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millertime24

Different way to flare?

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So youtube got to me again, and I figured I would try something I saw on a skydiving video. Basically, when I went to flare, instead of the standard "flying the canopy to the ground" bit I usually do, I pumped the brakes several times rapidly. To my amazement it actually gave me the softest no-wind landing Ive ever had.

My question is, what is happening differently when doing this with the canopy? Also I have not yet had the chance to try this in a cross-wind landing, but I'm sure it's doable. Anywho, any canopy/phisics experts out there care to explain why this method of flaring works so well?

Gear info:

Pilot 150
W/L 1.35-1
Muff #5048

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No, that is not an efficient way to flare and it will not give you the most "power" out of your flare. In fact, that should result in less energy being transferred from your canopy's flight forward to pitch the canopy, which will give you less out of your canopy.

Smooth inputs, properly performed will give you the most out of your canopy.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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My question is, what is happening differently when doing this with the canopy?



It's inefficient and less predictable. Basically you're screwing up the highest potential for your landing whether or not it happens to freekishly just work out.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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My question is, what is happening differently when doing this with the canopy?



It's inefficient and less predictable. Basically you're screwing up the highest potential for your landing whether or not it happens to freekishly just work out.



Thats intteresting. I recall seeing a guy land like this at Ritzville a while ago on every jump he did. I do agree that it isn't a very viable way to land in shifting winds, but the result I got today was better than ideal.
Muff #5048

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Perhaps it is a good way of adding lots of drag to stop forward speed after you've already leveled out.
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

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Perhaps it is a good way of adding lots of drag to stop forward speed after you've already leveled out.



See, that's kind of what I was thinking. Plus lets not forget that you have the added fact that the canopy is a piece of fabric and not a solid wing which could also play into the characteristics of this.
Muff #5048

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Thats intteresting. I recall seeing a guy land like this at Ritzville a while ago on every jump he did. I do agree that it isn't a very viable way to land in shifting winds, but the result I got today was better than ideal.



I new a guy that did that on every jump he did. He looked like a chicken flapping its wings and not doing much of anything.

With your landing being no winds what could have happened is that you got the a good base amount of your flare and then pumping bled off any excess which allowed you to land and shut down the canopy easily. You may have got lucky today and other factors other than this style of flaring had a play in it. Personally I wouldn't do this as it could rob you of some lift that you may need it but one landing doesn't really constitute a lot of evidence that this method works, just talking strictly from a research view of things. So I would hold a lot of weight in thinking that it will deliver you the result you desire because of this one trial.

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Ya got me. I'm skeptical, but there's always something new out there.


I can think of a couple scenarios where the pumping flare is less efficient than a good normal flare, but looks good in comparison to someone's normal not so good flare:

1) If a newbie suggested it, I might think that the pumping just got them to use full brakes, focusing their mind on the arms, rather than making a newbie mistake of not flaring fully because one has shifted focus to one's footwork.

2) Or, someone is a little too spastic on the brakes while planing out, up and down and up and down, but at least they are highly focused on the flare and do better than their usual more lazy big flare with little adjustment part way through.


I don't see any advantage in the idea of pumping, which should normally just waste the power of the flare. I don't see that one is adding much energy into the system by flapping the tail or creating vortex lift or creating some dynamic condition that delays trailing edge stall separation or whatever.


One can come up with very particular situations where what seems to be ONE brake pump might help, but not multiple ones:

1) An efficient swoop where a sharper rear riser or brake application can plane one out perfectly, where toggles can actually go back up, before finishing the full flare afterwards.

2) There's a fair bit of wind, one over flares and pops up a few feet high, pretty much ending up in a hover 5 ft off the ground. If you just hold brakes, you might run out of flare energy while waiting to slowly start to drop, and then hit the ground harder. Plus your forward speed might still keep dropping, so with the wind you drop backwards and fall on your ass.

So instead you let up on the brakes just a little, pitching the canopy a little forward and speeding the descent, without slowing forward speed too much, then hitting the brakes hard to finish the flare again for touchdown.

In some similar conditions where one is floating down from a few feet up with zero forward speed in a moderate wind, then one can pump the brakes for fun without causing any problems as one drops down to land. But I don't see this being any better than a proper flare in the first place.

But that's a situation with wind, and your experience was in no wind.

