Crossfire 2 packing tips!

[Acoisa 0]

Hey Guys,

I just recently bought a crossfire 2. I had it packed for the first 10 jumps or so, and the openings were great. Then I started packing it myself an I am now getting consistent 180's to the right- right after the slider comes down.

The openings feel like a brake fire- I've always counteracted the turn with rear riser input.. so I don't know how far around the turn would actually take me..

Does anyone have some tips how i can avoid this?

I am currently rolling the tail 4 times and have tried different things for the nose l+r 4 cells tucked in next to the middle cell, just leaving it there.. etc..

[AggieDave 6]

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Does anyone have some tips how i can avoid this?

Yeah, quit doing stuff to the packjob! Let it all hang, keep things even and do a normal pro-pack. Take a pullup cord and tie the big rings of your 3-rings together to keep the risers together. This will help keep your packjob even.

Now you've got to make sure your legstraps even. Not pulled to the same length (since your legs are different sizes), but tightened to the point where your 3-rings are even with your harness even.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[shropshire 0]

I have a Sabre 1 150 and a wide, thin, shallow D-bag.

I think that the biggest problem that I personally have stems from when I put it in the bag.... I keep everything symmetrical through the dressing and sausage making part. But getting it into the bag symmetrically just doesn't seem to happen as often as I would like - maybe (?) this is what is give me off-heading openings..... but then again it could just be body position at deployment time.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[hookitt 0]

Read this ==> Tips on letting the canopy open better.

Good luck!

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[Fast 0]

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Does anyone have some tips how i can avoid this?

Yeah, quit doing stuff to the packjob! Let it all hang, keep things even and do a normal pro-pack. Take a pullup cord and tie the big rings of your 3-rings together to keep the risers together. This will help keep your packjob even.

Now you've got to make sure your legstraps even. Not pulled to the same length (since your legs are different sizes), but tightened to the point where your 3-rings are even with your harness even.

Agreed. Stopdoing weird packing voodoo stuff. I have a Crossfire 2 139 and a Velo103. The xfire2 opens like a dream. Consistantly slow and on heading, every single time. Nicest opening canopy I have ever jumped. The lines are even nearing the end of their useful lifespan.

Sounds like you are just over thinking the pack job.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[snafuhere 0]

maybe a better body position on opening will help?
what I do after jump is slowing down before pull
then proper, symmetrical position
when it starts opening I keep legs together and balance in harness to have both risers on the same level
or something like that...

https://www.facebook.com/1skydive/

[Rover 9]

Just hang it, divide it through the center, tidy it and stuff it in. Requires nothing special.

2 wrongs don't make a right - but 3 lefts do.

[superhina 0]

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Hey Guys,

I just recently bought a crossfire 2. I had it packed for the first 10 jumps or so, and the openings were great. Then I started packing it myself an I am now getting consistent 180's to the right- right after the slider comes down.

The openings feel like a brake fire- I've always counteracted the turn with rear riser input.. so I don't know how far around the turn would actually take me..

Does anyone have some tips how i can avoid this?

I am currently rolling the tail 4 times and have tried different things for the nose l+r 4 cells tucked in next to the middle cell, just leaving it there.. etc..

Leave the nose exposed, that's work for me.

[skydog 2]

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Just hang it, divide it through the center, tidy it and stuff it in. Requires nothing special.

What he said...........

Journey not destination.....

[BIGUN 1,053]

If you can... place your D-bag straight up and down (lines to the backpad) instead of rotating the bag with the lines to the bottom of the pack tray. Having said that, Crossfires need to be W/L fairly high to behave on many fronts.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[Fast 0]

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If you can... place your D-bag straight up and down (lines to the backpad) instead of rotating the bag with the lines to the bottom of the pack tray. Having said that, Crossfires need to be W/L fairly high to behave on many fronts.

I don't know why you would make a recommendation like that. No where in the post did the person specify a main container type. How exactly the bag goes into the pack tray depends on the type of container. If the jumper has a Vector3, the advice you gave is dead wrong for how the system was designed.

You should know that by now. The type of thing you are suggesting is just more of the same packing voodoo that started this guys problems in the first place.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[BIGUN 1,053]

Did you see the part at the beginning - If you can...
You got to read the whole fucking thing before getting out your Trebuchet.....

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[hookitt 0]

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Did you see the part at the beginning - If you can...
You got to read the whole fucking thing before getting out your Trebuchet.....

Unless the very bottom of the container is boxed in a little bit, I don't see an issue with grommet to pin either. (it's a Mirage G-4 by the way). I also don't see it as a fix if the bag is going in square and coming out square.

What I don't get is your comment about wingloading.

As long as the slider is up all the way when the canopy is bagged, Body position and helping the canopy open is usually the primary cause of odd openings.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[BIGUN 1,053]

Tim,

When the Crossfire1 became popular, Simon sent me 5 different sizes to test and I used several different rigs for each one. Of most importance to measure was parasitic drag with a person my size.
I began with the least wing-loading and worked my way up.
Here's what I noticed and you hit one of them on the head:

Lower Wing-Loadings caused less than on-heading openings - even after the slider came down, corrective inputs were required to get back on azimuth of flight.
In some cases, the recommended container sizes per canopy sq.ft were disparate and while a very tight fit were catching on sides of the main pack tray.

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if the bag is going in square and coming out square

.

The best voodoo advice I can give is to:

1. Pack it as recommended.
2. Make sure you're not too lightly loaded (he is on the very bottom end of the recommended W/L and as I started out in that neighborhood can tell you the Crossfire actually does better with on-heading openings the higher the W/L.)
3. Make sure it fits properly in the D-Bag and is square and coming out square - if NOT and "if you can," test it with the D-bag straight up and down (I do this in my Wings container - with several different canopies).
4. Body position - agreed.

One last thing... if after the slider is down and still off-heading... check the trim on the brake lines.

Can't do it right now, as my log books and I are in different places together, but I'll dig them out and see if I can find any thing else in my notes.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[Acoisa 0]

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for all of the input!

Ill try some of the stuff you recommended this weekend.

If something works out, I'll let you know..

I think the problem is packing related.. because when I had it packed for the first couple of jumps in Eloy, everything was good.. It started behaving weirdly after I was packing it myself..

Thanks again for the help.. and I'll let you know what it was... (it took me 40+ packjobs to isolate what made my Stiletto open hard.. but I found it in the end)

[Fast 0]

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Did you see the part at the beginning - If you can...
You got to read the whole fucking thing before getting out your Trebuchet.....

I can pack my vector that way, but that doesn't make it right and it doesn't mean it's going to work all the time. I don't mean to come off sounding like a dick or anything. It's just one of my pet peave issues regarding packing. Right up there next to packers/people who don't ensure that the secondary riser covers are tucked in on vectors (it wrecks them, devalues the rig, and makes them less functional).

That's all!

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[BIGUN 1,053]

No worries, mate. You're talking to about the most anal retentive a-hole when it comes to packing. Proud that I not only haven't had a reserve ride yet, but have students with hundreds of jumps without a reserve ride. Challenging each other helps keep the edge.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[Acoisa 0]

Okay Guys...

I did 12 jumps this weekend and tried to improve my body position and followed your advive not to do anything fancy with the packjob..

The openings really improved! I thought it was a packing issue at first but I think really focusing on a better body position made a great impact on the openings.. Some were still off heading but the turn was a lot smoother and not as abrupt...

thanks a lot for your help!!

Mike

[gbstuar 0]

I would pay particular attention to the way you're bagging the canopy.

I'm guessing that you are right-handed and that you put the d-bag around the left part of the stacked canopy first and then compress the right side in to make it fit. This will distort the right side of the canopy--making it turn right on opening--no matter how carefully you flake the fabric and quarter the slider. Try to visualize maintaining the symmetry and integrity of your stack as the canopy is bagged.

And to summarize what others have said:
don't mess with the nose, keep the slider quartered, and everything else symmetrical.

Have fun and stay safe.

[shropshire 0]

Hey, I've just started being very particular how I put my cocoon in the bag and it really works. Last weekend, all of my deploys were pretty much on-heading......Attention to detail - I've never been very good at that but it paid off for me f'sure.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome