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alan

Swoop enrty altitude

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I liked this method posted by billvon over in S & T a while back.

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>How do you propose that new swoopers learn to gauge altitude to
> less than +/- 20 by sight alone without some tool to give them a
> starting point for reference?

Start with double front riser approaches. Get used to them. You can start them at 30 feet or 300 feet; they can be bailed on immediately. Then go to gentle single front riser approaches, gradually increasing the angle. Get used to that picture. Increase the angle gradually. Once you get to 90 degrees, you've got a good handle on what your initiation height looks like; progress from there. If you are having problems judging altitude, STOP increasing the angle and spend some time memorizing that sight picture. Use cues that don't change much; people on the ground, wind blades or structures nearby.



Unfortunately we are a shortcut society. Some pilots want to jump right in with 90's or even 180's.
alan

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That's similar to what Hooknswoop (who is a VERY experienced swooper) says to do.

Start with doubles, then work with 45's to doubles then on up until you're able to do your 180 or 270 right, with the correct altitude, with accuracy and accuracy for the right swoop lane.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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When I started getting interested in "hook turns" back in the early 90's, everyone was doing toggle turns. Not much advice. "Just pull the toggle all the way down and make sure you are higher than normal," was about the extent of it. I'd fly a normal pattern and gradually got more aggressive on the last 90 turn. Gradually, I learned to do it higher and as my confidence built, the 90's slowly grew into 180 degree turns. No one around my DZ was talking about "sight picture" yet. I'm not sure when or where that was coined. Using my eyes and experience along with the wrist alti led to more consistent swoops. Along the way, I lost quite a bit of skin and "bounced" several times. Just dumb luck that I never broke anything......or worse.

As I became more proficient, I began to experiment with front risers and began reading about more experienced jumpers recommending them as safer and more efficient. Not everyone was convinced. I took a step back when learning front riser approaches. I went a route similar to the one described by billvon above, flying a "normal" pattern and using double fronts on final. I found myself flying the whole pattern lower so that when I finished my 90 onto to final, I could go immediately into fronts and be in the swoop before the riser pressure got to high for me to hold them down. Only when I started doing gradual front riser turns onto final did I realize I needed to start them with more altitude. Cool, no pain this way and was soon doing carving 180's. All the while I was downsizing and going to more HP canopies as they started to gain in popularity, maybe around 1993 or '94.

By '97 I was jumping a 136 Jedei at 1.7 and thought it would be cool to move onto 270 degree approaches. There still wasn't much available at that time in trems of advice, mostly "just do what ever you are going to do but do it a lot higher." I decided to experiment way up high. H&P from 10.5 and set up on a heading at a specific altitude. Then I experimented with turns and when the canopy planed out. I was looking for a pattern of how much altitude my canopy would loose in an aggressive 270 degree front riser turn. Then I took that information and used an approach similar to what Rhino describd above. I started out higher than what my tests had shown me and sure enough, I was finishing my 270's too high. Not being patient, I then tried going lower, about 400' as I recall. I found myself having to bail out of turns from that alti. Of course I hadn't given any thought to density altitude.

Things were getting better now as far as info. Blade running was catching on and organized swoop meets started to happen. Information was starting to be shared. In 1999, I started to jump the new x-braced canopies starting with an FX. By then 360 and 540 and even some 720 degree appraoches were being used by a growing number of jumpers. In Oct of '99 I made jump number 1201 on my 89 VX and it wasn't long before I wanted to do carving 360 degree approaches, useing rear risers for the surf, and stearing with harness input. Advice from the manufacturers reps still wasn't much more than "whatever you decide to do, make sure you do it real high." Back up to altitude and do some experimenting. It did not take more than a few jumps using my wrist alti to realize that an aggressive, carving 360 front riser approach on this canopy would nead nearly 1000' of altitude. The front riser pressure was so high on that canopy that I learned to set-up in brakes. During slow flight the pressure was fairly light and it much easier to transition to aggressive fronts.

What a hodge podge of experimenting, improvising, reading, researching, observing, and talking to others. Today, I advise "experienced" canopy pilots to make a lot of H&Ps up high and learn all of the flight characteristics and ranges of the canopy. Make several jumps just noting how much altitude it looses in 180, 270, and 360 turns. Once that is mastered, start with the straight in front risers and progress slowly up to what ever their goal is. That is a very over-simplified version because there is so much to learn and that really needs to start at jump number 1.
alan
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Ok, for the Very experienced swoopers, please share with the newer pilots how you went about learning your "sight picture" and what (if anything) you would do different in teaching it to someone else.



I don't know what altitude; it's only a very innacurate guesssimate. I am too busy watching the airspace and the ground, to care about my altimeter. I learned on my own, trying to figure out the "visual guesstimate" of the proper entry altitude for toggle hook turns, through a slow process of trials and errors. 1500 jumps later, my swoops still suck, but i have fun and never had any landing injuries.

My opinion is that apart for competitors wannabes, it is useless to know the exact swoop entry altitude. Anyway, flying repeatidly the same exact pattern, with the same exact input, is boring and might have adverse consequences. When the length of the swoop is only a secondary goal, it is safer, more fun, and more productive to use inaccurate visual guesstimates and to experiment with a wide diversity of input. This helps understanding a wider range of inputs, flight characteristics, and techniques to recover gracefully from turns initiated too high or too low.

When the length of the swoop is the main goal, then, knowing the exact altitude is necessary to achieve consistent performances. In that case, using an accurate altimeter would definitely accelerate the learning process.
--
Come
Skydive Asia

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Hi, it's ac - I will not ever teach someone to do performance landings if they say they just want to have more fun as they land. Don't hate me just yet. If that is the case then they can go to someone else. The idea is personal. I have seen too many people hurt or killed because they were trying to do what they saw me do. I can only give one answer. Go to the pros. Learn everything you can over a long term of practice. Know the math and always know your altitude. After a good time of doing what is safe and right, if you choose not to focus on that extra foot on each landing, then step back and just have fun with your landings. If your at the DZ I work at and you rip a 270 and then tell me you don't know how high you are when you land "like that" I'll pop your reserve.

Having something never beats doing (>|<)
Iam building things - Iam working on my mind- I am going to change this world - its what I came here 4- - -

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If your at the DZ I work at and you rip a 270 and then tell me you don't know how high you are when you land "like that" I'll pop your reserve.



Hahaha.. no you wouldn't:P

For a few thousand jumps I've "Ripped" 270's, 360's 540's and every thing in between and up until recently I didn't know what altitude I was doing it at. Up until recently I hooked using all visuals. It hasn't been until recently that I started looking at my altimeter to deterime where my hook began.
My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

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There was a time when the most accurate altimeter was an Altimaster II, and most swoops were done from under 500 ft (before the x-braced canopies, Excalibur not included). If you couldn't do it by sight, you couldn't do it at all.

If you're not prepared to teach swooping, fine, but at the same time, don't stand by and judge them.

I really hope you were not being literal about popping someone's reserve. That's overstepping several boundries, and it just ain't right.

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If your at the DZ I work at and you rip a 270 and then tell me you don't know how high you are when you land "like that" I'll pop your reserve.



Really? I have over 600 jumps on a VX-60 and guess that I hook it anywhere from 600 to 1000 feet. That is only a guess though, I have never looked at my altimeter as I initiated a landing. I never wore an altimeter unless I was doing AFF or tandems. I don't think you would popping my reserve.

Why is my not knowing the altitude I initiate the turn at so important? What difference does it make as long as I am not in the corner or hammering in?

Might want to re-think your intentions of pulling someone’s reserve handle that doesn’t use an altimeter to land by.

Derek

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I don't think anyone on a highly loaded cross braced canopy consistantly starts their swoops at an exact altitude but rather controls the dive as they go by sight to get the right plane out. You may consistantly be within 50 feet but that still requires some adjustment so why would it be so important to know the altitude you started your turn? While I like to start my turn at ~ 850 feet I sometimes start my 270 turns from 600 to 1000 feet and adjust the type of turn by sight. Why would it be so imortant for me to know the exact altitude I started my turn. Untill I got my neptune I never looked at the altimeter below about 1500 ft because it was not very accurate.

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If your at the DZ I work at and you rip a 270 and then tell me you don't know how high you are when you land "like that" I'll pop your reserve.



And if you do such a thing to me I'd be pissed and beat the shit out of you. Sorry for streightness.

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I don't use an alti to hook, because it distracts me at the most important moment. Another thing is that if you are going to swoop on a specific point like a pond or trough blades you should judge altitude with your eyes more than an alti, maybe an alti will help to let you know you still are at a safe zone to procede with your maneuver.

Im just saying this because I know people that can swoop really fast and long just because they have a big landing area and will do the hook turn where their alti tells them to do it.

You take that same person and tell him to swoop a pond going trough a blade couse and I bet he will miss or will get hurt.

Swooping is not only coming fast and making long distances.
Swooping is about all that, but also having accuracy and stile.

Why do you think swooping events have rules and different diciplines.

I think a person willing to try this kind of landings should be a person that has a lot of canopy experience and know his canopy very well.

There are out there a lot of good swoopers that will be willing to teach people willing to learn.
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight,
It's the size of the fight in the dog!"

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Unfortunately we are a shortcut society. Some pilots want to jump right in with 90's or even 180's.



Sad but true. I know a jumper with 300 jumps who's moved from 90's to 270's in less than 30 jumps (and probably only has 50 jumps doing 90's). Of course he knows better than everyone and only does it when its "safe" :|

*sigh* Dunno about you guys but I'm getting tired of taking this particular horse to the water.....it just never seems to want to drink!

Blue skies
Ian
Performance Designs Factory Team

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i know so many people that are on small eliptical stuff that they have no bussiness being on. i have given up trying to talk sense to them. now i do my best to educate and train them properly so they dont kill themselves. there is no short cut to performance landings.

Hopeless velocity junkie.

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What I did worked fine. Read all you can find of relevant articles on the web. Performance Designs is probably the best place to find good education on general flying skills.

Then look at the experts. Download videos from the PST and similar webpages.

If you are to take advice from others, be critical to their experience, and what they actually know. Like me for example.

Good luck and good swoops!
HC

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http://www.angelfire.com/tn3/skyedivr/canopypilot.PDF
There is a good read on canopy flight.
please right click and save....dunno if the bandwidth is going to take it, but worth a try.
ok, so angelfire sux (it won't let you save it) and the file is too big to load as an attatchment....
if someone wants to host it let me know and I will send it to you.
my power is beyond your understanding.

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