Reserves

[arcane 0]

Hi,
just wanted to pick peoples brains. I had my first (beer) reserve ride the other day, so got a chance to fly my reserve and found out how little flare it had. Obviously I'm not expecting it to fly like my main, but it had less flare than some lightnings, I'd jumped earlier in the day.

Who's here has had the opportunity (is that the right word?) to fly a few different reserves and can give opinions on how they flew/landed.

Thanks

Ryan

ps: mine was a TEMPO 150

[Blink 0]

There's a "Gear" tab on the top of this website that has reviews for all types of equipment, including reserves.
http://www.dropzone.com/gear/Main_and_Reserve_Parachutes/index.shtml

Two popular reserves:
Smart:
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/gear/review.cgi?ID=423
PDR:
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/gear/review.cgi?ID=24

Also, the search button on the top right can be very helpful:
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=search_results&search_forum=all&search_string=reserve&sb=score&mh=25

[GLIDEANGLE 1]

Narrow your choices a bit and then start demoing the canopies. I bet that the big canopy manufacturers will rent you a demo canopy (rigged as a main) to demo in your rig.

Here is what PD has to say about demos of reserve canopies.

Don’t forget about your Reserve!! We offer all available sizes of the PD Reserve and the Optimum Reserve, set up as mains with an attachment point for your d-bag and pilot chute. This is a great opportunity to become familiar with your reserve canopy without being in a stressful emergency situation and to decide what size you are comfortable with in every situation.

Demoing the canopies will keep you from having to rely on other people's opinion.... you can make your own.

The choices we make have consequences, for us & for others!

[billvon 2,384]

I like the Smart (Aerodyne) and the PD line of reserves. The Optimums are even nicer. Smaller Ravens are terrible.

[ScottyE 0]

How about a super raven 3 loaded at .97 Bill?

I just bought a 1996 model with 1 ride on it spectra lines for $400 for my rig

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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How about a super raven 3 loade at .97 Bill?

I just bought a 1996 model with 1 ride on it spectra lines for $400 for my rig

At a pound per square foot it will land you nicely.

Without span-wise reinforcing tapes it will be more likely to fail catastrophically in an over-speed deployment situation like when you're head down and going 160-180 MPH. You might have a premature deployment freeflying because some one takes a bad grip. You might forget to pull when freeflying and have an AAD fire. You might do an AFF, get knocked out when the student deploys, and fall head down. The reserve failure I saw came from the last cause, resulting in the single span-wise tape connecting two and five cell pieces. If you're using it in a rig you use for flat relative work, wingsuit jumps, classic accuracy, etc. those situations are exceedingly unlikely and there's arguably nothing wrong with it.

[ScottyE 0]

Thanks Drew, I just got my A liscence and have no desire to freefly right now I I just want to practice belly flying and learning to land my canopy in all conditions safely.

Probably later but hopefully I will have bought a
new rig and reserve by then

[pchapman 261]

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The reserve failure I saw came from the last cause, resulting in the single span-wise tape connecting two and five cell pieces.

Brand, loading, etc? Which incident? The database of major reserve failures is relatively small.

[billvon 2,384]

>How about a super raven 3 loaded at .97 Bill?

That will probably be OK. They're not as strong as other reserves out there, and they don't land as well as more modern designs, but for belly flying/low wingloading applications they're OK.

If you do decide to use this canopy it may be wise to make a practice jump on it to see how it flares differently. At a minimum, if you do not do this, make sure you practice up high before you try to land it if you ever have a reserve ride. Ravens have a tendency to stall hard beyond a certain toggle point. At a 1:1 loading you probably will not hit that point, but it's still good to know. (Once you find that stall point do NOT flare deeper than that on landing!)

[DrewEckhardt 0]

Quote

Quote

The reserve failure I saw came from the last cause, resulting in the single span-wise tape connecting two and five cell pieces.

Brand, loading, etc?

I don't remember.

Quote

Which incident? The database of major reserve failures is relatively small.

Steve Erickson (spelling may be wrong, and may not be the right Steve since there were at least two with AFF ratings) , Mile Hi skydiving in Longmont CO, probably late 1990s. Jeff Sands was the other AFF instructor so it was before 2003. Might be between when I bought a Tempo in 1998 and PD in 2000.

Very creepy to land and see a non-moving jumper with green grass separating the pieces of his square canopy. Surprisingly non-fatal. Not injury free.

We had another reserve failure that was fatal in Colorado (you get harder openings at higher elevations, and on a hot summer day 3000 feet AGL can be at 11000 feet density altitude). Older design, overloaded, I didn't see that one and recall even fewer specifics.

