Miniature cutaway canopies & my home-made 37 sq ft one

[pchapman 262]

So, what's new in the world of flying miniature canopies that are intended to be cut away and not landed? At the end of this post I've put together a quick list of some of the miniature canopies I've heard of. Any others around?


Here's the little story of the one I built:

A year ago I figured as a winter rigging project I'd build a miniature canopy and jump it. Not having the resources of a parachute manufacturing company, I took the easy way out and modified a stock canopy.

Taking an out-of-service Stiletto 97 with 3000+ jumps on it, the center 5 cells were cut out and it was sewn back together. Voila!

It wasn't quite so simple, as the tail got trimmed too, brake lines had to be repositioned, and a new bridle attachment with reinforcing tapes inside the canopy had to be created. An old pilot chute was cut down to 16" in diameter. The full length lines were retained, avoiding a lot of trim length recalculation and sewing.

I figure that with the long lines and the new aspect ratio of only 1.4, it might lead to slower spiralling and lower G forces if things got out of hand, compared to the very short line length canopies that have been jumped.

So far I've made just one jump on this 4-cell, "Ex-Stiletto 37". Yes, PD know about this slightly modified product of theirs and got a chuckle out of it, although of course they advise of the dangers. It was jumped using a harness set up for deploying a 3rd canopy from a belly container, worn beneath a regular rig. I did make sure to build the cutaway harness with a big, easily grabbed loop-style cutaway handle.

The canopy actually flew OK despite the lack of trim changes from when it was larger and more efficient. But it was hyper-sensitive to input, spiralling at the slightest provocation. Not so cool was that with all the spiralling I did let myself get sucked lower than the already low-ish altitude planned for the cutaway. So the chop was a little below normal minimum pull height, before going to a large reliable F-111 main canopy. It felt like chopping from a mal, which in effect it was.

On a back-to-wind deployment off the step of a C-182, the canopy snapped open quickly but not hard at the slow airspeed. Stability was better with the brakes set, which might be the safest way to fly it. The canopy got squirrelly when releasing the brakes, despite trying to pop them simultaneously. With the short wingspan but long lines, the slider sat less than half way down, but that didn't influence the flying.

Small inputs, whether by harness or just pressing against a riser, would send the 37 into diving spirals. A difficulty was that if it whipped into a turn, one would shift in the harness or press against the risers, suddenly changing the turn again. The G loading in spirals felt quite normal. Given that I was going in and out of spirals all the time, the Protrack data isn't too useful, but descent rates stayed between 40 and 70 mph the whole time under canopy.

Eventually I did get myself line twisted. Ironically with what was now effectively a single point suspension, the canopy showed its inherent stability, levelled out, and flew straight on its own -- but it was time to chop.


A few photos are included here, shot with a big lens from the circling C-182, and I had posted a video at skydivingmovies.com last fall: Ex-Stilletto_37_flight__intentional_cutaway_low_res.wmv




Background on other miniature canopies that I've heard of. No guarantees of being right, but this is what I understand from dz.com etc.:


For landed canopies, the VX-46 was landed by a number of people, but Luigi Cani then took things down to the VX-39 and then the JVX-37. Above that size there have been various canopies in the 50's and 60's size range that people have jumped regularly.

Luigi has put a lot of time into small canopies, but even he had to work his way along. In 2004 it was written on dz.com, "Luigi said he couldn't even hold the 39 on heading at first, and that's after plenty of jumps on the 46."

The Xaos 21-21 was jumped by a few people (C. Martin, J.Provenzano, A. Farrington at least), and used for the wingsuit/canopy docking in Eloy in 2004. (The dock was after the original Jari & Vladi wingsuit/canopy dock in 2002 with a modified but landed Velocity 84 system.)

A Cobalt 40 cutaway canopy was being jumped, including for a wingsuit/canopy dock in 2005 at Burnaby, Ontario (S. Curtis, S. Gouws)

A Cobalt 25 was jumped (by 'catfish and eric') in 2002.

There was talk of a Firebolt 18 having being built but I never heard of it actually being jumped.

Ted Strong built 14 and 25 square foot canopy and jumped them back in about 1999. He mentioned this on skydiveradio. He had one OK jump, and a few others where the canopy immediately spun up on him, so he didn't continue with live tests.

In sport skydiving, there's perhaps less enthusiasm about miniature canopies after Chris Martin died in 2004, although it sounds like there has been plenty of development of ultra-high wing loading canopies for unmanned military payload purposes.

