The recovery arc is the term given to a canopy's flight after an input. When ever you pull a toggle the canopy turns but it dives a little too. The recovery arc is the path of the canopy during that dive to recovery to normal flight. A lot of people tend to make recovery arc refer to an amount of time instead of a path and distance in the sky. This is mostly refered to when talking about swooping and front riser inputs for a high performance approach.
As for which is better, that's really up to you. The large majority of modern design canopies that are used for intermediate and professional level swooping have longer recovery arcs. Some of the better ram air designs over the last 30 years have shorter recovery arcs. A longer recovery arc will give you the ability to have the canopy in a dive longer and can give you the ability to build more speed due to the length of the dive. That doesn't mean that a canopy that is said to have a longer recovery arc is a good choice for you.
If possible, understanding the limitations with your location, get some demo canopies or borrow someone's canopy and jump what you can. See what you prefer.
Thanks for the explanation! I made this question because recently I acquired a Heatwave, and the gear review said : "and has a short recovery arc which is not forgiving"....so I had curiosity about that.
I put a lot of jumps on a Heatwave 170 that I was loading up pretty good a number of years ago. I can kind of agree with that statement. With my experience I was doing 270s at a scary low altitude due to how quick the canopy recovered. The next canopy I bought was a Crossfire2 149 and I got pretty deep in the corner a couple of times due to mistakes on my part and not being used to the longer recovery arc.
I'm not going to say what altitude I did 270s with that Heatwave but I will say it was below 400ft!
The next canopy I bought was a Crossfire2 149 and I got pretty deep in the corner a couple of times due to mistakes on my part and not being used to the longer recovery arc
Well, I am going to have in mind for when I have my Katana!! (maybe in 2 or 3 years)
Yup, the katana has a much longer recovery arc than the crossfire, which put me into a bit of a corner last weekend. Little bit of a skinned knee from an unintentional superman, but otherwise, very luckily, walked away unscathed.
If a short recover arc means it returns to normal flight quicker after an input then why is a short recovery arc less forgiving? In my inexperienced opinion a longer recovery arc means it would require more opposite control to return to normal flight thus making it more susceptible to over-corrections. What am I missing here?
Take a canopy with a long recovery arc (e.g. Velocity @ 2.0). Depending on how tightly you turn, you can exercise considerable variation over the height loss (maybe even 100ft or so).
On a short recovery arc canopy (e.g. Pilot @ 1.4), you don't have that variation. If you begin 10ft too low, you're likely to plane out 10ft too low.
However, it requires someone quite experienced to take correct advantage of this variability - it also makes it less predictable for people learning (IMHO), and canopies with longer recovery arcs also (as you point out) don't dig out as fast.
assume that someone flying a canopy with a short recovery arc releases their front risers during a double front riser approach about 15 feet too high, will it severely impact a full flare, or does the canopy return to full flight immediately upon planing out?
lets say a safire2 loaded at 1.6 for example............
assume that someone flying a canopy with a short recovery arc releases their front risers during a double front riser approach about 15 feet too high, will it severely impact a full flare, or does the canopy return to full flight immediately upon planing out?
lets say a safire2 loaded at 1.6 for example............
You really should take a canopy course if you're asking these questions. This is very elementary stuff.
Have you heard of "flight cycles"?
When any kind of input is given to a canopy which causes it to deviate from full, straight flight it will go through a number of cycles of primarily roll and pitch changes. As it does this airspeed will vary. These are flight cycles.
Since they are cyclical, and induce pitch changes, exactly how much flare you get while going through them depends on what part of the cycle you are at when it's time to flare. If you happen to need to flare when the canopy has reached its maximum pitch/minimum airspeed and is starting to dive again you're going to get a crappy flare.
The above is the reason why canopy instructors often teach 10 seconds of full flight between the last turn to final and flaring - to allow the flight cycles from the base-final turn to die away and allow the canopy to fly at full speed thereby giving maximum kinetic energy to convert to lift in the flare.
thanks. i took a course in october, and im planning on taking another at elsinore this coming april, and im definitely not gonna stop there.............
we did discuss cycles briefly, and i was made to understand that it takes some time (we did the ten second thing) for your canopy to get back into full flight, but i wasnt sure if recovery time was applicable to double front riser approaches, we just talked about how toggle and riser turns affect a canopies recovery time................
thanks. i took a course in october, and im planning on taking another at elsinore this coming april, and im definitely not gonna stop there.............
Cool man - that's really good!
In reply to:
we did discuss cycles briefly, and i was made to understand that it takes some time (we did the ten second thing) for your canopy to get back into full flight, but i wasnt sure if recovery time was applicable to double front riser approaches, we just talked about how toggle and riser turns affect a canopies recovery time................
Yeah, flight cycles occur after any input, but are more pronounced after certain types of input (e.g. toggle turns) and less with others (e.g. harness turns).
(maybe in 2 or 3 years) 
