Quagmirian

The irony of the analogy is that I have never done any of those three things. I didn't expect to be called arrogant because I disliked the attitude of people with more experience than me. All I came to this forum for was advice on what to do on the next 100 or so jumps to make me a great canopy pilot. I didn't ask how to swoop, how quickly to downsize or how many jumps I need. Half the people replying praised me for wanting to be good. The other half hated me for wanting to be as good as them, and gave me the usual 'you're not good enough' speech in one form or another. It's all very well accusing me of acting arrogant, but sometimes it pays for all of us to look in the mirror.

>Just don't get it in your mind that you can do it quickly, it just plain takes awhile to build the kind of experience you need. >experience If you'll excuse my French, I really fucking hate that word. It's a word that doesn't really mean anything. It's just a word that's used to patronise newer jumpers in my opinion. Please don't tell me or anyone else that I need more 'experience' or 'x amount of jump numbers' to start swooping. Don't get me wrong, I admire your wisdom and your input. Edit: Thanks to everybody in this thread for the advice by the way.

I fly canopies in the 210 size, at a loading of 0.75:1. For ages, I kept on getting a very slow right turn under every canopy I flew. I checked everything, steering lines for twists or shrinkage, hand height and leg strap adjustment. In the end it turned out that one of my legs is thicker than the other, which would also explain why I was turning in freefall. So harness turns can have a small effect at lower wing loadings.

Forgive me while I throw up and my genitals shrivel in horror.

G-ATLT, although I'm not sure if that's the kind you're looking for.

Forgive me for taking canopy control seriously.

Ok guys, I know you might hate me for posting this, but nevermind. I'm a very recently qualified jumper (I wouldn't even qualify for a USPA A licence), and after trying a few disciplines, I've decided that canopy flight is probably my favourite thing. I've done a bit of formation coached jumps, but I didn't really enjoy them. I can't see myself getting into freeflying either, as it'll be like FS but upside down and more difficult. All my cool peers are banging on about tube exits, hybrids and jumping with some guy called 'Dan BC' (I know, kill me), and I'm not sure if this is what I came into skydiving for. I don't like long plane rides, I love getting out low, and I've enjoyed a little bit of accuracy recently too. Anyway, I think I've decided I want to be the world's best canopy pilot (not necessarily the coolest swooper), and I'm looking for things to occupy myself with the 120 jumps before I can even think about high performance canopy flight. Anything I can work on? I've got my B licence stuff to sort out, but I should complete that fairly soon. For people familiar with the BPA system, I also need a grade 1 for my C licence, any ideas? As I said before, I was turned off by FS. As far as equipment goes, I'm on rental kit at the moment, with no rush to downsize. I've jumping 210s for pretty much all my jumps and my favourite was the Triathlon followed by the Spectre. tl;dr I need stuff to occupy my next 100 or so jumps

You'll have to put a few shotbags in the pack tray every time you downsize.

OP needs to learn calculus.

I would say this is the one time where you can say no to your instructors. If you feel uncomfortable on a smaller canopy, there's nothing wrong with going for something larger. Remember that people may be giving you maximum or average wing loadings for your experience level, and there will always be people who want something bigger over their heads. I'm not saying your instructors are wrong, not at all.

I'm curious as well. Its gonna come as a real shock to realise I've been doing it all wrong for nearly 40 years..... The new generation are just full of surprises to go with their mad skillz...... Techniques do evolve and ... SHOCK HORROR... even improve in some cases. It might pay to keep your mind open to new techniques and methods instead of dismissing them as "mad skillz" before understanding what they are. We are talking a SPECIFIC technique here...namely how to exit the aircraft in a stable position. Now please elaborate, in some detail how the technique of exiting in a stable position has evolved in the last few years, in a way that I have no knowledge of. My mind is open and receptive to new ideas. Its not like I haven't seen, experienced and adopted new techniques and ideas in the last 38 years I've been involved in skydiving. Now tell me how this new fangled exit technique works!. I don't know about everyone else, but my easiest stable exit is to take a knee in the door facing 45 degrees to the front, and then just jump out into my best arch, facing forwards. For me, it's a compromise between a fully poised exit sat in the door and a normal dive exit.

I took on a bit of Riggerlee's advice and thought about the shape of the inflated canopy. What I have done for my kites in the past is a rectangle for the bottom skin, and a rectangle for the top skin. This works well enough, but it is not the ideal solution. I didn't really understand what RiggerLee was on about, and I couldn't use the excel tables because I'm using a proprietary airfoil, so I came up with my own. Basically, the bottom skin is still rectangular, but the top skin has additional width which is proportional to its height obove the bottom skin. This meant I had the take my smooth rib design and make it into a series of points. The good news is that should make matching up the parts for sewing later easier. I'm thinking about fabricating a 110 sqft model to see how well this works.

What you call the ribbon sound I call the crisp-packet sound. I just love the sound of a zero-p collapsed slider and stabilisers vibrating in the breeze.

>experienced people: touch your shit >touch your shit

Hey Shah, has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like? Because if they have, I think they will have published the 1:1 glide ratio.

That is not related to jumping.

And I thought I was being aggressive with my plan to downsize soon. Out of interest, how much have you experimented with the slow flight and stall characteristics of all the canopies as you have downsized?

It's some cuttings of 400lb dacron I'll hopefully be using for my canopy.

I've been practicing a little bit on my finger traps.

That's why I posted a while back about line trims on the Optimum reserve. I ended up ringing PD, and the reason they don't give out line cascade points is to stop people like me from manufacturing duplicate line sets. Line trim charts are to check your canopy is in trim only. The way I have created my line lengths is to copy the total lengths from a known canopy, and then put cascades halfway up the longer line. I then cut these out of cheap, strong, nylon cord and tie them in knots as a temporary line set.

Here's a question for all you knowledgeable people out there. Is a single row of zigzag stitching an acceptable way to secure a fingertrap on a suspension line? I could swear I've seen it on some older flight concepts designs. I would take a picture of what it looks like, but my camera can't focus on it.

The very words I live by. On a related note, I bought myself a protec-style helmet for my student jumps, and I still use it. It was second hand, very cheap and very comfortable. I would say go right ahead and buy a helmet which you like and are allowed to use.

I don't remember meeting you Andy, which DZ have I been banned from?

If it makes everybody on this site feel better, I said I would never be towed at the airfield again. There are some hills near where I live, though.

@RiggerLee That's not actually the precise airfoil I'm using, it's just representing the direction of the wing, in case you thought I was putting the lines and stabilisers on backwards. The airfoil I'm using has a thickness of 15%. I'm not using the spreadsheet you gave me on this build, but I am keeping it for next time, definitely. I'll be using nylon cord tied with knots for the lines, initially, like on my white 7 cell. That will allow me to play with the trims before I commit to cutting and sewing a line set. @RiggerRob I wanted a bit of stability in brakes, and I thought that chopping the stabiliser back halfway to the D line would do that, silly me.