First impressions of the Spectre 135 - Interesting Openings

[skybytch 259]

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But nonetheless I never realized that a 135 is considered a HP canopy at a low wing loading.

A few links you might find illuminating -

Here's what PD says about the Spectre. Note the maximum suggested exit weight for a novice on a 135 (you would agree that 30 jumps is novice, yes?).

This page has links to a number of articles. Specifically, read the articles entitled "Choosing the right canopy" by Scott Miller and "Wingloading and it's effects" by John LeBlanc.

Also, check out the chart that Brian Germain posted on the first post in this thread.

Scott, John and Brian each probably have more jumps and almost certainly have far more knowledge about canopies and how they fly than you, me and everybody you know and trust at your dz combined. Of course, you have to choose who you want to listen to and/or believe. Personally, I'd choose to listen to people who are involved in canopy design and canopy control education on a daily basis... people like Scott, John and Brian...

[wmw999 2,122]

Sometimes it sucks being a student or a novice.
They come to dz.com and ask a question, and are told to ask their instructors, because those are the folks who know them.
So then they get some experience, talk to their instructors, and come back to join in. And are given a ration of shit for listening to their instructors over the folks on dz.com.

I agree that a 135 sounds too stout for the experience level, even with a light wing loading. I have several hundred jumps at less than a 1:1 wing loading, it's very survivable.

But dang, the original poster has already said that they're going to re-evaluate the choice with the additional information. We keep beating them over the head, and they'll never come back, and neither will other folks who are in the same situation.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[Chris-Ottawa 0]

Hey Skybytch,

I agree 30 jumps is novice. My weight is 115, exit weight about 135-ish.

I have read all those articles a while back, including Brian's book. I have seen this chart before as well.

And like I said in many posts in this thread alone, I have taken the advice given to me into account, I can't get out to my DZ until Saturday....

I would love to take a full Canopy control course, but where I am, it's just not available. I can't just stop by Eloy or Deland for the afternoon for a quick course. There are alot of variables that not everyone is considering.

Our DZ is located 180 ft above sea level, weather rarely gets above 25-30 C (30c = 85F) degrees in the mid summer. So I'm not at a High elevation DZ, the weather doesn't play a major role in how the canopy functions. Most days I jump on are 20C give or take 5 degrees. I trust my instructors and they seem very confident that I will be ok under the 135. Brian's chart has me under a 135(min) at 100 jumps as well. I have jumped every single weekend since may 1, usually 2-4 jumps per weekend. I know that's not alot, but it keeps me fairly current. After considering this, and speaking with my instructors, I'll update the post with my action plan...

Thanks

EDIT for spelling...

"When once you have tasted flight..."

[Chris-Ottawa 0]

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But dang, the original poster has already said that they're going to re-evaluate the choice with the additional information. We keep beating them over the head, and they'll never come back, and neither will other folks who are in the same situation.

Wendy W.

THANK YOU!!! Need I say more?

"When once you have tasted flight..."

[JohanW 0]

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As far as the reserve goes, it's a pd143 and I've flown it already 2 weeks ago, unintentionally. It was fine.

I just love n=1 experiments. But I think you've had enough shit over your choice of main, and do not deserve the same shit over your choice of reserve. (My opinion everyone! Let the flamefest continue, but direct it at me!)

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For body position, I think I'm pretty stable for the most part. I haven't had line twists since my student jumps and once on the Sabre 150 due to end cell closure on one side.

Packing. I've packed every chute I've jumped since about jump 10 as well. To be honest, I think my packing goes into the bag very nicely and have never had a problem on deployment. I take a lot of care in my packing, especially since my reserve ride which I thought was my fault, but turned out to be a tension knot. Still could be packing error but it happened and I got out of it.

There was a thread somewhere 'round here recently which mentioned the common cause for tension knots. I can't be bothered to search for it myself right now, but it should pop right up. Tension knots are caused by .. bad body position on opening, specifically a dipped shoulder (or deploying more or less on your side), so that the lines have uneven tension. So not having twists anymore may not be totally indicative of good body position. My own body position on opening has been less than perfect significantly later than at 30 jumps; I respectfully suggest you can only compare to worse performances, not to better than you have ever done. You've learned a lot, but there may be a lot more to learn still.

Johan.
I am. I think.