[IanHarrop 37]

Edit of link to video... this one works

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=7364

"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

[JohanW 0]

ISTR a Xaos 27-27 as well.

Johan.
I am. I think.

[peek 20]

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Here's the little story of the one I built:

Extremely well done, Peter! I was thinking of jumping something really small but since you have done it, no need.

I may jump the 30 foot cruciform we having lying around here, but I'm not going much more radical than that.

[jimmytavino 16]

around about 30 years ago, i was nearing my jump # 1000..
i needed 5 jumps that day, ( a weekend day) to make it happen.
the Dz had a 182 and people were kind enough to allow me to make back to back loads as that magic number approached..
Well,, I borrowed a rig from a friend of mine, and it happened to have a Strato-Star main...( never had jumped a 5 cell before, just strato-clouds)

It was ON THAT DAY...
that i made a vow,, which i have Never broken.....
" I will not EVER jump a canopy with 5 cells, Again"..... the next jump i made that day
was # 1000 and it was made using my Round french papillon

hahaha.. I did like the pictures of the reconfigured stiletto... very creative...BUT
it has too few cells to it...
so... I'll be happy to watch..... while someone ELSE jumps it...
have fun, but do so... carefully.

jmy

[Scrumpot 1]

Man, that zoom lense makes you look like you're already really low, even when you're clearly just out the door!

Also looks like you had some difficulty getting the slider to decend all the way down the lines? I've just looked at the attached stills, and not the vid. Did they ever make it all the way down? Some interesting stuff here, at least.

Blues,
-Grant

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[Andy_Copland 0]

I think (this is a guess) with the canopy being fully open and spread the slider couldnt go down anymore. It was in full flight and the slider was not really restricting the lines. My guess anyway. Maybe a smaller slider would bring it down further?

1338

People aint made of nothin' but water and shit.

Until morale improves, the beatings will continue.

[sdctlc 0]

Cool project there. It is really fun to play around with toys when you have access to them..

As a side note, I would strongly suggest chopping the mini main a bit sooner. I stopped the video when you could see the alti just before the release and it was showing 1600' (1:47 into the video) It was flying straight at 3000' and you seemed to look directly at the alti, but then you started fighting it and it really twisted up almost down to the 3 rings. Having the hard housing inserts which I noted in the plane shot probably really helped with this. If you jump it again I would set a hard deck for chopping as a canopy that small is going really fast and as you noted can twist up very fast. Even with a canopy over your head the timing is vastly different then a "Normal" sized canopy and you can be having a false mental clock.

Really glad it was all OK in the end and looked like quite a ride. I like some of the running commentary as well.

Scott C.

"He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

[hookitt 0]

That looked scary fun! Love the idea and may just have to follow your madness.

Try Shortening the lines so it's harder for it to twist up and you may want to make the slider a bit smaller. Holes were a great idea.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[pchapman 262]

Replying to some of the comments:

- I felt comfortable when chopping and going back to freefall, but it was indeed too low. Should have had a higher planned chop altitude so that if I was a few seconds late and busted the hard deck I'd still have more margin.

- When I chopped and half rolled to get belly to earth, it was a surprise that I had too much momentum and went past it, and so had to keep going once more around.

Like many chops from mals, if one is trying to get stable before pulling, it can take a bit of time and a few hundred feet. (Between video and Protrack, it seems the chop to the pull took about 2.5-3s and 250-300ft.)

If things had gone really wrong and one couldn't cut away at high G or whatever, the last ditch plan would have been to just dump the main. Even with a canopy entanglement it might well slow things enough to better allow chopping the 37, then the main, and then go to reserve.

- I have to learn to put on the dry test pilot voice when I do odd things on video.

- The slider holes were handy to reduce its drag. Actually the previous owner had all 5 holes open, but I sewed one over. Some 3200 jump Stilettos must have very slow & soft openings!

- Yes the slider just sat half way up, with no tension on it, because of the narrow angle of the lines.

- I'm keeping the long lines even if it is more likely to twist on me. While the dynamics are hard to predict, if it tries to spin around fast I'd rather have it "out on a long leash" with more distance to cover per 360 degree turn.

- Mr. Peek: Who wants to build a new vortex ring canopy?

Quote

Man, that zoom lens makes you look like you're already really low, even when you're clearly just out the door!

No kidding. Another photo, attached, was taken moments after the chop. Looks like I'm standing in the farmer's field...

I figure I'll get back to the little 4 cell again at least once, but I'm in no hurry at all.

[Andy_Copland 0]

Cool jump and story though even if you were a touch low.

1338

People aint made of nothin' but water and shit.

Until morale improves, the beatings will continue.

[LouDiamond 1]

I am by no means trying to rain on your parade but I will offer you advise learned the hard way, do what you will with it, but please take it as serious as dick cancer.

I am not going to get into if you're skilled enough or if you have all the possibilities covered, etc as it just turns into a running tit for tat and thats not my intent here. As someone who was involved with the Xaos 21 sq ft jump and witness to Chris Martin's death first hand from exit till impact and having watched Lugi on several occasions deploy his canopy from the door, I think I can offer you some empirical advise on jumping a very small canopy.

I saw your listing of "what ifs" and again, I am not posting this to argue or rain on your party, but based on your responses I am posting this because I think you are unaware of just how bad things can get and how quickly they happen on canopies this small.

Again, from seeing it first hand,when a canopy this small goes into a spin or does anything other than what you want it to do, it does it unimaginably quick and the window of recovery is measured in split seconds because anything after that is too late. I am not over-exaggerating or trying to be dramatic when I say you cannot comprehend how fast something this small can spin and how fast it happens. Review of my and another persons video footage from the Xaos 21 jump showed that slightly after exit, Chris went into a spin that he never recovered from. From the video it is apparent that he was unconscious within a few seconds as his body went limp, thats how intense the G forces were. Slowed down and reviewed it was determined that he was making 8 rotations a second once the canopy deployed and started spinning,which was on exit, all the way till impact. I am not exaggerating or arbitrarily throwing a number out there. Again, I cannot convey the incredible speed and how fast it all happened. Had Chris had an AAD on his rig it would not have deployed his reserve as he was falling slower than the required activation speed and was actually generating a bit more lift than myself and 2 others who were in wingsuits orbiting around him almost the whole time.

I know you have already jumped your parachute and you've identified some of its quirks or tendencies but I am here to tell you, you have no idea what it is capable of doing or when it will take you for a ride. As the other Scott pointed out your cutaway altitude is also alarmingly low and I think you and I both know it's partially due to the way the canopy reacts and your not being aware of it at the time. All of these little things are all that it takes on a canopy that basically has zero room for mistakes or errors in judgement to end up in the incidents forum.

Again, I am not trying to be a party pooper or preach. I just don't want to read that you(or someone else) killed yourself doing this. IMO, it's like playing Russian roulette with more than one bullet in the cylinder.


To address some of your other comments, yes, there was a 18 sq ft Firebolt canopy that was used as a display model several years back. I was able to actually fly it from the ground during a weather day in Rantoul during the convention in the main landing area while we waited for clouds to pass. Very cool exact representation of the actual canopy that even for its small size created enough lift to pick myself and others who flew it up off the ground if we weren't careful. The turns were very quick and it was very challenging to fly. It was never jumped for obvious reasons.

Similar sized and slightly larger RAM airs have been tested in GPS guided systems as a means to deliver payloads to a specific spot with some success. The premise being that the RAM air under the control of the GPS guidance unit would quickly fly the payload to the designated spot then a slightly larger round canopy would be deployed at which point the RAM canopy collapses completely. This was all done using the GU's proprietary (in most cases) software algorithm that uses the wind data the was input prior to the drop to determine the point where the round needs to deploy at. It then uses the commonly used ballistic formula for cargo to determine the impact point while under a round canopy. I think there is video of one of these systems floating around on the internet somewhere or on one of the mfgrs CDs usually given away at PIA,etc. As far as I am aware of, only one company pursued this method while all the others have had greater success with strictly RAM air GPS guided systems. In fact, I don't even think this is is even being looked at anymore.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[jumpwally 0]

Awesome post and i agree et all. I would like to add some poo poo.

I dont understand why one would want to do this ? What is the enjoyment factor ? why not jump a baglock ? better yet an umbrella ! You where low, what if your next canopy failed at that alti ?

Good luck to u, but do it above 3 grand, i'm sure you have friends that love you, don't forget that.







































/

smile, be nice, enjoy life
FB # - 1083

[JohanW 0]

Why would anyone jump a wingsuit?

Johan.
I am. I think.

