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wildernessmedic

Brake line trim and front risers

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Did a canopy control course and discovered I have 0 slack in my brake lines. Video showed me doin some front riser dives and the canopy shaking from the brakes being pulled at the same time because of the lack of slack. Does this mean I shouldn't use the fronts until I get slack in my lines? Instructor said it was counterproductive to do since the brakes get pulled when I pull my front risers.

How hard is it to put slack in them? Entire new line sets?

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The fix depends on the location of the line shrinkage. Check the lines against the trim chart. If it is just the brake line and not the entire line set, replacing the section(s) between the cascade and the toggle is easy and not costly. If the entire line set is on the short side, a full line change might be in order.

Practicing fronts with an out of trim canopy just gives you experience with a misperforming canopy. No need for that.
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It's also possible that you have enough extra line finger trapped above the toggles and the lines that are currently there can be extended enough. I had the same issue on my Sabre2 and was able to use the line that was already there.

Ask your rigger. It's a simple task. If there isn't enough line already there, putting a longer line in below the cat's eye is not a big job. Presuming, of course, that the line lenghts check out.
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monkycndo



Practicing fronts with an out of trim canopy just gives you experience with a misperforming canopy. No need for that.



Ok I'll hold off doing anything with them if it's just making it preform off from how it should.

Thanks guys, I'll look at them next time I jump. Hope it's an easy cheap fix to just add a bit.

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jumpsalot-2

You should be able to see a slight bow in the brake line in full flight (hands off toggles to make sure). If they are tight or if you can see any tail deflection in full flight, that is a sign for sure of shortened brake lines.



I could swear the trim was perfect when I got it a few months ago. Now it's definitely too right. 0 slack at full flight.

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wildernessmedic



I could swear the trim was perfect when I got it a few months ago. Now it's definitely too right. 0 slack at full flight.



One way to have your brake lines get short quickly is allowing the brake lines to twist and then not removing the twist. When lines twist, they get shorter. For spectra lines, when the slider rides down the lines, the lines heat up causing them to shrink. Add these two situations together and now the slider is heating up twisted lines setting that twist as permanent. Meaning, much shorter brake lines.

You can't prevent the slider from heating the lines. But you can keep your lines from having lots of twists. Two things you can do. Once you take the toggles out of the keepers, don't let go of them. If you hold the toggles, and stow them when you land, there is no way for them to twist. You might add a half twist depending on which way you rotate the brake line to stow your toggle. At the end of each day of jumping, I run the brake line and remove what minor twist might be there.
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wildernessmedic

[.quote "jumpsalot-2"]You should be able to see a slight bow in the brake line in full flight (hands off toggles to make sure). If they are tight or if you can see any tail deflection in full flight, that is a sign for sure of shortened brake lines.[./quote]

I could swear the trim was perfect when I got it a few months ago. Now it's definitely too right. 0 slack at full flight.



It may be the lines aren't out of trim just too short for pulling fronts. The slight bow described would not be enough to allow the fronts to be pulled to your chest without significant application of the brake, and both at once can make the canopy quite unstable and unpredictable so I wouldn't do that.

Lengthening the lines between the toggle and the loop (if the lines are in trim) is easy and quick to do but this will change your flare and stall points and so you will need to relearn these. I found that I needed to adjust the lengths over period of 20 jumps or so to get the best compromise of fronts vs flare. To do this my rigger fitted much longer lines after the loop and S fed them into the toggles several times (6 S's giving 6 lines jamming through the toggle grommet) with a figure 8 knot on the end of the line to secure it, which allowed me to adjust the lengths in the field while packing. Once I was happy he changed it to a loop and tacked them.

After changing the brake line lengths all the jumps following should be high hop and pops, finding at a safe altitude where the new flare and stall points are until you have built up the muscle memory. And only conservative straight in landings until you have the muscle memory. If you treat it with the respect it deserves it's good fun :)
Rich M

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RichM

***[.quote "jumpsalot-2"]You should be able to see a slight bow in the brake line in full flight (hands off toggles to make sure). If they are tight or if you can see any tail deflection in full flight, that is a sign for sure of shortened brake lines.[./quote]

I could swear the trim was perfect when I got it a few months ago. Now it's definitely too right. 0 slack at full flight.



It may be the lines aren't out of trim just too short for pulling fronts. The slight bow described would not be enough to allow the fronts to be pulled to your chest without significant application of the brake, and both at once can make the canopy quite unstable and unpredictable so I wouldn't do that.

Lengthening the lines between the toggle and the loop (if the lines are in trim) is easy and quick to do but this will change your flare and stall points and so you will need to relearn these. I found that I needed to adjust the lengths over period of 20 jumps or so to get the best compromise of fronts vs flare. To do this my rigger fitted much longer lines after the loop and S fed them into the toggles several times (6 S's giving 6 lines jamming through the toggle grommet) with a figure 8 knot on the end of the line to secure it, which allowed me to adjust the lengths in the field while packing. Once I was happy he changed it to a loop and tacked them.

After changing the brake line lengths all the jumps following should be high hop and pops, finding at a safe altitude where the new flare and stall points are until you have built up the muscle memory. And only conservative straight in landings until you have the muscle memory. If you treat it with the respect it deserves it's good fun :)

Hahahaha. Basically redo everything I JUST did in the canopy control course. I'm ok with that. Every bit they lengthen is flare that I lose right? So only lengthen them just enough to pull the fronts. Guess I'll need someone to film a landing. I didn't even know this was happening and causing erratic behavior until they showed me the video.

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