Need some advice on flaring

[k-dubjumps 0]

I just started jumping again after a 15 year absence from the sport. When I jump backed then the canopies I flew were all F-111. I find that I'm having to relearn to fly canopies. They've really changed in the past 15 years!

With all that being said, I'm having issues with flaring. I've been told that I'm flaring too high, but have yet to be advised on when I should start my flare. I've been flying 170's at a 1:1 wing loading ratio. I'm not attempting swoops at this point, just straight in approaches. Any advice?

Adrenaline is my crack

DPH #3
D.S. #16 FAG #12 Muff Brother #4406

[Icon134 0]

I'm not sure anybody can be much help here... my recommendation would be to get someone to shoot video of your landing and have an experienced canopy pilot/instructor give you some assistance... perhaps consider taking a canopy course...

There are several good canopy courses out there and they will give you a lot of pointers to improve your flare as well as teaching you how to really "fly" your canopy.

Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

[ghost47 18]

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With all that being said, I'm having issues with flaring. I've been told that I'm flaring too high, but have yet to be advised on when I should start my flare.

I've had (and sometimes still have) this problem. I've been told to start the flare at about 8 to 10 feet off the ground, but that wasn't at all helpful to me, because I had no idea what 8 to 10 feet really looked like. And, because I don't have a great visual memory, standing at 8 to 10 feet high and looking down at the ground (or rather 45 degrees away) to remember when I should start wasn't that helpful either. (However, that's something you can try if you think it would be helpful for you.)

Taking a canopy control course was very helpful for me. The main thing I learned was to try to plane out first. In the air, you practice flares and try to find the "sweet spot". I'm not sure how to describe it except as the point where I feel like the wind has stopped. Then, on landing, flare to that point first, then finish the flare off.

Also that flaring is not static, it doesn't have to be full flight > flare! It can be full flight > flare a little > oh I'm too high > hold it > flare some more. Or full flight > flare a little > oh shit I'm low > flare hard. Eventually, you get the feeling of where to flare, and whether to speed it up or slow it down depending on where you are.

As long as you're PLFing and not getting hurt on your landings, I think really the only cure is to keep doing it, and try to remember what things looked like the last time, and adjust accordingly depending on if you were too high or too low.

And of course talk to the instructors at your DZ.

Good luck!

[NWFlyer 2]

Come up to Skydance on Sunday June 14 - there's a canopy course scheduled starting at 9, including several jumps and video feedback.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[SPAWNmaster 0]

I'm not trying to give advice or cure your problem but here is a recommendation:

Up high make sure you are in a clear airspace.

Close your eyes and do slow and smooth flares and feel how the wind and lift change.

You should feel more connected with the canopy and will get a better feel with what is happening with the canopy.

Try and find that "sweet spot" where you know you are maintaining a low vertical speed but can still feel some forward glide.

Again doing all this with closed eyes can really help you get a feel for it.

Just an exercise that could help.

[k-dubjumps 0]

I would love to come to Skydance and take the canopy course, but unfortunately I am suffering from a sprained ankle I got after my night jump this past weekend. I actually thought it would be one of my better landings until my foot found a gopher hole. Anyone who has jumped in Hollister knows what a hazard they can be!

Thanks everyone for all the advice, I will definitely try the flaring techniques when I am back in the air again.

Adrenaline is my crack

DPH #3
D.S. #16 FAG #12 Muff Brother #4406

[davelepka 4]

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When I jump backed then the canopies I flew were all F-111. I find that I'm having to relearn to fly canopies. They've really changed in the past 15 years!

Yeah, they have. The deal on F-111 was always that you needed to flare high because the canopy would take a few seconds to respond and slow down. You also needed to use a strong, powerful flare and once you started there was no stopping without losing all of the 'power' from the flare.

The newer canopies respond much quicker to input, and don't have much of a problem if you pause in the middle of the flare. Even if you start the flare high, you can stop, and finish it when you get a little lower. Just remember that once you start the flare, you cannot put your hands back up. You can stop where you are, and then finish, but never put your hands back up.

There's two things you'll want to think about. The first is bringing down the height you start your flare. I don't know how high you're starting it now, but if you just bring it down one or two feet at a time, eventually you'll get where you need to be. Baby steps, baby steps.

Another thing that should help is using the two step flare. The first step will level out the canopy, and should be about shoulder or chest level with the toggles. Once the canopy levels out and begins to sink again, just finish the flare.

Exactly how much to flare for step one will work itself out as you bring down the height you start your flare. Like any new skill, ease into it and you should be able to safely modify your technique. Don't try for, or expect a 100% change in one or two jumps, give it 10 or 15.

[Gary73 8]

I've been told that on average, women have better peripheral vision than men, but worse depth perception. I noticed years ago that on average, women have more trouble with landings, so I solicited some advice from experienced women skydivers on what to teach women who have this problem. Here's what I got; maybe it'll help:

I suck at all that 6-8feet visualization, especially after a good freefall. I flare mostly by "instinct".

However, what really helped me was doing 3-4 hop-n-pops (3500'). That way all I focused on was my canopy control, setting up and feeling the flare. Helped immensly. Sometimes I was just so worn out from freefall, I didn't have much left to devote to the other fun part of skydiving - landing my canopy.


I always had trouble telling when to flare. I was always flaring WAY too high. Some people told me when i thought i should flare, to wait 3 seconds then flare. That kinda worked, but what I found to be more helpful for me, was looking for something that was about 10 feet high, then i would kinda know when i should start flaring. I still use that method sometimes (my landing have just started to improve). I found it to really help a lot.
bubbles


So the biggest key was relax, just say it out loud and keep looking in front of me and not down!!


As you know, it is way common for students to fixate on the ground, get serious groundrush, then flare too high. When I was teaching the first jump course, I would tell my students to look off at the horizon when on final (avoids the whole groundrush problem). Our DZ was surrounded by trees to the South, East and West and had a line of hangers to the North. On their first couple of landings while on radio, I had them concentrate on where they were relationship wise with those stationary objects as they began their flare. One of the questions I would ask the students during debrief was "When you began your flare, were the trees/hanger above, even with, or below your feet." (I let them know to be watching for this when they were in class) This gives them a perspective they can directly relate to. As a result, we had very few students flare too high, even after they came off radio. Fixating on the ground can also lead to the no flare problem.

Yes I know, people go to other DZs and won't have the same points of reference. But the idea is to get them really looking out instead of down.


Another way of looking at it (courtesy of Scott Miller, and not recommended if you're taking a canopy class with a hangover ): Stand up and look at the ground right in front of your feet. Bend your knees fast and see how the ground looks like it's just getting bigger. Try it a couple times; you'll see what I mean. Now look out six feet in front of you, and bend your knees the same way. When you're looking out ahead of your feet, it looks different--you've got some depth perception.


Well, Shelly at Perris had me go stand on an 8 foot wall and spend some time up there to memorize what 8 feet looked like.
John advised me to wait to flare until it looks like I could kick someone in the head. Both help.


Maybe it would help to stress the idea of looking out at a 45-degree angle (or at the horizon) to aid in depth perception, or telling them to wait a second after they want to start flaring if they're flaring too early (until they are flaring at the right altitude), or, if you really feel like a radio is a good idea, to have the instructor only give corrections when absolutely necessary.


Also, have them do practice flares up high with their eyes closed. (clear air space 1st) That will help them get the muscle memory for where the canopy planes out at. Which will help teach them to trust that the canopy will plane out when they are close to the ground.


It helped me when someone pointed to a reference point, like a tree or a roof, and told me not to flare any higher than that. It also helped when someone told me to use my peripheral vision instead of just looking ahead. I also had problems landing on my feet until the 2 stage flare and pendulum effect were explained to me.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

[firstime 0]

I have been thru 3 canopy classes with different people & they all have some great info on the flight concepts of the canopy (how & why) but the flair concept can't be displayed on paper or speech (IMHO), it comes with doing it over & over again until that moment of depth perception becomes muscle memory. Videos are good but the video is a side shot that you have to translate into depth. I have used the wind sock (land ajacent) for a reference. Some ppl get it right from the start & others have to work more at it.

[zxcvb 0]

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I am suffering from a sprained ankle I got after my night jump this past weekend.

Let me see if I have this right? You can't land during the day, so you thought it was a good idea to do a night jump, when depth perception is harder? You are lucky you only sprained an ankle, and should take this time off to consider taking this sport more seriously.

[k-dubjumps 0]

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I am suffering from a sprained ankle I got after my night jump this past weekend.

Let me see if I have this right? You can't land during the day, so you thought it was a good idea to do a night jump, when depth perception is harder? You are lucky you only sprained an ankle, and should take this time off to consider taking this sport more seriously.

First of all, my issue isn't depth perception (which happens to be pretty good), its the difference in canopies I was flying 15 years ago from those of today (F-111 vs ZP). This glide thing is new to me and I feel like everything I learned flying my first 81 jumps is out the window.

Second, I'm not crashing and burning my landings. Sometimes I stand them up, sometimes I don't, sometimes I have to run them out and sometimes I get dropped from a much too early flare. I would just like to get consistent stand up landings every time. I'm not trying to become the next swoop superstar, just trying to understand and become proficient in the dynamics of today's ZP canopies.

Third, I take the sport very seriously and have been asking for advice, but what I have been getting is not anything near what I've received in this forum (by the way, thanks again everyone, I really do appreciate it!). It isn't for a lack of trying, but more a lack of knowledge. Most of the jumpers at my DZ have never jumped a F-111 canopy (because apparently they were all in elementary school when I started jumping) and can't explain the difference to me.

Fourth, this was my second night jump since getting back in the sport and my landing wasn't the cause of the injury. If is wasn't for the effing gopher hole I stepped in (as previously mentioned), there would be no mention of an injury.

Adrenaline is my crack

DPH #3
D.S. #16 FAG #12 Muff Brother #4406

[JackC 0]

Here's something to try up high in clear airspace. Go to full drive for about 5 seconds so your canopy is flying well, then start a flare but just give it enough input to start to level the canopy out and then hold it. The canopy will level out for a second then gently start to sink again. At this point give it a bit more input and the canopy will level for a second then sink again. You can repeat this process until you are at full brakes. It should feel a bit like your canopy is going down a flight of stairs, if you don't feel it you can try again with more input. Practice smoothing out all the stairs so you can go from full drive to full flare smoothly and evenly using just enough input so you can maintain level flight for as long as you possible. Each time you add more input, the canopy converts airspeed to lift so the idea is to convert all of you airspeed to lift progressively as and when you need it, not all in one big lump.

While you're at it and you're up high, find your stall point in deep brakes. If you don't know what this means or how to recover from a stall, for gods sake ask someone. You don't want to stall your canopy close to the ground so do this with plenty of altitude. Many big canopies wont stall anyway but if your's does, you'll want to know about it because that's the limit of your flare range. Find the point where your brakes start to take effect too, that's the start of your flare range. Remember, you're looking for the stall point, not the colapsed-canopy-plummeting-from-the-sky-screaming point.

When you come into land, make your last turn high enough so that you have a good 5 seconds of full drive before you start your flare. When you reach flare height apply just enough input to level the canopy out and as soon as it starts sinking again, apply a bit more flare and a bit more, always trying to keep the canopy flying for as long as you can until you run out of flare and then step onto the ground. You can gauge how much flare and how much sink you need to juggle in order to meet the floor at full flare. On a nil wind day, you may still need to take a step or five.

A smooth and even flare is the key, if one arm goes down faster than the other, you'll suffer from the dreaded "side gust" that students often complain about. You want to land with a flat and level canopy, into a clear area with no obsticles, flare evenly and into wind if possible.

Now I'm no canopy coach so don't take my word for it, find someone to coach you, preferably someone who will video your landings.

[Gato 0]

One more suggestion:

Have an instructor or coach put a radio on you, and have him or her guide you in. I asked our DZO to do this for me when I got my rig - helped tremendously!

Just an idea - be safe, have fun!

T.I.N.S.

[k-dubjumps 0]

Just made my first jump since my ankle sprain. I tried this technique and it worked well for me. I was also jumping my new rig for the first time (beer! ). I was a bit nervous about possibly re-injuring my ankle and getting my new rig nice and dirty, but neither happened! It was a perfect tip toe landing.

Thanks so much to all of you who gave such great advice. I really appreciate it. Oh, and I do plan on taking a canopy course in Davis next month.

Adrenaline is my crack

DPH #3
D.S. #16 FAG #12 Muff Brother #4406

[grannyinthesky 0]

Do you know who's doing the canopy course? I could really use some help in landing myself. I may just have to make a return trip.

"safety first... and What the hell.....
safety second, Too!!! " ~~jmy

POPS #10490

[JohnDeere 0]

Glad you are taking a canopy course! I've taken 2 and have learned so much in both of them. I think they are so underrated with up jumpers. I know everbody can learn something in a good course!

Nothing opens like a Deere!

You ignorant fool! Checks are for workers!