[ScottyE 0]

Thanks Bill, Hope I wont ever have to use it if I do hopefully I'll be high enough to practice some flares

[sprtdth 0]

Quote

Who's here has had the opportunity (is that the right word?) to fly a few different reserves and can give opinions on how they flew/landed.

Let's see,
24' flat, pretty rough
26' navy conical with inverted T, nice. Stood up all those.
26' Security Lo-Po, sweet!
Raven III loaded at about 1:1.04, kinda slugish (it's a reserve, that's OK)
Raven I loaded about 1:1.15, not bad. Would have been better if I'd had both arms working

CRW Skies
Frank
CRW Diva #58

[erdnarob 1]

Congratulations, you made it and welcome to the club. A reserve is not intended for confort but is designed to save your life. Therefore a reserve on purpose is a low tuned parachute to insure a relatively conservative flight. A particular manufacturer's reserve (Swift) had no secondary steering line attached the tail corners to make turns slower. Remember that the flare power comes mainly from the forward speed of the canopy. A reserve with its big cells normally loaded is quite slow.

Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

[dragon2 0]

A Lightning is a fair comparison Reserves that flare better are Techno (THE best flare of any reserve i've flown but don't think you want a PdF reserve in the States...), PD-R, Smart. I have one jump on a Tempo clone (Micron 175, WL 0.8) and I didn't even get it repacked I got rid of it that day as it didn't flare the slighest. Did 3 jumps on my previous Transfair (older model of Techno 128), flared fine (better than a Lightning), did about 10 jumps on a PD-R 126 demo, flared fine as well, similar to a Lightning 126.
Try and get a demo canopy of your reserve model and size if you're getting another one, PD-R, Smart etc are available for jumping as a main.

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[SStewart 13]

Quote

Quote

Who's here has had the opportunity (is that the right word?) to fly a few different reserves and can give opinions on how they flew/landed.

Let's see,
24' flat, pretty rough
26' navy conical with inverted T, nice. Stood up all those.
26' Security Lo-Po, sweet!
Raven III loaded at about 1:1.04, kinda slugish (it's a reserve, that's OK)
Raven I loaded about 1:1.15, not bad. Would have been better if I'd had both arms working

There ya go, my first 7 reserve rides were on rounds. # 8 was a square (rascal 202) I have not jumped a round since that day.

22' Sac =very rough! good thing I was young, 2 rides
26' Nav Con= very nice! 2 rides
24' Phantom= 3 rides, no problem
Rascal 202= stand up in the peas, I have only jumped square reserves since then.

Two weeks ago I had my first reserve ride in 18 years and over 2000 jumps on a PD 143. It was terminal deployment (baglock) and it was fast but not hard. I didn't think the flare was all that great but I almost stood it up in a no wind condition. I flared a little late and I have not jumped a non-zp canopy in a long time.

I have a smart and a tempo in my other rigs, I would not expect the performance to be radically different.

I think older ravens are strong enough as long as you don't overload them. Ravens were TSO'd as both main and reserves and before ZP they were a very popular main canopy. They were jumped at terminal speeds all the time and I don't remember every hearing about catastrophic failures. Our gear was heavier back then and on a hot day with shorts and T shirts we were smokin right along. We didn't call it "freeflying" but we did fast stuff, horny gorillas and what not with ravens as mains and we were not blowing up canopies.

The one raven reserve failure that I remember was caused by fingertrapped lines that were not bartacked. As I recall there was a lawsuit involved with that one. It had nothing to do with the canopy not holding up, the lines let go.

The newer precision reserves are every bit as strong as anything else available today.

Onward and Upward!

[jurgencamps 0]

BenediktDE, a friend, had 2 reserverides in 3 jumps. One with a pdr (his own rig) and one with a speed reserve (paratec), a borrowed rig. Before this incident he had already ordered a new pdr reserve. After the reserverides he sold his new pdr reserve and bought a speed.

The speed reserve flyes very good and packs as small as the optimum.

Gr

Jurgen

[Gary73 8]

Ryan,

You don't mention your wing loading. Everyone knows how important that is on a main, but I see case after case where people ignore their reserve wing loading and even the manufacturer's maximum recommended exit weight. Whatever you choose, please keep those factors in mind.

I've ridden a variety of reserves, from a 24-foot unmodified round to a PD 360 (Tendem), and my personal preference is the Aerodyne Smart, but the PD Optimum and Paratec Speed sound interesting. I'd want to demo those before making a decision.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan