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glgflyer

Washing Canopy

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I recently purchased a Pilot 168 with 100 jumps on it from someone in Nevada. The canopy is in perfect condition except for one thing. It has a lot of dust on it, I guess from the desert conditions out west. I need to know if it will hurt the canopy to spread it out and use a wet rag or towel to try and remove the dust. Any help and opinions would be much appreciated. Thanks.

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I recently purchased a Pilot 168 with 100 jumps on it from someone in Nevada. The canopy is in perfect condition except for one thing. It has a lot of dust on it, I guess from the desert conditions out west. I need to know if it will hurt the canopy to spread it out and use a wet rag or towel to try and remove the dust. Any help and opinions would be much appreciated. Thanks.



Go jump it!! 2 or 3 jumps will be enough to blast the dust out of it.

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I recently purchased a Pilot 168 with 100 jumps on it from someone in Nevada. The canopy is in perfect condition except for one thing. It has a lot of dust on it, I guess from the desert conditions out west. I need to know if it will hurt the canopy to spread it out and use a wet rag or towel to try and remove the dust. Any help and opinions would be much appreciated. Thanks.


why do you make it some complicated? Just get a water jump B|!

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If you get it wet, you'll need to get it dry. Unless you have a good place to hang it up and let it dry, I would go with the first reply - jump it a few times and see if most of the dust comes off. If that doesn't work for you, get with someone at your dropzone and determine the best place to hang it before you do any washing.
You don't have to outrun the bear.

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All my jumps are onto a landing area that is just sand and rocks. It has been my experience the the dust wont come off by just jumping it more. Granted, landing it on grass, will help, but it is still going to be there. Aerodyne's main canopy manual doesn't have anything to say about washing/cleaning it.

I checked out PD's owner's manual and they had some good stuff to say (bottom of page 20).

http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/MainUsersManual.pdf
We're not fucking flying airplanes are we, no we're flying a glorified kite with no power and it should be flown like one! - Stratostar

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It has been my experience the the dust wont come off by just jumping it more.

That has been my experience also when leaveing my midwest DZ to jump in AZ. Because of the discolored white ZP fabric, I finally wiped it off carefully with a clean damp rag and laid it outdoors in the shade to dry. This resulted in a slight improvement, but I don't think the fabric was ever quite as white after that. A small sacrafice to make for the great winter weather in AZ.

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throw it in the washing machine on delicate/warm with some soap then do an extra rinse cycle after comes up a treat.

If that's a joke, it's a bad one. I wonder how many jumps it would take to equal that kind of wear on the fabric coating. I would rather live with a little discoloration than subject a canopy to that kind of abuse.

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You can try wiping it down with a damp (cold water), clean cloth and hang it up to dry in the shade but, there are fine dirt particles in the fabric itself so, you're pretty much stuck with what you've got.
I have been told, jumping through a cloud will work... I sure don't recommend that... neither does the FAA!!!:D


Chuck

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Like others have said, you can wipe it down with cold clean water. You can also use a small amount of mild soap like woolite. Plain water is easier though, you don't have to worry about cleaning all the soap off afterward.

If you're trying to clean desert dust, don't forget about wiping down inside the canopy too. It's not enough to do the top and bottom, you also want to get inside the canopy. That's easiest when you're hanging the canopy up from the tail. Most DZ's have an apparatus to hang a canopy, but you can also do this at home if you've got a long and high curtain rod.

When you're cleaning it, try to avoid any tapes getting wet. Water doesn't affect ZP fabric, but it can cause the tapes to shrink.

_Am
__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

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Thanks guys for all these helpful responses. After reading what you guys have said, I decided that just cold water and a rag would be safest. The top skin was the worst part on the canopy so that was all I was going to clean. I ended up spreading it out in my living room floor. Then I used a cotton rag and cold water and washed one cell at a time. Then I set a fan up to blow across that cell. It was totally dry within a couple of minutes. I did all 9 cells using this method. It didn't remove all the dirt but it looks 100% better than before I cleaned it. Again, thanks for the help.

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