[Chris-Ottawa 0]

Hey Jonah,

What's up with a pd 143? I've heard nothing but good about them and it got me to the ground safely. First time flying a 7 cell, and first time on an F111. I landed, touched my ass then the final bit of the flare stood me up again. It was a great landing and a great canopy.

As far as line twists go, I'm sure they can be promoted by bad body position, but I'm confident that I'm pretty stable on deployment. I could be wrong as I only have one video of my third to last jump, which was the jump I had my reserve ride on. Feel free to comment on it. If you go to skydivingmovies.com do a search for backflips. It comes up as the first one called backflips-frontflips-etc... It's not a really close shot, but it looks pretty stable to me.

"When once you have tasted flight..."

[ntacfreefly 0]

You can be stable and still be asymetrical. Not that it applies to this thread per say, but it's quite possible to be stable at pull time and still induce linetwists.

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. ~ Lao-Tzu

It's all good, they're my brothers ~ Mariann Kramer

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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Hello Karen,

As far as jumping a bigger canopy goes, again, I am considering it. A 170 probably won't fit in my container, but I'm sure a 150 will. I am seriously considering a 150. I do take every bit of input from here and consider it and talk to my instructors. I am not in any way disregarding what anyone has said in this post.

Go back and read what Karen wrote. It was very good practical advice from someone who has good experience and has seen a few things in this sport. Remember she's not saying that you can't land your 135. She's talking about the "what if" scenario. "What if" happens more often than you'd expect in this sport.

Now that this is done ... Spectres are great all around canopies and yes they can be snivelly. But that is good if you're looking for soft openings and aren't worried about the slightly longer opening altitudes. It's got great on heading performance and isn't known for wanting to twist up. I use a Spectre 150 when I do wingsuit jumps, often pull in a track and lose only about 400 feet vertically on my openings and hardly ever experience off heading openings let alone line twists. It's a great canopy for you to be learning on. It just would have been better if you had a 150 instead of a 135.

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

[Chris-Ottawa 0]

I agree, I just watched my video over and over and I may have not have been symmetrical. I'm stable at deployment, and pretty symmetrical, but when I dumped at linestretch I was leaning towards the left. You can see it just after linestretch. But, this would go against the theory of the lines being slack because the tenson knot was on the left side.

Either way, I don't doubt that my body position or packing contributed to the mal, it may have actually caused it. I'll never really know 100% what it was, but this is reassurance of how important your body position becomes at deployment time. It really drove me crazy that I wasn't able to know exactly what caused it.

On a side note,
You guys and your comments/concerns have really got me thinking. I wasn't fearing the canopy on the previous 2 jumps, but it was pretty windy so the ground rush was fairly minimal. It was definately a big leap in speed going from a 150 to the 135, much more than any other downsize up to this point. I didn't feel uncomfortable landing the canopy and it landed great, but again, high winds. I'm thinking alot about landing it again in lesser winds. I obviously don't want to become a statistic, and hope never to become one. I'm just not sure what I can do. Before I jump again, I'm going to talk to my instructor/rigger and see what I should do. Again, thanks for the info/advice!

"When once you have tasted flight..."

[ntacfreefly 0]

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Either way, I don't doubt that my body position or packing contributed to the mal, it may have actually caused it. I'll never really know 100% what it was, but this is reassurance of how important your body position becomes at deployment time. It really drove me crazy that I wasn't able to know exactly what caused it.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that your body position caused the mal, I was just commenting on asymetry and deployments.

As for the mal itself, well, sometimes we just have to remember that we're tossing material into a hurricane and sometimes it's not going to behave quite like we expect it to, I wouldn't beat myself up about it if I were you.

Blues,
Ian

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. ~ Lao-Tzu

It's all good, they're my brothers ~ Mariann Kramer

[Chris-Ottawa 0]

That's whay my rigger said. He said sometimes it just happens and you can't do anything about it. I wasn't saying that you were implying that I messed up, I was saying that it is very possible I had contributed to the mess. I've since given up on it and let it go.

"When once you have tasted flight..."

[karenmeal 0]

I bought my first rig before I was ready to jump it. I think I put around 70 jumps on other gear before I was deemed ready by my mentors. (I had awesome mentors!!)

Just because you have the gear there doesn't mean that you can't jump other stuff for a while.

