4 4
BMAC615

A License on >1:1 WL?

Recommended Posts

what you are talking about is downsizing to learn canopy control.  i am not a canopy expert but have a few jumps.  it is not a good idea, and exactly the opposite of the way we need to go with this sport to reduce fatalities.  we have mostly got the freefall down, but are still getting killed landing.  plfs are almost non-existent and not done properly if at all when landing.  those are two areas we should concentrate on.  not to the point of regulation, but you are proposing an idea that would increase the danger before decreasing it, if it ever does which i highly doubt. 

maybe we could start making it cool to be accurate, not fast.  i can't wait to start jumping this year to practice my canopy skills and will probably not downsize past 1.0 wl.  i would like to get into crw though. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
40 minutes ago, sfzombie13 said:

what you are talking about is downsizing to learn canopy control. 

I am talking about getting from a student canopy to a properly loaded sport canopy to learn some slightly more advanced aspects of canopy control. There are basic things you can and should learn on your Navigator 240 (like making a proper landing pattern, making a flat turn, accurately landing in a designated place, avoiding traffic, and timing your flare), but once you are at 50ish jumps, a good number of people who were interested enough to learn those things will have learned them. Those that are not interested to learn them will not learn them in 300+ jumps. But things like front and rear riser flight, as well as harness input are almost impossible to learn on such canopies at such wingloadings as the forces required to use the risers are insanely high, and harness response is non-existent. Please note that I am not talking about high performance landings here, just knowing how to pilot your canopy the way you want it to go.. 

47 minutes ago, sfzombie13 said:

not to the point of regulation, but you are proposing an idea that would increase the danger before decreasing it, if it ever does which i highly doubt. 

And the idea that would totally eliminate the danger is to ban skydiving all together, as no one can get hurt landing a parachute if no one is jumping out of airplanes, but eliminating the danger is not the point of this sport. What I am proposing is to help those who are interested in and capable of learning to learn as quickly as possible, and as in any sport, there are certain risks if you want to progress faster, which some people are willing to accept. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
54 minutes ago, Kenzdik96 said:

I am talking about getting from a student canopy to a properly loaded sport canopy to learn some slightly more advanced aspects of canopy control. There are basic things you can and should learn on your Navigator 240 (like making a proper landing pattern, making a flat turn, accurately landing in a designated place, avoiding traffic, and timing your flare), but once you are at 50ish jumps, a good number of people who were interested enough to learn those things will have learned them. Those that are not interested to learn them will not learn them in 300+ jumps. But things like front and rear riser flight, as well as harness input are almost impossible to learn on such canopies at such wingloadings as the forces required to use the risers are insanely high, and harness response is non-existent. Please note that I am not talking about high performance landings here, just knowing how to pilot your canopy the way you want it to go.. 

And the idea that would totally eliminate the danger is to ban skydiving all together, as no one can get hurt landing a parachute if no one is jumping out of airplanes, but eliminating the danger is not the point of this sport. What I am proposing is to help those who are interested in and capable of learning to learn as quickly as possible, and as in any sport, there are certain risks if you want to progress faster, which some people are willing to accept. 

it's ok to be wrong, as you are now, and it took me years to learn that, and another few to accept it.  when you get your license, you can do whatever you want, so i will leave it at that.  what you are proposing will affect others, and you are advocating ADDING danger to the sport in the false idea that it will TAKE AWAY danger. 

the only problem with what you are proposing, other than downsizing at 50 jumps to a dangerous canopy just to learn skills to keep a jumper safe (that just doesn't make sense, but we will let that slide for a bit), is allowing a jumper to assess their own skills.  who is the judge of capability?  can the jumper do a downwind landing on rears without interfering with the other 10 folks trying to land?  you say "those who are interested or capable".  i am interested in doing crw, but am no way ready for it yet, how would that fit into the picture?  i agree that we cannot make it 100% safe, but we should try.  we shouldn't ignore the lessons learned (and keep getting) in blood and removing the small safety margin we have just so someone can learn to swoop the pond.

you do you, but keep that shit away from me.  take it up with your dz, propose it as an idea, keep good records, and then when you have some data, bring it up again.  right now you have an idea, and it sucks.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, Kenzdik96 said:

And we agree here, as I would not encourage anyone to do downplanes or make stacks with anything but a dedicated CReW canopy. (which doesn't have to be a 7 cell, nor does it have to be lightly loaded, have you seen the PD Tango?) But downplanes and canopy docks are exercises which are applicable only to people doing CReW, and I don't want to force anyone to get into full contact canopy relative any more than you want to force people to go into swooping. Contactless canopy proximity flying on the other hand is an exercise that makes you a much better canopy pilot, regardless of the discipline you choose to pursue afterwards. When you have another canopy in the air next to you, you can see exactly what happens when you initiate any sort of toggle, riser, or harness input, because you will have a frame of reference (which you normally only have during landing, when the ground is getting closer), and you will learn how to control your canopy horizontal and vertical speed, as you will need to match them to another person (and this can't be done properly on very lightly loaded wings, as both the front and the rear risers are way to heavy to be useful, and harness is almost unresponsive). 

