Rounds - what were they like to land ?

[skyjumpenfool 2]

I have a fair number of round jumps, including round reserves both belly mount and piggy back. I always describe it like this...

Stand on a 4 foot box, and jump to the ground. However, in those days, I only pushed the scale to 160lbs.

Birdshit & Fools Productions

"Son, only two things fall from the sky."

[pchapman 261]

skyjumpenfool

Stand on a 4 foot box, and jump to the ground.

Which is fine, and represents low winds.... but I'll add that when it's windy, instead jump driving 10+ mph off the side of a pickup. Not quite as much fun.

When I've done vintage round jumps, I've always been able to pick nice days with not much wind, which makes things a lot easier than for the old timers who were jumping day after day and had to deal with winds unless they stayed on the ground half the time.

My first rig was one with a square main but round reserve, so one jumped in any conditions and hoped not to use the reserve. Finally I did in 2000 after a CRW wrap, and landed the Phantom 24 going backwards in 18 mph wind on the DZ anemometer. The backwards roll was a bit rough but no injuries. According to the specs, even when I weighted 140 lbs, I would have been coming down about 16 fps and maybe -- with a canopy forward speed through the air of say 5 mph-- 19 fps backwards, for a total velocity of about 25 fps.

That's an example of how substantial wind makes rounds less fun!

[Amazon 7]

I have a Phantom 24... glad it one of the only canopies I own that I never jumped. I also have a 24' military reserve... I never jumped.. Back in the 1970's when I was a stick figure at 140 pounds but now.... man those would hurt.

I have a few jumps on my 26' Lo Po reserves ... not a problem there at all.. hell I even stood up 2 of the landings

[tbrown 26]

The military surplus stuff could be pretty tough, at best it was like jumping off something 3-5 ft. high. But there were sport rounds that you could make comfortable stand up landings with. I had a MK-I Paracommander that landed very nicely. I even switched over from boots to sneakers and traded in my Bell helmet for a Cooper hockey helmet. My 21 ft. Sparrow main gave decent standups, though not as nice or consistent as the PC. The sport reserves were low porosity too and I made some okay standup landings with my Security 26 ft Lopo, which I continued to jump even though I had a 230 ft. 7 cell main. (When square reserves first came out, a lot of us took a "wait & see" attitude, partly for the expense and partly because we trusted the sport rounds - they were reliable.)

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !