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hackish

PC over the nose?

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In reading another thread I realized that I have no idea how you're supposed to deal with a PC over the nose. Thinking it through I'm not sure it would be easy to get the PC back over the top and I'm not sure you'd want to have it choke off any part of the nose by pulling 2 cells together... I assume a collapsable PC may end up with enough drag to collapse itself and then be less of an obstruction to the nose.

Any ideas?

-Michael

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Think back to your FJC....

1. Is the canopy there? (in this case, yes)
2. Is the canopy square? (in this case, also typically yes)
3. Is the canopy controllable? (do a controllability check and find out)

If the answer to all three is yes, no problem. If the answer to any one of the three is no, chop it.

If you aren't sure how to deal with something, going back and asking those three questions will usually give you the a answer.

I had PC over the nose one time, still have no clue how that happens, I landed fine, it had absolutely no effect on controllability, but this is going to depend on the configuration of the bridle (around lines?) and the canopy type.

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

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At the jump course they teach at the Academy, they taught us to do a controllability check, make no turns with more than 1/2 brake input, and prepare to PLF the landing. Of course, that was with 300+ square foot canopies, so I'm not sure how it would work with a sport canopy. I'd probably just do a controllability check and then reassess the situation after that.

Edit to add: The rigs we used were SOS with spring-loaded pilot chutes.
The best things in life are dangerous.

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I've also been wondering about this. It happens a lot with my club's student gear. We use spring loaded pilot chutes, and about 1/3 of the time when we put a student out on static line, the pilot chute will be over the nose. We tell them to adjust with the toggles to make the canopy fly straight, but does anyone know how to avoid this?
Yes, I know this is slightly off topic, but the same general topic... I'm not trying to jack your thread :)

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Well, if I'd decide to land a canopy which isn't perfectly open for whatever reason, I'd probably stick with gentle corrections no matter what the canopy size.

Don't forget to try to flare the canopy during your controllability check though..
"That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport."
~mom

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Interesting question. I have seen several on student canopies (none of which caused any problems at all on a 230-290sqft monster) but I have never seen one on a smaller canopy.

Is this chance? A difference between ripcord and throw-out? or is there something more sinister at work?

Anyone? Bueller? Germain? :P:)

***************

Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

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I have had this some time ago on a crossfire 119 with zero-p pilot-chute. The pc somehow managed it to get to rest just in front of the middle/left center-cell....

The whole thing flew different than normal but I tried some practice flares and turns up high and it was no problem. My landing was not sooo good, but I think this had more to do with thinking about the problem during flare.
I could imagine it would have much more of a problem if the pc came to rest more off-center.

As someone mentioned:
Do your canopy control check and prepare for plf....

alex

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www.tandemmaster.net
www.skydivegear.de

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I've also been wondering about this. It happens a lot with my club's student gear. We use spring loaded pilot chutes, and about 1/3 of the time when we put a student out on static line, the pilot chute will be over the nose. We tell them to adjust with the toggles to make the canopy fly straight, but does anyone know how to avoid this?
Yes, I know this is slightly off topic, but the same general topic... I'm not trying to jack your thread :)




a few months ago my pc started flopping back and forth from tail to nose on opening I could not figure out why :S after I got a new line set it stopped hapening maybe check the line sets on your student canopies???
You can't be drunk all day if you don't start early!

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Up above your hard deck, you might be able to stall the canopy back into a collapse and get it to flip back over. Actually when instructors were telling me about stalling canopies like this(a long time ago on large old canopies), one of the warnings was that it might flip my pilot chute over the nose.

But I was always taught that it wasn't an issue unless it wrapped up around some of the lines in which case it could potentially start to tighten and cause canopy issues. Probably wouldn't happen, but was just something to watch out for and be ready to handle.

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they taught us to do a controllability check, make no turns with more than 1/2 brake input, and prepare to PLF the landing. Of course, that was with 300+ square foot canopies, so I'm not sure how it would work with a sport canopy.



That's a pretty extreme response.

