180s - Risers or Toggles on big canopy and small canopy

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Instictually I totally agree with Marta that I would want to go for my risers instead of my toggles on a 90 or more opening (the thought of missing it and losing a toggle on a slider off jump is not appealing). But Johnny is telling people to go for their toggles and he's beginning to make me think he's right for people with low wingloading (bigger canopies). My big canopy isn't going to react as fast as a smaller canopy with my risers.

Thoughts?

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[dynastar81 0]

I have had a 180 on a 290 foot A. Using the method many others have posted I was able to turn around plenty quickly. Pull both rear risers to stop. Then release one of the rear risers and grab the opposite front riser to turn. So that you are pulling on both risers of one side. I think if I tried to release the toggles I would have hit one of the wires while trying to turn away. I jump a mojo 280 loaded at .67. But seeing how it has been my only 180 I would like to hear more experienced jumpers opinions.

[base386 0]

I idiotically jumped a 270 foot power tower into a 5-7 knot quartering headwind because of the nasty 500,000 volt wires on the other side(which is jumpable). 160 off heading occured and both rear riser action followed by releasing the R rear riser left me flying adjacent and without object strike. It was totally instinctual. Toggle release decision making would have been like building a nuclear weapon, beyond my scope.
BASE 386

Jimmy in Cincy, call me again. If you're a friend of Jimmy's, pass the message. I don't have your phone number. Our pool's warmed up, grass is green and I need jump partner or I'm gonna have to get one of those motorized parachutes to fart around with...as I am now an over forty farthead.
859-583-6383 Don't worry, I've got the FEDS on call block!!!!!!!

[donkeyboy 0]

Johnny started us all out on riser turn drills, we were doing 90's and 180's. In the course he said you want to develop a "For Sure Toggle Grab" I was on a Troll 265 MDV . Naked weight 175 lbs. I had the Morpheus Big Grabs and those handles were always wide open waiting for me to grab them. He also told us about a negative type turn which can be induced by releasing both brakes holding the one all the way down and the other fully up while the canopy rotates on it's yaw axis. We saw a vid of a pilot tarding off a low B, he started to correct a 90 (potential strike) with risers, the canopy hadn't yet developed enough airspeed to start flying and the risers stalled that side putting the whole thing it into a parachutal stall. Riser turns have a much higher sink rate than toggles. I think it really depends on the situation and it's good to have everything in your bag of tricks.

[BASE813 0]

it also depends on your opening height....

i had a 180 on a 300ft guyed A and went for my risers - this lost me a lot of altitude due to my agressive turn and ended up taking a hard landing (nice scar on my arm to remind me!) i did this as i had around 20 jumps and i just had the OH SHIT reaction.....

if you think about it when jumping an A you generally have a tailwind - this will slow your forward speed on a 180 so you have time - so then you can pull ya toggles and turn loosing less height - if you are jumping low objects and opening sub100 this would be preferable then loosing too much height turning using risers........ if you are opening high then the altitude lost using risers is not an issue..... be prepared to take some poundings and / or injury if you are opening very low and something does not go to plan..... off headings will happen when you really dont need them - leave yourself height to deal with them....

generally i use the rule - if you have time use toggles.... if you are bracing yourself for a strike then use what ever you can to get away from it.........

just my small amount of bulshits worth!

[Skinflicka 0]

PM on it's way.

$kin.

Prizes to anyone who gets to read my posts before Mr Aiello's son, Tom deletes them.

[motherhucker 0]

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Instictually I totally agree with Marta that I would want to go for my risers instead of my toggles on a 90 or more opening (the thought of missing it and losing a toggle on a slider off jump is not appealing). But Johnny is telling people to go for their toggles and he's beginning to make me think he's right for people with low wingloading (bigger canopies). My big canopy isn't going to react as fast as a smaller canopy with my risers.

Thoughts?

