blue24 0 #1 July 8, 2011 Did you downsize too quickly, and at what wing loading? Did you have a bad experience as a result of flying a too aggressive canopy: collision, bad landing, injury (getting yelled at)? I am new to the sport...and looking to learn. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CSpenceFLY 1 #2 July 8, 2011 QuoteDid you downsize too quickly, and at what wing loading? Did you have a bad experience as a result of flying a too aggressive canopy: collision, bad landing, injury (getting yelled at)? I am new to the sport...and looking to learn. Bad landing: Jump 134:Loading 1.4-1 : 30% compression fracture of T-12 Turbulence off of a building and I didn't react fast enough. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #3 July 8, 2011 QuoteDid you downsize too quickly, and at what wing loading? Did you have a bad experience as a result of flying a too aggressive canopy: collision, bad landing, injury (getting yelled at)? I am new to the sport...and looking to learn. Read the Incidents forum. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nigel99 296 #4 July 8, 2011 QuoteQuoteDid you downsize too quickly, and at what wing loading? Did you have a bad experience as a result of flying a too aggressive canopy: collision, bad landing, injury (getting yelled at)? I am new to the sport...and looking to learn. Read the Incidents forum. This could be an interesting thread. We already have Ron's stupid things I have done that is both informative and entertaining. Downsizing lessons may not have resulted in an incident but scared the crap out of a jumper. I'd certainly like to hear the "no shit their I was" stories.Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
airtwardo 7 #5 July 8, 2011 No Shit There I was, thought I wuz gonna CRY! I had a couple hundred jumps, my 252 Para-Foil was getting some repairs so I jumped a friends Strato-Star... Unpacked at terminal to a snot knocking shoe loser, under nylon I re-entered the atmosphere like a meteor, the slider looked bigger than the canopy, hit the saw dust 'peas' and bounced back up 10 feet. NEVER jumped a 5 cell again! ~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GLIDEANGLE 1 #6 July 8, 2011 Some people with the scariest stories will NOT post in this thread... Cuz they are DEAD!The choices we make have consequences, for us & for others! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nigel99 296 #7 July 8, 2011 Quote No Shit There I was, thought I wuz gonna CRY! I had a couple hundred jumps, my 252 Para-Foil was getting some repairs so I jumped a friends Strato-Star... Unpacked at terminal to a snot knocking shoe loser, under nylon I re-entered the atmosphere like a meteor, the slider looked bigger than the canopy, hit the saw dust 'peas' and bounced back up 10 feet. NEVER jumped a 5 cell again! Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mjosparky 4 #8 July 9, 2011 Anyone ever talk to you about downsizing to fast? From 252 to 180 is a big step. Sparky My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jimmytavino 16 #9 July 9, 2011 slider!!!!?????] you got to jump a strato star WITH a slider ?????!!!!.. i too made ONE jump on such a canopy,,, and vowed then and there to NEVER jump a 5 cell, again. good thing i "landed it " in the peas....Upsize?? downsize??.. why not just stick with the Right size??? jt Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manchuso 3 #10 July 9, 2011 Every now and then I´ll jump a Safety Star as a main. Last time a friend packed it for me and got the steering lines trough the guide rings...they were out for a reason; they´d get stuck at shoulder level whenever I tried to go deeper/flare! Managed to crash it with minimal damage...walked out of it...sorely! happy landings, rafael Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
fossg 0 #11 July 9, 2011 My strato star landing looked like the opening of the "6 million dollar man" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shah269 0 #12 July 9, 2011 Will technology advance such that maybe we don't have to "downsize"? Can a thin wing made of a strong enough fabric be developed such that people can make high speed approach with out needing to jump sub 100stft wings? Or are we in a situation where due to line drag we have to go smaller to get those epic swoops? Also, for a guy like me who is happy with the "ride" will the developers develop "fun" "floaty" 200+sqft canopies? For those of us who ride.....say a Sport Touring wing?Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay. The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mjosparky 4 #13 July 9, 2011 QuoteOr are we in a situation where due to line drag we have to go smaller to get those epic swoops? Line drag is a factor to about 50 or so canopy pilots in the world. To the rest it is an ego thing. They could use 750 braided Dacron and it would not make a difference. SparkyMy idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VideoFly 0 #14 July 9, 2011 After about two years of jumping and a couple of hundred jumps, I went from a 170 Sabre I to a 150 Sabre I, to a 150 Cobalt, to a 139 Alpha, to a 120 Cobalt, in about 300 jumps. The downsize was easy because I was too cool, indestructible, and all the big boys were doing it. I put 400 jumps on the 120 with a wing loading of 2.1:1. One day I chopped the 120 during a line twisted (all the way to the slider) spinner. After that, I upsized back to my 150 Cobalt and have jumped it since. No horror stories here, but I was lucky. