What makes someone a good canopy pilot?

[WrongWay 0]

Quote

***A good canopy pilot wont end my life while I'm making my
conservative, stick with the pattern, straight in approach.



NICE

Thats exactly what I was thinking.

Wrong Way
D #27371 Mal Manera Rodriguez Cajun Chicken Ø Hellfish #451
The wiser wolf prevails.

[TomAiello 26]

A good canopy pilot is one who:

1) Can land anywhere he wants to (accuracy).
2) Can land without injury anywhere he wants to (soft landings)
3) Can land safely in various wind conditions/directions (cross/down/etc)
4) Can fly his canopy such that landing is possible at any point (flare out of a turn)
5) Knows when it's impossible to guarantee a safe landing, and doesn't get under a parachute in those cirumstances (judgment)

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[freakydiver 0]

Bottomline for me when judging a good "canopy pilot" is two fold. One, do they eat and breathe canopy flight - ESPECIALLY pattern integration. Second, do they say no when things aren't right. I know more people that don't say no then do.

-- (N.DG) "If all else fails – at least try and look under control." --

[kallend 1,920]

Quote

A good canopy pilot is one who:

1) Can land anywhere he wants to (accuracy).
2) Can land without injury anywhere he wants to (soft landings)
3) Can land safely in various wind conditions/directions (cross/down/etc)
4) Can fly his canopy such that landing is possible at any point (flare out of a turn)
5) Knows when it's impossible to guarantee a safe landing, and doesn't get under a parachute in those cirumstances (judgment)

And does all of the above while showing due respect for everyone else's safety.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Designer 0]

Good Answers for the most part.Glad I had Crew training back in the late 70's,when it was really new and cool to do crew.How about how many dedicated canopy jumps do you have?A good "Canopy Pilot" understands his/her limitations also.I must wear glasses to skydive.Have rap-around sports goggles.Proper Vision is mandatory for any canopy flight (High Performance or not).Lastly,make reasonably smart choices on when to jump and not to jump.Which conditions are potentially dangerous?What have I yet to learn about my how my canopy flys?Recently(2 jumps ago),worked on cross wind landings).

[crazy 0]

Quote

Aerobatics at 5000 feet are fun, and they surely take practice and skill to perfect, but if someone can do the most awesome barrel roll in the world but can't flat turn at 50 feet, they are (in my book) not very good canopy pilots.

Ok, apparently you like flat turns more than barrel rolls, so let's talk about flat turns.
On one hand you disagree with the claim that "A good canopy pilot is someone who is willing to go up to altitude and spend time flying their canopy" because "there are simply no references up in the air". On the other hand you expect a good pilot to be good enough to perform flat turns (i guess safely and in an emergency situation) at 50 feet. Sorry if i'm slow, but I'm puzled and i'd like you to clarify how skydivers are supposed to learn flat turns, from the beginning to the level of a real life saving skill.

Where is it better to learn flat turns?
- a) close to the ground to have a solid reference
- b) between 2500 feet and 1000 feet
- c) between 12500 feet and 1000 feet
- d) other (specify)

If you reject a) (so far i used to blindly hope that most people would), then c) is apparently much better than b) because it offers at least 8 times more working time, considering the traffic increasing significantly below 2500 feet, and the need to make it back to the landing area. Besides, both include the part between 2500 feet and 1000 feet. Am i wrong?

If you don't reject a), please go slowly through all the detail.

--
Come
Skydive Asia

[billvon 2,874]

It is better to start learning flat turns above 1000 feet. Once you have that down, then you have to bring the altitude gradually down until you can use them to turn 90 degrees at 50 feet. It has been my experience that most jumpers think they can do excellent flat turns until they try them down lower. In several cases I've seen the jumper decided he or she was ready, tried a flat turn at 200 feet, and then realized how much altitude they were really losing - and thus went back up to 1000 feet to practice some more.

The problem with learning to do this stuff up high is that all you have to judge is the feeling of wind on your face and the feeling of G-forces in your gut, both of which are notoriously unreliable. It's a good place to start out because it's safe, but you have to be able to translate those skills to below 100 feet before you have mastered the manuever.

It's like flying a plane. You practice stalls up high to prepare for landing, but there is no substitute for actually landing. Currency in flying is determined by the number of takeoffs and landings in the past 90 days, because that's what's important. There is no provision for landing practice in the air to maintain currency because that simply does not require the same kind of skill that actually landing does.

[lawrocket 3]

Quote

1) A good canopy pilot is someone who is passionate about canopy flight. It is someone who is will to dedicate time towards improving their skills. The freefall environment rocks (IMHO), but it doesn't always provide enough precise canopy control exposure.

2) A good canopy pilot is someone who is willing to go up to altitude and spend time flying their canopy. Once again, point #1 hits upon this as well. The freefall environment is fun, but it doesn't allow us the same amount of time to get to know our canopies the way we could learn the canopy by spending more time at altitude flying the canopy.

3) Finally, a good canopy pilot is someone who is able to fly relative with other canopies (both traditional CReW as well as non-contact CReW). This fellow's analogy was simple. The only time we get to fly our canopies with precision in the freefall environment is only within the last few seconds of our skydives. But when flying relative to other canopies, we get to learn to fly with percision for most of the jump.

Why isn't landing the canopy mentioned?

I can't picture a pilot who can fly the hell out of a plane but cannot land it safely as being a good pilot. Wouldn't "land it safely" be number 1 on the list?

My wife is hotter than your wife.