I personally feel that the most important thing is that you don't bounce back between the two. Make a decison what you personally prefer by practicing, doing skydives with your BASE canopy and see how each reacts. Once you decide, practice THIS for object avoidance. If you're in this situation, you have SECONDS to get it turned around...no time to waste.
As an old friend once said to me--"Know that when it opens, it will be a line twisted, lined-over 180 with broken lines and the tail on fire. If you're ready to deal with this shite when you exit, you have a good chance of surviving that jump.
Don't worry about 90 deg. + or what evever, just make an instant correction with your method of choice.
mh

[Faber 0]

psst opening sub 100ft whith a 180offheadding.. hmm i guess i would just flare the risers and land under the A..(regarding winds,and things to hit),that or a soft tooglel turn to the site were i land my canopy but ok im also just a mad dane,perhaps the day i get my sub 100ft 180offheadding i suddenly change my oppinion

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be prepared to take some poundings and / or injury if you are opening very low and something does not go to plan.....

???????????huh i thourght the low once were the most safe jumps(heard by DW=less canopy time/less time to get hurt in,or somthing like that)

Stay safe
Stefan Faber

[TomAiello 25]

Have a look at this BLiNC Post of Dwain's.

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180 offheading - flying at wall - very close to impact. No time to turn away. Hard input on both rear risers. Canopy stalls backwards. Let up on left rear riser (while still pulling down on right). Canopy barely turns - cells are barely pressurized and there are waves going through the canopy. Reach across with left hand and pull down on front right riser (while still pulling down on right rear riser). This forces air into the cells - canopy instantly response and spins on the spot. Immediately let up on riser input and release brakes to drive away from the wall.

My importance list for avoiding a wall strike:

1. 180’s happen to all of us eventually. Do every thing you can to minimize the occurrence but resign yourself to the fact that they will happen. (Note: see the definition of Murphy’s Law).

2. Avoid smacking the wall at ALL costs.
Get the canopy to open with absolute MINIMAL forward speed. Forget all that sh*t about needing forward speed to get the canopy to respond to riser input. There is zero point to having a responsive canopy if you don't have the time to turn it away. Also the faster the forward speed of your canopy on deployment the harder you will hit the wall and the more bones will snap.
SLOWER forward speed is BETTER in 99% of serious offheadings close to the wall. Anyone who tells you otherwise has not had to deal with a bona fida 180, half line twists on a go-n-throw from a vertical wall. Factory installed brake settings on Mojo's are dangerous, dangerous, dangerous - even for the fastest BASE jumper in the world. Yeah - they work great for rear riser input on a 135 offheading, but turn it into a 160-180 offheading and the wall comes at you like a freight train. (Note: Adam does strongly recommend customizing your brake settings as the factory settings are extremely conservative. This is more of an issue with Mojo's than with FOX's due to the steep angle of attack on the Mojo).

3. Turn the canopy away from the wall.
In dealing with point #2 you have installed customized brake settings on your canopy (but not so deep that you risk a stall). Now because the canopy is going so slow you suddenly have response issues to rear riser input. Basically the thing won't want to turn and will probably stall if you pull down too hard on a rear riser.
The answer to this is not: make the canopy fly faster forward (read point #2 again). The answer is do something else to make the canopy turn away. Some people say "toggles". Well toggles are great (and my personal preference) if you aren't really close to the wall and flying directly at it. There are situations (eg. go-n-throw from vertical wall, bona fida 180 with half a line twist) where you do not have time to use toggles (I am NOT talking about the extra time to grab the toggles, I am talking about the response lag between releasing the brakes, pulling down on the toggle and the canopy actually responding). Also you may be so close to the wall that as you are turning away the end cell will drag on the wall and swing you back in. (I have seen this type of wall strike many times - and subsequently dealt many times with the resulting helicopter rescue, police, media, blah blah blah). If you are about to smack a wall nose on, the only thing to do is to back the canopy away far enough so that when you turn it, the end cell won't clip the wall. Flying the canopy backwards is the only option here (unless you are so low that you will pound into a ledge or the ground as you turn - in that case you just have to sink the canopy straight down and PLF - good luck).
In order to turn the canopy away the combination of both front and rear riser (with the brakes set) works really well. The canopy response almost instantly and just spins on the spot. Front riser input alone is a BAD idea as it makes the canopy dive forward and turn in an arc.

