Cacophony

I'll be competing in the new Indiana district. I fly a Velo 96 loaded roughly 2.1-ish. I might tack on an extra 5 or 10 lbs towards the end of the season as well as an RDS, but for the start, I'm staying stock.

Don't even worry about wings or anything for a long time. Learn to fly your body, and do so without a lot of conscious effort. You want to be able to fly fairly slow and fairly fast on your belly and still be able to maneuver easily. (I can do 156mph on my belly with my Firefly camera suit on. Yes it has large wings on it!). You've got a ways to go before you're ready for a camera. Find yourself a good RW coach, not just some kid who barely met the coach requirements..........

I would be in the ranking under a 66 VX. (210 with out gear) No, I do not jump it regularly! It was sent in for a test jump and no one else would jump it FCOL. MEL So if you are in the ranking then what kind of numbers are we talking about here? I didn't know that John Judy set a record. I do know that he frequently trains with around 40lbs or more of weight under a Velo 96/103 with 300lbs HMAs on it. 90+ mph is pretty damn fast!

I don't understand the question. Are you still going to be training with a team at your home dropzone? If you are shooting video for a team then you shouldn't be swooping the pond anyway..... so do you just want to move somewhere with a big pond period? If you have the opportunity to swoop your ass off and not pay for it then 5000' or not, you can't pass that opportunity up. Its all technique anyway. Sure you will go farther up higher, but the practice will be much more worth it than not practicing as much just to stay at a lower elevation!

The new Premiere's are getting pretty sweet!

Hi everybody. There is a CPC in the works for Indiana this year. The schedule is as follows: April 15 & 16 - Skydive Greensburg May 13 & 14 - Goshen June 24 & 25 - Skydive Greensburg July 15 & 16 - Skydive Greensburg (Location pending) August 19 & 20 - Richmond The July location may change if another dropzone agrees they want a oomptetion there, as well as a few other little things happen. However, the date will stay the same. All the little details are still being worked and will be posted as soon as they are figure out. I just wanted to get the schedule out there so we find as much competition as possible. So if you are planning on being there, hold off a little longer and I'll let you know who to contact and stuff. Thanks!!

I especially like the part where he gets a red flag! Tried a little too hard. Looks good for a Sabre 135 though. Sorry. That came off sounding harsh. Didnt mean it as an insult. This is the perfect example as to how its possible to swoop the hell out of canopies you don't traditionally think of as swoop monsters. Even more of a reason to stay on a more forgiving canopy until you are ready.

I especially like the part where he gets a red flag! Tried a little too hard. Looks good for a Sabre 135 though.

When you are ready, a Sabre 2 is a better step towards becoming a better swooper believe it or not. At least in my opinion it is, and I've got over 1000 Stiletto jumps. Just because a canopy is elliptical doesn't make it a better swoop canopy. The characteristics are just a little different. If you really concentrate on being a good canopy pilot then by 500 jumps you will most likely have the potential to match an equally skilled pilot on a Stiletto of the same wing loading. In the long run, the Sabre is going to perform a little more like the really high performance canopies out there. Does that help?

My very first swoops were on a Sabre 170. I did about 1000 Stiletto jumps on sizes 150, 135, 120, 107 collectively after that before I went to my Velo. The nice thing about Stilettos is that they are CHEAP!! They have been around for a while, and most of them out there have been around the block a few times which is both good and bad. They have stood the test of time for reliability, but there are a lot of bad lines and worn fabric out there. As far as technology goes, a Stiletto turns a lot faster than an equaly sized Sabre 2 with toggles, but recovers from a dive faster also. You shouldn't be using your toggles for any kind of swooping anyway. The longer the parachute dives the more speed it picks up (to an extent). However it is possible to bust out some monster swoops with a Stiletto. As far as the future of swooping goes though.... If you are serious, stick with a Sabre or get a Crossfire or something. Don't downsize much if you change wings though. Crossfire's need a lot of respect, but oh do the open so sweet!!

Learn everything you can about you parachute before you learn to fly it faster than full flight near the ground. Be sure you know how to land in brakes, toggle and rear riser stalls, flat turns, off the wind line.... Land exactly where you want to land just about all the time. Obviously the people that can help you best are experienced canopy pilots that are actually watching you land. Lots of high altitude hop n pops! And do all of this on a large parachute. Once you feel you can do everything under the sun and land it just about anywhere in any wind condition (even downwind, crosswind....) then you can step down a size. Remember, anyone and everyone will screw up sometime. Wouldn't you rather be under a bigger parachute when you do? It will hurt much less!

What a cheap attempt at controversy. I honesly hope you aren't serious. Even though this is a heated topic as far as canopy performance, to just simply say that without anything to back it up is just calling for flame-age! I'm not a TM, but more power to you if you get it right and it looks cool. Godspeed if you screw it up though. Do it for the camera, but only do it to yourself in my opinion!

What property makes the longer lines change the AOA of the wing? That doesn't make sense to me. Please explain...

Gotta do a little bragging here. I got the January photo of the month on Canopypiloting.com . BAM! Heh. O.k. Back to tandem swooping!

I don't understand how longer lines could make a canopy fly flatter? That seems like a trim thing to me. In which case, wouldn't putting longer lines and a different trim change the way the canopy flies dramatically? Is this a common practice for the VX? Or any crossbrace for that matter? I think I'm comfortable with the way my Velo flies...

There goes good video quality. All that compressed video on DVD.......... They better bump up their resolution on those cameras. Also, docking stations are gay. Who wants to carry one of those around to charge the camera and transfer video. Life as we know it.....

Personally I can do a 180 from anywhere between 400' and 600' with my Velo 96 at 2.05. Depends on how ballsy I am at the time, and how bad I want the turn, heh. I've done 270s with a Stiletto 135 from 350' give or take and still came out high. Its because I was nervous as hell and cranked it around really fast. Plus, a Stiletto is much different than a Velocity. It recovers way faster.

No he did not. It was a 450. Blues. Sorry. I must have been misinformed. You get my point though.

Thanks! Here is a few more. I'll keep looking...

I did about 800 180 degree turns before I went any higher and probably 400 90s before that. 180s are my fail-safe. If done correctly you can get a lot of power, but its easy to do the turn to fast and not get much speed at all. 270s seem to be the prefered by the experienced pilots I know including myself. Just remember that a well executed 90 degree is just as effective as a bad 270, with way fewer things to process. Get good at lesser degree turns before worrying about higher degree ones. I have a lot of respect for Brian Germaine, but just because somebody says they prefer something, doesn't mean thats its always right for everyone. Tagle set one of the distance records using some crazy 675 degree turn or something like that. On the other hand, Moledski set the current record with a 270.

Game on!

Camera helmet is a Bonehead Optik. Great for all around stuff. Front mounted stills make it a lot more slim than a Flat top or similar. Swoop helmet is a COOKIE!! Cookie rocks the party. Awesome padding and very light weight.

Beautiful!

I shattered my femur by landing on my knee perpendicular to the ground going a good 40 mph. Target fixation sucks!! Thats what a Stiletto 150 can do to ya loaded at 1.3ish. Good times!

In 1300 jumps with wings I have noticed that there is tons of range by repositioning your arms, i.e. flying more mantis vs flying big with your arms straight out. Other than back flying (which I think has more to do with how the wings are attached to your arms, not hips), I can't imagine a small 2 inch clip difference is something that fixing your technique will overcome unless it dramatically changes how tight your wings are. Did that come out right?