Did you look at the spectre chart on wingloading? You are categorized between advanced and expert.

"Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

[Chris-Ottawa 0]

Well up to now it's all been borrowed gear, minus the last 2 jumps. I did notice that I am at the Advanced portion on that chart. Hence why I'm seriously reconsidering the canopy.

I agree that I "can" jump other gear, but I feel like a mooch always borrowing gear. I hate that. When I had my malfunction, I was going to risk landing it because I didn't want to chop someone else's gear, it bothered me that much. I honestly talked myself through the landing and said that I'd probably break both legs at the very least, but that's how bad I didn't want to chop the canopy. Common sense kicked in and it got chopped. I made the right choice.

I know that all that my instructors are nothing but top rate. I don't think they made me make a bad decision. I think the logical thing to do would be to jump a 150 for a bunch of jumps. Until I'm better prepared for the 135. At this point I just don't know.

"When once you have tasted flight..."

[proswooper 2]

didnt you chop a tension knot a little while ago Mr body position???

[Chris-Ottawa 0]

Hmmm, let me go back and read the last 7 posts that are talking directly about my tension knot chop from 2 weeks ago...Ah geeze yeah, turns out I did, phew, you caught me off guard there....Wow, you're good!


Here's what I said a few posts ago (since obviously you didn't bother to read it):

"I agree, I just watched my video over and over and I may have not have been symmetrical. I'm stable at deployment, and pretty symmetrical, but when I dumped, at linestretch I was leaning towards the left. You can see it just after linestretch. But, this would go against the theory of the lines being slack because the tenson knot was on the left side."

And based on that, I was admitting that I'm not perfect. Im sorry Mr. Swooper, but before you make a comment to make me look stupid, read the previous posts. This is exactly what I mean about picking through my posts to flame me. Good work proving that you're not listening to what I have been saying.

Now, Is it necessary to be a jerk with your little "Mr Body Position" comment? I can be a jerk too when I reply to your smart ass comments! Enjoy!

"When once you have tasted flight..."

[proswooper 2]

i was actually talking to Ian (ntacfreefly) and indirectly defending you

keep the sourcasm for someone else and make sure you read who the reply was to.

[ntacfreefly 0]

One day you afrikaaners will learn to read And you know mine weren't because of body position, they were because I'm a shitty packer

Shouldn't you be swooping in the WC right now instead of bothering me

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. ~ Lao-Tzu

It's all good, they're my brothers ~ Mariann Kramer

[Chris-Ottawa 0]

I saw the reply was to Ian, but Ian mentioned nothing of his body position or a cutaway so I could only imagine you were digging at me. My apologies.

"When once you have tasted flight..."

[Pendragon 1]

It's not the canopy so much as the attitude of the pilot... and you haven't been doing yourself many favours.

Actually, whilst your size is a little small, your wing loading is fine. So, in the hands of a responsible person, who listens to criticism, constantly critiques him/herself then it would be perfectly safe.

...but haven't you missed a point?

You've got <50 landings. Unless you've come from a flying background of some sort (hang/paragliders... even fixed wings), you really don't have much of an idea about how to fly. At the moment it's just canopy time to get you off the ride.

...and you'll be wanting that ride more and more, even when the conditions are not so safe for you to be descending from the sky, You'll be jumping in groups with the prospects of traffic, higher (and possibly more turbulent) winds. You'll want to be trying things out with your wing. Are you really comfortable trying stuff out on a wing that is only just acceptable?

My point is: don't be fooled into believing that it is a great canopy for you since you can land it well. To be honest, in the general scheme of things, there's far worse out there. However, if you want to learn, it is far better to have something more user-friendly that you're not frightened of being slightly wrong on. You should know by know that the key to this sport is to be relaxed: how can you be that if you need to be thinking so much about regular flight?

We all intend to be careful. I bet the last 5 guys who turned into grid references on landing intended to be sensible.

I know some of the guys who have commented so far, and there's some really sharp canopy pilots and instructors amongst them. "Proswooper" is an experienced AFF instructor and would know that, even without seeing you, a 135 is possibly a bad idea until you've got 100 landings more than you have presently ...and trust me, he's not averse to more "imaginative" progression. Do bear that in mind when reading some of this stuff; you may find that some of the comments on here so far are from people more experienced and current than your own instructors.

No-one is "having a go"; more just friendly advice from people who have seen it all before. I haven't seen any self-appointed experts tell you that you can't more it's just a bad idea - for now (but you might not be too far off).

Personally, I think your progression will suffer, regardless of whether you are (or feel) capable of jumping with that canopy with your present experience.

Happy jumping!

Richard

--
BASE #1182
Muff #3573
PFI #52; UK WSI #13

[hjumper33 0]

Just wondering as long as its been brought up as a reference a few times. How do PD and other major canopy companies determine performance ratings for their canopies? We wont delve into my canopy progression, but along with a little bad advice I had also gone parasailing once before I started jumping so I was probably much more qualified.

[skybytch 259]

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Actually, whilst your size is a little small, your wing loading is fine.

Actually, wing loading does not scale. While a novice with a 170 pound exit weight will likely be fine flying a 1.0 wingloading, novices with 135 pound wingloadings are better off with wingloadings of less than 1.0. Read the articles on wingloading and choosing canopies here for details.

[Chris-Ottawa 0]

I appreciate that...constructive criticism without flaming me. Thank you.

I agree I don't have alot of landings but I do understand alot about flight. I have been flying for many years and have been interested in flight since i was 10. I put 350 hours in a Cessna 337 last summer alone. I am not saying that I'll be fine under this canopy due to this, but it will help in some respect. And I'm not trying to convince anyone that I'll be ok under this canopy, in the end it's my problem and I'm definately concerned as previously stated.

As far as not making it look good on myself, my first few posts explained that everyone had me concerned about this more than I had considered. I got upset when people were flaming me over and over and over again, and all I was doing was replying to the same post over each time. People were saying stuff that made no sense just for the sake of argument. At no point did I say I know more than proswooper or Ian, as I know they have a damn good idea of what they're talking about.

Thanks again!

Chris

"When once you have tasted flight..."

[Pendragon 1]

I do actually know that. I was making another point.

I wish people wouldn't keep quoting tables either; that can make the problem even worse when trying to get newbies to listen (sometimes makes me wonder whether the person quoting them really understands the topic at all - although this is not aimed at you). "We are all individuals etc..."

--
BASE #1182
Muff #3573
PFI #52; UK WSI #13

[Pendragon 1]

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...but I do understand alot about flight. I have been flying for many years and have been interested in flight since i was 10. I put 350 hours in a Cessna 337 last summer alone.

Regardless of what some people think (usually the ones that only quote from tables ), having this flying experience can make a real difference. I came from a hang glider background myself, and my canopy control was certainly better than my peers at the time.

Wingloading indeed does not scale, The problem with smaller canopies is that they are much more sensitive to control input and, in the case of a novice, usually to their detriment.

Only you, and those that get to see you, can really decide whether the more sensitive control input is going to be safe for you. The question you should ask youself is this: If you feel worried about anything other than a straight, into wind landing (e.g. crosswind) then you should reconsider your canopy choice.

--
BASE #1182
Muff #3573
PFI #52; UK WSI #13

[Chris-Ottawa 0]

Hello Lisa,

I have a question that you may be able to help with. It has to do with wingloading, but looking at the Spectre loading chart, 115 lbs is novice, 128 is intermediate and 135 is advance.

Does 15 lbs really make the difference between novice and expert? And more interestingly, does 7 lbs make the difference between intermediate and expert. It seems like such a smal margin.

The reason I'm asking is not at all to justify my canopy choice, or to doubt PD, but it seems odd that such a small amount can make a canopy go from student to expert in 15 lbs. I mean during my training, my PFF instructors asked me to wear weight. I wore 22 lbs and if I was on a novice canopy (which I was), that could have potentially made a very bad day. My situation doesn't really relate as I was on a 288 at the time, but If I was working on my RW endorsement for my A, I would haev probably been wearing that weight to keep up a speed for my instructors. ANd then I would have been on a 150 which would put me in the advanced range. I mean just looking at the 150, it's 15lbs between EACH stage, not 15 from novice to expert.

Thanks

EDIT:
I guess my question doesn't truly matter, and I'd be best to ask PD, but I'm just curious. Going from 1.04 to 1.11 is the difference from Novice to Expert. Seems pretty low...

"When once you have tasted flight..."