Note: In my experiences with the Vtec (and limited experience with the Blackjack) you usually don't need the front riser input as the vents keep the cells pressurized in almost zero forward speed and the canopy response great to rear riser input alone.

When to go for toggles and when to go for risers?
Basically here is my personal rule for that: If I open and I am flying at a wall and my body starts tensing up for immanent impact then I go for risers, otherwise I tend to go for toggles.
“Oh sh*t, whimper" on opening = risers.
"Uh Oh, I'm looking at wall" = toggles.

4. You aren’t good enough with the technology you are using to always avoid object strike.
With the current technology on the market NOBODY is good enough to avoid a wall strike every time. I have dealt with bad 180's close to the wall (sometimes with serious line twists) on many occasions (actually the number of times I have had 180's is downright embarrassing). I have never had my canopy touch the wall yet (I've pushed of the wall with my feet twice), but I am NOT stupid enough to think that I am good enough to deal with it every time.
Object strike is the number one incident that injuries highly experienced BASE jumpers when they haven't made a gross error of judgment. By plugging out thousands of BASE jumps we are playing a numbers game (if you jump vertical walls slider down). Statistics say that eventually you will hit the wall (Slim hit the wall three times in 1270 BASE jumps. Jump #1270 was the one that really f####d him up (but he's healing well and should be jumping next year). He probably has done the most slider down canopy deployments of anyone in the world and he is ULTRA FAST in dealing with offheadings). As the technology we are using advances (such as bottom skin vents, big grab toggles, vented pilot chutes) the odds are increased in our favor. All we can hope is that the technology increases at a faster rate than the numbers game we are playing.

Hope this helps.

I have used Dwain's method (both rear risers, then release one and pull down the other front riser) on multiple (probably around 10) greater than 150 offheadings, and avoided strike on all but one of them.

Edited to add in the quote of Dwain's post.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[TomAiello 25]

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We saw a vid of a pilot tarding off a low B, he started to correct a 90 (potential strike) with risers, the canopy hadn't yet developed enough airspeed to start flying and the risers stalled that side putting the whole thing it into a parachutal stall.

Was the canopy vented or unvented?

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[TomAiello 25]

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My big canopy isn't going to react as fast as a smaller canopy with my risers.

Can you explain this a little more?

Are you talking about "fast" in time (in which case I generally agree) or "fast" in forward travel before the turn (in which case I don't think I agree with you)?

Just because something reacts in less time does not always mean that it reacts in less distance.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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Are you talking about "fast" in time

Yes I was thinking more in time. But you have a good point about altitude. I guess time and altitude do have their issues, but altitude is always our friend in jumping. It just gives us more options. And my big boat won't eat up as much altitude as a smaller canopy would and it won't fly towards the object as fast. It'll just take me a tad long to turn that sucker around that's all. And I plan on making more hop n' pops with my boat using one of the DZ's student rigs this summer so that I get used to flying it.

I went into last night thinking that I may want a smaller canopy than my 293 (for a 2nd rig). But then after watching some video, I noticed that the people flying smaller canopies had less time and sometimes nastier landings than myself flying my boat. Yes I know speed equals lift, but as long as I ground myself in high winds, my FLiK canopy seems to perform very well in moderate winds, I have time to setup my approach and seem to get nice soft landings even when I flare a few feet too high (all five of my jumps were stand up landings ... but I know I need to keep the PLF mentality active in my mind). So I still may get a smaller canopy for a 2nd rig, but at least until I get in tons more jumps, it won't be a small canopy (<280 sq feet).

Oh and I will check out what Dwain said about 180s on Blinc when I get some time on my hands.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[TomAiello 25]

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And my big boat won't eat up as much altitude as a smaller canopy would and it won't fly towards the object as fast.