[GreenLight 5]

I won't judge people on their decisions to do something that in others minds might be considered crazy or stupid. Us ol'farts had Wally Gubbins jumping everything and doing everything that he could think of and as far as I can see still has all you guys licked. And he made money doing it. So at least he had a visible motive.

Every time something new comes out in this sport to help make it safer, someone comes along and shows us how to make it more dangerous. I don't really know why that is but history has shown that this is a true statement. We helped make the sport so safe with AADs and RSLs and BOCs and all the other improvements that a water mellon can now make it safely to the ground. Yet the number of fatalities each year hovers in roughly the same area as always.

The thing is, it can't hurt to listen to the voices of experience and try to learn from what they have to say because you can not beat experience. And if you don't listen, then you must suffer what ever consequences that fall upon you. And if you do listen and die anyways you will just become another statistic on how dangerous "SKYDIVING" is to the rest of the general public. It will read something like this in the news papers...

"Skydiver plumets to earth from 13,000 feet when "PARACHUTE" fails to open."

Look familiar?

Blue skies, be safe, and have fun.

Green Light
"Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there."
"Your statement answered your question."

[efs4ever 3]

I jumped a six foot round one time. I deployed it from a gym sock. The canopy was attached to a two pin reserve (belly wart) rip cord.

I just held on to it (by hand) for a while and let it go. Wouldn't have wanted to land that one.

The problem with mini squares, as has been shown, is the kind of spinning malfunction that can put one to sleep quickly. Has anyone yet invented the auto chop system for fast spinners??

Russell M. Webb D 7014
Attorney at Law
713 385 5676
https://www.tdcparole.com

[GreenLight 5]

Here is what I learned about this stuff today.

Involving the fatality jump. It was done from a skyvan and the parachute was D-bagged by someone else so the parachute comes out upon exit. The victim was instructed to hold on to the SOS handle (located on the chest strap) upon exit in case of a sudden spin that could knock him out. What is supposed to happen is that the G forces that knocked him out would also cause his hand to pull the handle which releases the risers and deploys the reserve. Hope I understood that right. They said that he failed to do so or that it didn't work.

In any case it just shows that stuff happens at an alarming rate of speed under these situations and that maybe people are pushing the limits a bit far here just for entertainment.

But again I will not judge people. After all, we all jump out of perfectly good airplanes and off perfectly good mountains, towers, bridges and buildings.

Green Light
"Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there."
"Your statement answered your question."

[LouDiamond 1]

Quote

Here is what I learned about this stuff today.

Involving the fatality jump. It was done from a skyvan and the parachute was D-bagged by someone else so the parachute comes out upon exit. The victim was instructed to hold on to the SOS handle (located on the chest strap) upon exit in case of a sudden spin that could knock him out. What is supposed to happen is that the G forces that knocked him out would also cause his hand to pull the handle which releases the risers and deploys the reserve. Hope I understood that right. They said that he failed to do so or that it didn't work.

I don't know where you obtained your information but it is not accurate. I was there for the whole thing from the time Chris packed the parachute till the accident ended.

Holding on to the cutaway handle would have IMO caused an unsymmetrical body position on exit and potentially caused issues. The risers need to be held on canopies this small as they have to be flown right away. To see what I am referring to watch the clip of Jeffro P jumping the canopy the day prior on skydivemovies.com, it is listed as Xaos 21 dock.

The system that was being jumped would not have worked as you described it, that information is also inaccurate. The Xaos 21 was attached to a specially made stand alone harness system that allowed it to be cutaway completely. A standard parachute system was worn over the stand alone harness. Again, this can be seen in the video I mentioned above when Jeffro jumped the system. The only information that is accurate in your post is that it was from a skyvan and that someone else was holding the D bag on exit. How that was done can be seen in the video as well. I am not trying to be a dick, I am just stating the facts of the matter as they actually happened as we all know the more a story is told the more it grows and the more misinformation it will ultimately contain.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[GreenLight 5]

"I don't know where you obtained your information but it is not accurate."

No problem if you say so. I have no knowledge of jumping canopies smaller than normal size. Just spewing out what I was told.... One thing I have noticed over the years in this sport. Everyone has their own idea of how things work or worked. Everyone sees things differently. The person I am speaking of also said he witnessed the whole thing from the time he packed his chute till he left the plane. But that is neither her nor there.

The point is again that things seem to have went horribly wrong in a very short time.

Sorry I got involved in this thread. You guys be safe out there now ya hear?

Green Light
"Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there."
"Your statement answered your question."