Edit:
The idea in other posts about adding drag is interesting -- Where one already has enough flare to plane out but one wants to make the canopy LESS efficient by adding more drag to slow down faster. The idea is to get the canopy down to a minimum flying speed (and thus minimum touchdown speed) before the canopy starts pitching forward again and dropping after running out of energy to maintain the planed out flare with canopy back. As a thought exercise it is hard to know whether it would work better than a normal good flare, but it is an idea.

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Perhaps it is a good way of adding lots of drag to stop forward speed after you've already leveled out.



See, that's kind of what I was thinking. Plus lets not forget that you have the added fact that the canopy is a piece of fabric and not a solid wing which could also play into the characteristics of this.



Some used to do it with the old strato-star 5 cells. They made it work very well.
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

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it isn't a very viable way to land in shifting winds, but the result I got today was better than ideal.



Carefully reread what you just wrote and hopefully you'll understand how that's impossible.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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what are the forward and vertical speeds of those canopies when they're linking with the WS's? I didn't know they went that quickly....



If you are talking about the canopy fliers, that's irrelevant to this thread.

The guy at 3:42 in the video was one of the wingsuiters. Looked like he was just having fun flapping his arms, quickly enough that he didn't drop out of the planed out flight. Who knows, maybe it did add drag on average and slow him more quickly than normal. On the other hand, maybe his landing would have been at a slower speed without flapping.

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what are the forward and vertical speeds of those canopies when they're linking with the WS's? I didn't know they went that quickly....



Guys are pro's, they're using temporary-shortened-front-risers, flying fast enough to match WS speed
What goes around, comes later.

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Any improvement in you landing was just in your head. Rapid short inputs like in the video will screw up the canopy balance but they are too quick help the canopy during flair. Or anything else for the matter. I think if contact the flyer in the video he will tell he was styl’in for the camera.

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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I'm thinking that the lack of efficiency is exactly what the jumper is going for. He's already flying horizonal, and just wants to kill that kinetic energy (i.e. convert it to heat). I suspect that he knows from experience that a conventional flare will create too much lift (make him go up), so he does it the ineffiecient way.

Just my $.02 :)

I believe you have my stapler.

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So youtube got to me again, and I figured I would try something I saw on a skydiving video. Basically, when I went to flare, instead of the standard "flying the canopy to the ground" bit I usually do, I pumped the brakes several times rapidly. To my amazement it actually gave me the softest no-wind landing Ive ever had.

My question is, what is happening differently when doing this with the canopy? Also I have not yet had the chance to try this in a cross-wind landing, but I'm sure it's doable. Anywho, any canopy/phisics experts out there care to explain why this method of flaring works so well?

Gear info:

Pilot 150
W/L 1.35-1



I suggest you watch less youtube.;)
Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

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I have seen people doing it, ie. pumping the toggles before lowering them for the contact with the ground. I think it's a coincidence that you got a soft landing doing so. As a canopy pilot, you are in the same situation than an airplane or glider pilot. Would you imagine such pilot pulling up and down (pumping) the control column for a "better" landing ??? No way.
Like an aircraft pilot, for landing you should judge your height above the ground and apply progressively the ailerons (your brakes) to round up your trajectory changing it from oblique to an horizontal line always having a lot of space ahead of you. It almost an art to do so. Practice and practice is the best way.
According a seminar I followed with John LeBlanc from Performance Designs, he was telling us that there is 4 typical mistakes people are doing at landing.
1) not staying calm for at least 10 seconds before the landing
2) trying to protect yourself (a reflex which changes your hands therefore the toggles)
3) trying to reach with arms or feet (this affects you position in the harness and/or your arms and feet positions)
4) anticipate the landing (eg. put your feet forward or making anything before landing you should do only at landing)

From my point of view, pumping the toggles is a sort of action to average your toggles control not already well mastered. That can seem OK but you have to get that control. With some high performance canopies, the results of this kind of action will hurt you. Look at experienced people, they generally don't do that. Learn to have a smooth, precise and efficient control of your canopy. Later on you can apply that to any canopies. Beside this, pumping your toggles will wear down your steering lines prematurely.
I recommend you to have somebody taking a video (shot from the side) at your landing. You will see exactly at what height your actions are done and you will be able to make a correction for the next jump. Good luck and tell us your progress.:)

Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

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