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bofh 0 #15 July 11, 2011 QuoteQuoteOr are we in a situation where due to line drag we have to go smaller to get those epic swoops? Line drag is a factor to about 50 or so canopy pilots in the world. To the rest it is an ego thing. They could use 750 braided Dacron and it would not make a difference. Of course it will not make a dramatic impact for most people, but if you lose at competition by 1cm, surely you would regret that you didn't get HMA-300 instead of the braided 750 dacron lines. For people that don't compete, I agree with you more or less (I would still think Dacron would be a poor choice for tiny canopies with tight line specs though). But back to the topic at hand. Its not the size of the canopy that is the problem. Its the performance. The higher the performance of the canopy, the more experience is required to handle it and the bigger the injury will be at an equal incident. So even if there were a huge canopy with awesome performance it would still not be suitable for people with little experience and people would still "downsize" to it as they gain more experience if they wanted to get more performance. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shah269 0 #16 July 11, 2011 You guys don't forsee a day where size is not a direct function of performance?Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay. The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pyrotech 0 #17 July 11, 2011 QuoteYou guys don't forsee a day where size is not a direct function of performance? The same day that velocity is not altered by resistance. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wolfriverjoe 1,462 #18 July 11, 2011 QuoteYou guys don't forsee a day where size is not a direct function of performance? Not unless the technology and materials chage dramatically. For any given canopy, smaller is going to be faster and more resposive. It's a function of overall drag and line length. There are exceptions, of course. A full elliptical or X-braced is going to be higher performance than a "true" square. I don't know how much bigger the X-brace would be to get performance similar to a square of a given size (one size? two? more??)"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shah269 0 #19 July 11, 2011 So what we are talking about here are stiffer thinnger wings similar to say a glider? But it's a catch 22 isn't it? The faster you go the "stiffer" your wing becomes, the thinner your wing the faster you have to go to get that pressure to stiffen up the wing...... Who knows.Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay. The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wolfriverjoe 1,462 #20 July 11, 2011 Something like that. But remember, long, thin glider wings are very efficient, but not terribly high performance. Even for planes, higher performance means smaller wings. Compare a fighter jet with a transport. The faster one has much smaller wings (for a similar weight). Even the "swing wing" high perfromance planes (F-14 and F-111 are the two that come to mind) changed the configuration to match the performance needs (although the overall area didn't change, the different sweep angles changed the lift and drag significantly) And I am approaching the limits of my aerodynamic engineering here. Professor Kallend is a much better source for this kind of stuff."There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnMitchell 16 #21 July 11, 2011 Quote My strato star landing looked like the opening of the "6 million dollar man" My first square was a Stratostar. Stood up the first five landings.Of course, I only weighed 165 then. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnMitchell 16 #22 July 11, 2011 Quote Did you downsize too quickly, and at what wing loading? Did you have a bad experience as a result of flying a too aggressive canopy: collision, bad landing, injury (getting yelled at)? By the time the HP canopies invaded our sport I already had a couple of K jumps, so I knew how to take things slowly and fly out of trouble. You won't know that yet, so please stay on your big canopy and learn how to fly it in ALL modes. Don't say "I'll buy this too small canopy and just be careful for a while." I've carted a few of those people off the DZ. Skydive for yourself, not for the crowd. I've been to a funeral or two 'cause some jumper wanted to impress his friends. There are some great guidelines and lesson plans for becoming a good canopy pilot. If you can get some canopy coaching, or even have your landings videotaped and watch by an instructor, you'll improve more quickly. Don't think you have to have a super sick small canopy to be cool or have fun. I borrowed a larger canopy the other day to make a quick turn with an AFF student. It swooped just fine and landed super sweet. And maybe I ain't that cool anymore, but I'm still alive and jumping, and maybe that's cool enough right there. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
fossg 0 #23 July 12, 2011 It was a borrowed rig. I felt cocky sice I had about 200 ram air jumps. woops.. Oh the last time I weighed 165 I was in first grade Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
airtwardo 7 #24 July 12, 2011 Quote It was a borrowed rig. I felt cocky sice I had about 200 ram air jumps. woops.. Oh the last time I weighed 165 I was in first grade Yup...last time I saw 165 pounds, it was on the end of a fork headed for my mouth! ~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
airathanas 0 #25 July 12, 2011 I was jumping a Stiletto 135, which I thought was well within my ability range, given that I have 1000 jumps. I was wrong. I couldn't land it safely when I jumped out of the balloon when there was no outs. Knee surgery and 6 months of physical therapy is no joke. I've upsized to a Pulse 150 and I'm not going to be doing any balloons ever again. http://3ringnecklace.com/ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