Glide ratio is a constructive characteristic of the airfoil, and is independent of wing loading. A 9 cell will typically have a better glide ratio than a 7 cell, purely because the aspect ratio of the wing is greater, and aspect ratio positively affects wing efficiency (that is why gliders have very big wing spans in relation to their chord, and consequently very high aspect ratios). When we say glide ratio, we are referring solely on airspeed. When it comes to penetrating wind, it is not only the glide ratio you need, but horizontal speed, as ground speed (difference between you airspeed and the speed of the wind) is what you need to get over that powerline/highway/barn. When wind gets sufficiently strong, you will be standing still with anything loaded at 1.0, but something at 1.4 might get you moving forward. And before someone responds with "you shouldn't be jumping if winds are too strong", wind can change during jump, and people are eager to jump so in the real world wind limits will routinely be pushed. 

I learned all those things in the early 90s on a lightly loaded PD 7-cell and was able to manage. A Triathlon hybrid, Spectre @ .8-1 seems to be fine. It’s not like I’m suggesting anyone do rotations or huge stacks.

I think we are directionally aligned, but, not in agreement. As for glide ratio, that’s purely how many feet forward do you go for every foot down. Agree that it will be different in various wind conditions, but, John LeBlanc talks about the differences between a Katana and a Pulse during his talk to the BPA in 2018. I completely disagree about standing still w/ anything less than a 1 WL.

Thanks for your feedback, it is giving me plenty to think about.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 2/9/2021 at 1:47 PM, Kenzdik96 said:

... things like front and rear riser flight, as well as harness input are almost impossible to learn on such canopies at such wingloadings as the forces required to use the risers are insanely high, and harness response is non-existent....

Really? I have no problem harness turning a nav 240, rear riser pressure is even lighter than my crossfire. 

Front risers? Yeah there I agree, forget about those. But there's no need for those at 45 jumps. At those numbers you better work on survival skills like flat turns and avoiding traffic with your rears.

 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 2/9/2021 at 9:54 AM, BMAC615 said:

I completely disagree about standing still w/ anything less than a 1 WL

What is there to disagree with? The lower your wing loading, the lower your forward airspeed, the more likely your ground speed will be zero.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Just now, nwt said:

Didn't think so.

Here’s what I think. I think you made a statement without complete information. “The lower your wing loading, the lower your forward airspeed, the more likely your ground speed will be zero.” Cool, so, on a Spectre 210 w/ a WL of .8, what is the airspeed? What will the wind speed need to be to have a ground speed of 0? 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 minutes ago, BMAC615 said:

Here’s what I think. I think you made a statement without complete information. “The lower your wing loading, the lower your forward airspeed, the more likely your ground speed will be zero.” Cool, so, on a Spectre 210 w/ a WL of .8, what is the airspeed? What will the wind speed need to be to have a ground speed of 0? 

I already told you I don't know this information. I never claimed to know it or implied I did, and I'm not obligated to try to look it up and participate in your pedantic games.

If you have a point you'd like to make, why don't you just go ahead and use your words and make it?

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 minutes ago, nwt said:

I already told you I don't know this information. I never claimed to know it or implied I did, and I'm not obligated to try to look it up and participate in your pedantic games.

If you have a point you'd like to make, why don't you just go ahead and use your words and make it?

A Triathlon or Spectre loaded at .8 is fine and suggesting a new jumper load a canopy to 1.4 for the odd times wind picks up to 20 mph is not necessary and dangerous.

Edited by BMAC615

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 minute ago, BMAC615 said:

A Triathlon or Spectre loaded at .8 is fine and loading a canopy to 1.4 is not necessary to fly in wind conditions below 20 mph.

That doesn't refute anything I've said and I don't know what you're on about.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 minutes ago, BMAC615 said:

A Triathlon or Spectre loaded at .8 is fine and suggesting a new jumper load a canopy to 1.4 for the odd times wind picks up to 20 mph is not necessary and dangerous.

Just saw this edit. Who is advocating for putting new jumpers at 1.4? Not me lol

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 minutes ago, nwt said:

Just saw this edit. Who is advocating for putting new jumpers at 1.4? Not me lol

“When wind gets sufficiently strong, you will be standing still with anything loaded at 1.0, but something at 1.4 might get you moving forward.“ My response that you quoted was in response to the above by @Kenzdik96

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 minutes ago, BMAC615 said:

“When wind gets sufficiently strong, you will be standing still with anything loaded at 1.0, but something at 1.4 might get you moving forward.“ My response that you quoted was in response to the above by @Kenzdik96

It doesn't seem like he's advocating to put a new jumper at 1.4 either, and this seems tangential at best to what I quoted.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 2/9/2021 at 4:52 AM, Kenzdik96 said:

 

Glide ratio is a constructive characteristic of the airfoil, and is independent of wing loading.

 Changing the wingloading absolutely does change the glide ratio. If you increase the loading high enough, there comes a point where the canopy becomes overloaded and it's vertical decent rate increases substantially with little increase in horizontal speed. This is very apparent in XRW where canopy pilots will hook wingsuiters on their feet and suspend their weight, after which their canopy falls out of the sky with no noticeable increase in forward speed.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

4 4