I've had a PC over the nose, wrapped in control lines, wrapped in A/B lines on sport gear. I've also had drogues in the same configurations on tandems. Just fly gentle if the canopy is flying correctly and go on with life.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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I have noticed that it happens more on canopies that open in more of a stall (which some of my canopies have done when they were horribly out of trim). Just my uneducated non rigger observation.
"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

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>1. Is the canopy there? (in this case, yes)
>2. Is the canopy square? (in this case, also typically yes)
>3. Is the canopy controllable? (do a controllability check and find out)

We use shape/spin/float as the three criteria, but same basic idea.

For PC over the nose, we teach to do a control check, and if it passes, keep the canopy - but avoid radical turns/spirals. The danger is that if a jumper gets to 1200 feet and starts spiralling, he could conceivably generate enough drag to start pinching off the nose. (That's only happened to us once, and it necessitated a cutaway. Fortunately it happened at 2500 feet and not 1200.)

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I had PC over the nose a few times as a student, on spring-loaded ripcord rigs. I was told (how true I don't know) that it was more common for lightly loaded canopies at that level. Never had one that didn't pass a control check, and never had once since i moved to BOC rigs.
Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

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I'll go with those opinions about it being more common on canopies that are lightly loaded or on ones that open closer to a stall. When such a canopy is finishing decelerating vertically from freefall, it doesn't shoot ahead as quickly into fast forward flight, and so sometimes allows the pilot chute to drop right down and end up infront instead of streaming out behind.

I've seen a light girl on a student gear with a spring loaded pilot chute have it happen a few times when nobody else on the gear was having the problem.

As for fixing it, yeah you don't unless you're really into canopy trashing and backwards flight.

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I could see the PC being caught in the burble of an opening canopy. More brakes applied during the opening more chance that the burble is directly above the canopy as it's not moving forward as much during opening). With a springloaded PC I could see it as being more pronounced since the PC would need more drag to stay up because of it's mass. With a lot of brakes I wonder if the opening canopy is actually venting air across the nose (actually going backward a bit as it inflates)...

The only real concern I had thinking about it was that the canopy may be flyable but you wouldn't want the nose to start choking at 300'. Deciding not to keep a canopy isn't a big problem for me - not flyable and doesn't look fixable then choppy choppy. It is nice to hear from those who have had the problem that mostly it's keepable.

-Michael

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I had PC over the nose one time, still have no clue how that happens



It's usually due to backsliding at pull time. You see it all the time in military halo jumps - wave, pull, legs up = pc over the nose. Good positive legs at pull time usually prevents it.
Scars remind us that the past is real

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SIM Section 4 Cat B C.2.e

Please get, and read, the SIM...all of you. It's amazing how many questions get asked in here when the answers are all in the SIM. It's frightening how many people do not have, nor read, the SIM.

Flare the canopy...it's part of your controllability check. Do the rest of your controllability check. If it passes (yes, I can land this canopy safely), land it, if not cutaway and deploy your reserve before your decision altitude of 2,500 feet. Simple as that.

And in addition to the SIM, as BillVon mentioned, take it easy on the flight home.
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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All the sim really says is "Evaluate controllability and flare before reaching the decide-and-act altitude of 2,500 feet for"

Which while it's correct doesn't mean that people shouldn't get more advice from places like these forums. The sim doesn't say to take it easy flying with a PC in your lines and it's good advice.

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This happened to me a few weeks ago. The deployment went snivel-snivel-snivel-snivel-BAM! The hard(er) opening sent me rocking like a pendulum in the harness, and I guess the inertia it created threw the PC over the top of the canopy. The PC was just sitting there, and the canopy started to buck back and forth. After 2 bucks I released the brakes to see if that helped, and on the 3rd buck it threw the PC off the center cell and back to its correct position flying behind the tail.

I'm not sure why the PC over the nose created the bucking motion, but I wouldn't have landed it like that. It fixed itself before I got to my hard deck, but otherwise I was gonna give it about 5 more seconds.

Actually, I was talking about it to a friend of mine with similar jump numbers who learned at a different DZ. He said in his FJC they told him that if that happens to unstow the brakes and perform a 90 degree turn to throw the PC back where its supposed to be. Not sure if that works or not..

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