The second part of that is very important, and in my experience, often overlooked. A canopy that is flying slower will generally turn slower. That doesn't mean you're more likely to hit the object. It just means that you will take more time to do the turn. In fact that "slower" (in time) turn is less likely to strike the object because it is "faster" (in distance used).

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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And my big boat won't eat up as much altitude as a smaller canopy would and it won't fly towards the object as fast.

The second part of that is very important, and in my experience, often overlooked. A canopy that is flying slower will generally turn slower. That doesn't mean you're more likely to hit the object. It just means that you will take more time to do the turn. In fact that "slower" (in time) turn is less likely to strike the object because it is "faster" (in distance used).

Good to know ... thanks for the info ...

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[TomAiello 25]

One additional thought:

That may not be true if you are jumping into a headwind. This is because the headwind adds an additional horizontal component to your velocity, and thus increases distance travelled per time, making it important to turn in minimum time (in order to minimize absolute distance travelled).

I've used toggles to turn around 180's on solid objects with headwinds. But heck, since you ought not to be jumping solid objects in a headwind, it's probably not that important.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[donkeyboy 0]

Unvented ( I believe , it was shot at night )

[TVPB 0]

RISERS V TOGGLES???

There are arguments both ways and I believe there is no definitive answer. You have to consider many variables prior to making a decision. Some of these variables include:
- jumper experience (student v experienced)
- jumper skill level
- jumper coordination skills
- jumper mental & physical state both at the time of he jump and generally
- type of canopy
- brake setting
- wing loading
- type of toggle
- equipment compatability (i.e. where the toggles are located relative to the jumpers reach)
- weather conditions
- object you are jumping off
- slider up v down
- freefall time
- separation from object during deployment
- flight path and landing options (outs)
- etc etc etc

It is true that you generally get a better response from toggle input as compared to riser input. Especially if your brake settings are too deep. However, it is also true that it is more difficult to consistently grab your toggles on every single occasion. How many video's have you seen where people are fumlbing for their toggles.

It is extremely important to set your gear up properly prior to jumping (esp brake setting).

I teach students to use their risers rather than toggles for the simple reason that they are more likely to get the correct response more often in a high pressure situation (such as a 180 off heading). There is less to think about. The target location for their hands is greater on risers than toggles. There is much less precision required to grab risers over toggles.

I discuss the riser / toggles scenario with each student and explain each of the variables listed above and how to deal with them. I also state to them that once they become more experienced & "dialled in" on canopy control, then they can make the decision that is most appropriate to them.

My personal technique for heading control is along the lines of:

- assess weather conditions prior to each jump.
- determine all possible and probably scenario's for the deploying canopy
- derive a plan of action for each of these scenario's PRIOR TO EXITING (taking into account all variables listed above)
- at each stage of the jump I assess where I am relative to the scenario's I have predetermined and I am already adjusting my plans (i.e. left shoulder dipped low on deployment . . do . . . . and prepare for . . . .
- as the canopy is deploying, my hands are reaching for the general area where my toggles are
- before they get there I am assessing what is happening and what is likely to happen (am I going off heading? which way? etc)
- if things are looking the slightest bit from perfect I am reaching for my risers OR if things are looking good I will grab my toggles.

BTW - I THINK IT IS BETTER TO USE THE "BIG GRAB / STIFFENED / TOGGLES as they are much easier to get the fingers through.

If someone says that everyone should only use risers or toggles, they are not considering all the variables.

Therefore:
- set your equipment up properly (brake settings & easy grab toggles)
- get good instruction
- plan your jump & jump your plan
- be prepared for all scenario's
- use your risers until you gain enough experience, competance, etc.
- make the decision to use toggles once you are satisified that you have considered all factors.

Stay Safe
Have Fun
Good Luck

Tom Begic


p.s. this is just an opinion. I don't claim to have the perfect / correct answer. Just make sure you think before you decide / act.

Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck

The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.