landing the safire

[pal 0]

I have just put about 50 jumps on my new safire 139 at 1.35. I am very happy with the way it flies but find it does not have a great flare Just wondering if any one else has noticed this or is it just lack of technique

[rgoper 0]

the safire is a fairly forgiving canopy, and your wing seems conservative, i'd have my flight videoed, and deduce any further theories from there. are you brakes adjusted properly? on your steering lines in "full flight" have a slight bow in them? sometimes it takes a while to adjust your landing pattern to the previous canopy, this has been my experience. but i have been wrong before.
Richard
"Gravity Is My Friend"

[Jimbo 0]

It's technique, most likely.
The Safire _can_ be a difficult canopy to land. It took me almost a year on that canopy to figure out how to land it on my feet every time. Don't be discouraged.
The Safire has a very deep or very long control range. When you want to stop that canopy you need to have the toggles all the way down. I use a long, continuous, stroke, starting at around 8 to 12 feet off the deck. Search the archives here in the gear and rigging fourm for more tips on landing the Safire, also look at the gear reviews. If after trying these new tricks you still find it difficult to land then drop a PM to Hooknswoop, he's been doing some work to Safires to increase or step up the flare.
Stay safe,
Jim

[DKflyer 0]

Hi
I have a Safire 169 loaded 1.4, and I have 200 jumps on it.
The flaring is different than the sabre I jumped before, BUT it is much better. In no wind conditions I am able to land with very little forward speed. I must admit that it took some time to get it right. The key to a good landing is to be smooth on the toggles and to use ALL of the control range. Nowadays I am able to swoop quite a distance and finish with a nice popup in the end with very little forward speed EVEN in no wind conditions.
so be smooth on the brakes and the safire will reward you with a nice landing.
Happy Flying
DKflyer

[GrumpySmurf 0]

Ditto on what the others have said - you gotta dig those toggles deep to get the Safire to land soft, quite the shock if you have been flying an intermediate PD canopy, which will pop up if you try to flare it the way a Safire is meant to be flared. If this is good or bad, depends on personal preference.

[freefallin14 0]

I used to jump a safire at about 1.4-1.5. One thing I noticed was that from the factory the control lines were too short, i.e, the canopy was never flying at full flight before landing. After lenghtening them (about 5 inches to get them not to pull tail at all in full flight) the canopy came in faster, and had much a much better flare. Just might be something to check with yours.
Bret

[Kirils 1]

I found the control range too great for me. I had to take an extra wrap of line around my hands to get a decent flare. Sell it and get a Crossfire! (grin)
Skydiving is not a static excercise with discrete predictability...

[DKflyer 0]

After posting my initial comment I have wondered why landing the Safire is so different compared to a Sabre.
When I compare the two canopies on flaring, it seems that the sabre quickly looses forward speed (more drag) while the safire planes out and seems to swoop quite a bit farther before stopping (more lift).
I must say that I by no means are educated in aerodynamics, but it seems to me that the safire wing is more "clean".
The funny thing about my "big" Safire is that I am able to swoop as long as the guys on the highly loaded stilettos and crossfires on my DZ. (long carving 90 deg front riser).
Happy Flying
;o) DKflyer

[PhreeZone 15]

Just remember that your Safire 139 is really like a PD 128 sized canopy. That tends to help you get more speed then you think that you should have, If you compare the 1.5 actual loading that you have, you will find that you might not be loading it that much lighter then the people under the Stilettos....
If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will....

[billvon 2,426]

>The Safire has a very deep or very long control range. When you want to stop
>that canopy you need to have the toggles all the way down.
Agreed.
>I use a long, continuous, stroke, starting at around 8 to 12 feet off the deck.
While I agree with your intent, I wanted to point one thing out - that long, continuous stroke is _not_ static. You can't just time it and have it work. At any canopy loaded over 1.2 to 1 or so, you have to fly the canopy all the way in - you can't just effectiely close your eyes and flare at the right altitude.
Several weeks ago I was in Eloy when some nasty pre-dust-devils came through the landing area. I got lifted way back up and deposited back down on the other side of the landing area. I landed OK, fortunately. Then I watched everyone else land. The people who just flared smoothly, bringing both toggles all the way down evenly, ended up landing in the weeds, getting pounded in - one woman actually got turned nearly 180 degrees by the odd winds. The people who kept flying their canopies looked goofy, with their hands moving all over the place to try to keep the canopy going straight, but they all landed with minimal problems.
At some point in your canopy career you have to transition from that predefined stroke to a constantly adjusted landing. It may well be a smooth stroke, but it sometimes cannot be continuous, and it is rarely the same twice.
(Not suggesting anyone doesn't do this, I just wanted to clarify in case some people saw "long continuous stroke" and equated that with "bring em down at X altitude and hold em there, and you'll land OK.")
-bill von

[EMBer 0]

I used to fly a 149 Safire loaded 1.2:1. I flew it from jump #100 to 350 or thereabouts. It seemed to take forever to learn how to land it (frustrating, as a noncurrent mechanically-assisted pilot I thought I knew a thing or two about landings!). I found a 2-stage flare to be most effective... it seems to be the kind of canopy that doesn't need a lot of forward speed to maintain effective flight control. So, I would bring the toggles down to just below shoulder height for a second or two and then bury them into a full stop. About 25 jumps before I moved on (didn't know I'd fall for a 135 Stiletto), I got the Safire relined. Holy tamole!... handled completely differently! I didn't need the 2-stroke flare at all... and the flare point was much more shallow on the toggles. Is your new canopy really new or pre-owned? If used, how many jumps? At the very least, you might want to discuss shortening the brake lines w/ your rigger (I'd read a post a year or so ago cautioning against wrapping the lines around your hands, but I don't recall exactly why... help me out, readers, as I'd like to understand any safety issues here). BTW, I'm going through the same learning curve w/ the Stiletto that you are now w/ the Safire!

[apoil 0]

Quote

Just remember that your Safire 139 is really like a PD 128 sized canopy

Just remember that this isn't necessarily true!
Icarus changed their measuring system at some point and I've heard so much in conflict that I don't know what is actually true.
People seem to latch on to bits of information like this keep repeating it without ever getting up to date.

[skymedic 0]

why dont ya call icarus for there take on the measuring thing..Simon M. is really good about answering questions that you have...
3..2..1..C-YA
marc

[TALONSKY 0]

I talked to Icarus about 10 months ago on this subject and they said that all Safire's and Omega's were measured about 10% off from PD products but Icarus had changed measuring to PD standard with all of it's other products ( Extreme VX, Extreme FX, and Crossfire)
Blue Skies
Kirk

[skycat 0]

The safire 2s are also using the crossfire, VX, FX measurement standard which is like the PD measurement standard.

[Jimbo 0]

Quote

>I use a long, continuous, stroke, starting at around 8 to 12 feet off the deck.
While I agree with your intent, I wanted to point one thing out - that long, continuous stroke is _not_ static. You can't just time it and have it work. At any canopy loaded over 1.2 to 1 or so, you have to fly the canopy all the way in - you can't just effectiely close your eyes and flare at the right altitude.

That's so true. I load my 189 at somewhere between 1.3 and 1.5 depending on how you decide to measure it and how much I've had for breakfast. Anyhow, in the 100 or so jumps that I've made this year almost all have been perfect stand up landings. It occured to me that I have been flying the canopy all the way until it's stopped, this has made an amazing improvement in my landings and more importantly my confidence.
Like Bill says, fly the canopy until it's stopped.
Stay safe
-
Jim

[pal 0]

THANKS everyone for the great advice !
I have been using these techniques with much better landings. Seems i was flaring too late and stabbing it to hard. Also turns out the brake lines were to short even though they were exact to manafactures specifications. Got an extra 10cm added which has seemed to fix my problem and i can use my front risers with out the canopy bucking.

[mountainman 0]

I haven't been in this forum for awhile and didn't see the thread, but here is my take:
I have 7 jumps on a Safire 189 and 21 jumps on a Safire 169. I have found, what others have said, that the end of your flare is very low. On May 4th, I did 5 jumps without any wind and I was coming in with a lot of speed. I just found that it is all about picking the right time to start and if you do it a little late, you are going to eat grass. I did that once with no wind and bodysurfed on my belly to a stop. However this past weekend, I jumped and the winds were a pretty steady 17mph or so. I came into the wind and it just stopped on a dime and was very smooth.
I'll echo what others have said....I've found that you really need to just time it right since the control range is so long.
Good luck!! JumpinDuo.com...news, pictures, skydiving and links.

[GrumpySmurf 0]

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I did that once with no wind and bodysurfed on my belly to a stop.

That would make some great video

[Tonto 1]

I'm new to the Safire... It's my girlfriend's - an occasional back to back rig. I normally jump a Heatwave 100 or a Jonathan 120. Her Safire is a 135, so I'm loading it around 1.4 I guess. Great rag, nice swoops, good glide, but it needs deep toggle input to shut it down. My 100 would be packed behind me if I had the toggles that deep. Great rag though. Is yours in trim?
t

[mountainman 0]

This is one characteristic of the Safire that really annoys people who jump other stuff. I have never jumped another ZP, so to me, there isn't anything wrong with it.
I like it. Seems that it gives you a little room for error since it is so deep, there is more "buffer space" there.
JumpinDuo.com...news, pictures, skydiving and links.