Jerrys excellent "The Aerodynamics and Piloting of High Performance Ram-Air Parachutes" document to word format and I need to contact him to clarify some points. If anyone knows his email addy could you either email it to me at r.moulton@btinternet.com or ask Jerry to email me. I have tried the email address on the document but with no response. Many thanks Rich M

Hook, Watcher, Thanks to both of you for further widening my understanding of canopy flight characteristics. Now all I have to do is get it right in practise Rich M

Does it really achieve level flight or does it return to its natural glide angle requiring some input to generate more lift and fly horizintal? If it does achieve level flight, how does it do it? I believe you but I can't figure out the physics that would make this happen. Thanks. Rich M

Trigger - if you're the HPC Trigger, give me a shout if you get the opportunity to demo a Cobalt or Samurai. Demo Sams are as readily available as rocking horse poo in the UK, and I expect Cobalts to be the same. I would like to demo them too. You're welcome to try out my 119 Crossfire which flies and lands like a canopy a size bigger. Rich M Rich M

Found it, thanks...

Ken, you're a prolific contributor :) I would also like to know your thoughts on the sam, especially if you can draw comparisons with the cobalt. TIA. Rich M

Agreed, and we're all still learning - its one of the great things about this sport. There is a lot of info in this thread so take your time and soak it all in. I would add that it's very important to remain altitude aware when fighting a canopy that wants to play foul, but it is critically important that we do. Quite a few people have fought a malfunctioned canopy into the ground with no attempt to cutaway and deploy the reserve. Have fun, be safe, Rich M

QuoteGot a serious line twist (Student rig, F111 - 190cf), The twist untwisted just as bad the other way around, I got that undone, and found my (what do you call the drag chute you hand deploy?) all tangled up in the right side lines., to make it worse as I looked up to the chute itself, I saw a couple of lines coming over the top of the sail. So. "Oh Shoot", Reached down and cut away, Managed to be under full reserve canopy by 1,500. Quote On top of what has already been said there is one big mistake that you made. Line twists are a nuisance factor, if you look up and see twists ignore them for the moment and check your canopy. There is no point using valuable time getting out of twists if your canopy has malfunctioned anyway and you will have to cuty it away. From your text above it appears that you may have spent a lot of time sorting out the twists only to find you had to cut away the main as it had a line over malfunction. Another point to note is that if the rig you were jumping has a student ADD, then there is a serious danger that it may have fired if you had been just 1 second longer. That would have deployed your reserve canopy into your malfunctioned main, with the possibility that neither would have worked properly. Glad you are here to tell us about it. Please use the opportunity to learn from this. Rich M

While I accept that jumping in clouds adds significantly more danger to a skydive it does occasionally happen that you find yourself in cloud. I have to agree with Fudd that gentle and repeated 360 spirals offers the safest option as they will keep you inside a single column of air and significantly reduce your chances of colliding with another skydiver (as long as they do the same). But keep a constant eye on your alti - it may be fog! Don't spiral into the ground! Rich M