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kbuesching

Fun Under Canopy

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Hi All,
I'm brand-spanking new to skydiving. I've taken my first jump and REALLY enjoyed flying the canopy back down to Earth.
Here are my questions:
- Besides twirling around holding one toggle down for a while, what else can I do safely that is fun?
- Is it safe to hold one toggle down until I get spinning and then suddenly turn the other way?
- What will happen if I do?
TIA,
KB

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Besides twirling around holding one toggle down for a while, what else can I do safely that is fun?

Stall the canopy :)
If it's a student-use canopy you'll need to grab some extra steering line to stall it(most DZs lengthen the steering lines on student rigs so student don't accidently stall on a flare), but it's a lot of fun to look up and watch your canopy collapse in on itself.
And it's perfectly safe as long as you do it at a high atlitude and you keep an eye on your pilot chute(when you unstall it can flip over onto the front of the canopy, just stall again and flip it back if it bothers you).
Also be prepared for end cell closures.
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Is it safe to hold one toggle down until I get spinning and then suddenly turn the other way?

Probably. Although I don't know if I'd want to do anything that could kick me up into my lines. Ask your instructor.
The way I figure it, radical canopy flying up high might mean a reserve ride some time in my life. But learning how my canopy works in those conditions might very well save my life someday when I'm down low.

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In response to: "Besides twirling around holding one toggle down for a while, what else can I do safely that is fun?"
Your Instructor should be having you explore all the potential effects of controlling your parachute with different inputs. These tasks include steering with your front and rear risers, stalling your canopy, sashays (pulling back and forth on both control lines), etc. It is imperitive that you get good canopy control training and also that you fully understand the capabilities of each and every parachute you jump. The way I teach, the very first thing you do when your parachute opens is a controlability check. This includes looking then turning left 90 degrees, looking then turning right 90 degrees, then finding the stall point on your parachute. Once that is done, I instruct my students to locate the landing area, then try manipulating their canopies in different ways for that first 1000 feet (1/3rd) of their canopy ride. Make it fun for YOU! Make every jump a learning experience. After that first 1000 feet (so long as they stay inside the wind-cone), I have them resume setting up for the entrance to the landing pattern.
Every Instructor is different, but I am sure you will get the guidance you want and need to make you a better pilot.
Chuck Blue
SL-I, TM-I
Skydive Raeford

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I gotta question. If you stall your canopy and keep the toggles all the way down for and extended period of time after that, what will happen? Will your canopy turn into a ball of shit until you let the toggles back up? Is it safe?

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I gotta question. If you stall your canopy and keep the toggles all the way down for and extended period of time after that, what will happen? Will your canopy turn into a ball of shit until you let the toggles back up? Is it safe?

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>If you stall your canopy and keep the toggles all
>the way down for and extended period of time after
>that, what will happen?
Student and mid sized canopies - nothing much. High performance canopies, especially heavily loaded ellipticals - can be bad. The canopy will dive hard when you release the toggles, and may actually get in front of you. Doing this on a paraglider can kill you, because the canopy may actually dive in front and then below you, with you falling into the middle of it. Solution to this is to not release the toggles suddenly. Go to half brakes, pause, and then let them the rest of the way up.
If you just keep holding the toggles down? The canopy will just stall, and the resulting ride will depend on how small and twitchy your canopy is. The recovery is usually the most dangerous part of the manuever.
-bill von

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I recommend learning two other things - flare turns and flat turns. In flat turns, you use a little "opposite toggle" to flatten your turn. It's sort of like flaring and turning at the same time. The flare turn is similar, except it incorporates a little bit of a turn during the flare, by bringing one toggle just a little lower than the other one during the flare itself. On a big canopy this can help you point a little more into the wind as you're flaring; on a tiny canopy, this can let you avoid the 5 year old that suddenly runs in front of you.
A lot of skydivers get killed every year when they toggle turn at 50 feet to face into the wind, and run out of recovery altitude. A flat turn could prevent that kind of accident, but you have to practice it up high before you use it for real.
-bill von

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would you just start to pick up speed towards the ground when you hold the toggles in the stall?


We were talking about this (keeping canopy in a stalling configuration) during ground school last year with an instructor. He said IIRC that you will start to go back into freefall...stall=no lift. He said it was relatively safe and fun, but I am not sure what canopys it would be relatively safe to do it under. I have a Triathlon 160 loaded about 1:1 and would love to give it a shot up high. More than just a 1 or 2 second stall when playing with toggle positions, just never talked to any others about what to do and NOT to do. Just sitting here thinking I have came up with a few things that might be important or a good thing to keep an eye on. First and foremost, make sure you have plenty of altitude and you won't interfere with anyone else around you. Billvon commented on not abruptly bringing the toggles back up to full flight which makes since. IMO it would be wise to let them up to the deployment brake setting till things settle down, this should help to prevent the canopy surging forward as it re-inflates.. Secondly keep an eye on the canopy, obviously don't keep it stalled if it is starting to work itself into line twists...else you might get screwed and have a cutaway and reserve ride (brake lines would get locked in their setting). Also remember that your slider is down and not keeping the lines grouped, not sure if this would make a difference as long as there is tension on them. Like I said, I have never tried it but it sounds like fun if it can be done safely.
Craig

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- Is it safe to hold one toggle down until I get spinning and then suddenly turn the other way?

Speaking from experience, my answer is generally

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"
I used to do it, but after one particular jump, I vowed to never do it again (at least not as aggressively).
I was playing away having a blast.... tight turn left, REVERSE!!!! and back the other way very quickly. This went great until the 3rd reversal that was even snappier than the first two. I go to make the sudden turn back the other way, and the centrifugal forces made me want to twist the opposite direction. (coninuing my rotation to the right as my canopy started turning to the left. Thanks Mr. Newton). Next thing I know I was in a nasty line twist after my body rotated in the direction it was going before the turn reversed.
Thank god I dont fly a high performance elliptical... otherwise it could have been nasty (line twist with one toggle halfway down).

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Also, keep in mind that going from a hard spin in one direction by releasing one toggle and immediately burying the other can sometime kick you into some pretty nasty line twists depending on your canopy. I can do it pretty easily on my Sabre loaded at about 1.3:1 and I've seen it happen at 1:1 on another.
Have fun, experiment, but be safe and when in doubt ask a JM, instructor or a CRW-Dog...
Kris

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- Is it safe to hold one toggle down until I get spinning and then suddenly turn the other way?
*** When I jumped a Pathfinder 285 as a student, I found this the best way to play about under canopy. I am only 140lbs and it made no significant difference to the canopy...just made me swing out to the side a bit. I've not done it on any faster canopy though.

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Holding both toggles down in a deep stall can be fun. I used to do it with my Cruislite until I heard about an Australian dude whose steering lines knotted together and he had to cutaway at a ridiculously low altitude. Thrashing about in a deep stall seems to get worse with heavier wing loadings.
As for canopy control exercises ... consult your local CSPA or Skydive University coach. Both can also provide you with books or video tapes. If you study the books and practice the exercises will soon find yourself lightyears ahead of many self-professed "Stiletto pilots."
P.S. learning the corners of your canopy's performance envelope will prolong your life.

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"Back in the day", (mid to late 80's), we all used to do crazy crap under canopy. Most of us did some variety of CRW after we opened, but also, there was a lot of intentional collapsing and spinning going on. Watch the first couple of Wally Gubbins videos and you will see what I mean. Lengthy stalls are plenty safe under larger non-eliptical mains. If you keep your toggles buried long enough the main will collapse and the slider will go back up the lines. It is a violent, but quite fun, ride. If you let up quick, the canopy acted just like a regular opening. If you popped your toggles up your canopy would dive in front of you and your lines would go slack. Obviously, you cease such fooling around above 1,500 feet. Another thing we used to induce was a spin along the center axis of our mains. By this I mean flying along at full-flight and then burying a toggle as fast as possible. Instead of diving down, the canopy kind of spins like a top along the original flight path; pretty neat. You could get a 360 degree rotation and keep moving along. Sometimes that move would end in a line twist, but if you reached up to your front riser with your opposite hand, you could generally keep from spinning up.
Do ANY of this stuff with a tiny eliptical and you are asking for trouble.

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You have a "square" canopy, so it is plenty safe. This, assuming you follow my guidance about ceasing the tomfoolery above 1,500 feet "just in case". It really is fun stuff; quite the wild ride. At your wingload, though, I wouldn't reccomend letting all the way up with the toggles quickly after a lengthy stall. Also, it is critical that you maintain the toggles at the same relative position; this will keep your main from spinning up.
Chuck

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I fly a crossfire (highly eliptical) canopy. i am 190 out the door, and the canopy is a 149. although i do not stall the canopy, i do sometimes hop and pop at 12000+ and play with the controls. i have gone switching directions on the spins, and have not had a problem. i just start slow and watch to make sure im not creating a problem. this also allows me to get a little more canopy control practice.
safe jumpin and blue skies
jaybird

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THANK YOU to everyone who posted.
There were many helpful suggestions :)Summary:
1. Always consult my instructor before trying anything new
2. Apply liberal amounts AGL
3. Riser turns
4. Flat turns
5. Flare turns
6. Stall the canopy (see Item 2)
I'll be jumping at Skydive Orange this coming Saturday.
C U there??
Blue Skies, KB
P.S. Future posts will be from GeekStreak...

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For our High Altitude jumps (22000ft) during the breifings we were told that if we had a premeture deployment we had to either cutaway within a few seconds or completly colapse the canopy into a stall and ride the stall down to under 13000 ft before trying to recover. Stalling was the method recommended if we wanted to see our main canopy again. We were told if this happens that we would have three freefalls on the same jump. 1) Exit the plane. 2)Freefall under the collapsed canopy. It would be the same speeds as a bag lock alost. Enough to stand you up but not enough to slow you down much. 3) After trying to recover from that long of a stall your canopy would probally not recover perfectly and you would have to cut away and use the reserve. Not something I ever want to try. Stalling is fun... if done with LOTS of alitude. Have fun and pull high!
Whoa... That was cool!

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