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crotalus01

canopy progression question

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hey, i have 30 jumps: 3 tandems, 4 on a telesis 265, 2 on an f-111 (NEVER again), 20 on a zpo 210 and 1 on a sabre 190. i am buying a rig this coming weekend, its a sabre 190 main, PD 210 reserve. i will be loaded at 1.29:1. any advice for getting to know my new canopy other than the obvious (open high, play high etc)?
note: i know lots of folks here think 1:1 is max loading for under 200+ jumps. please dont tell me about how i am going to kill myself, i have heard it before. i trust my S&TA implicitly, and i have been cleared to jump this size canopy. please just give advice for getting the most from this canopy. thanks.

As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

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please dont tell me about how i am going to kill myself,



Ok then. We know how. We just don't know when.

And never landing an F-111 again? Does that mean you're riding your next malfunction in?

t
It's the year of the Pig.

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i trust my S&TA implicitly

And why wouldn't you? You're impressionable at 30 jumps. Apparently other people don't agree with your S&TA. He's got the title... he must be right... no?

I don't want to start a flame war against you. Though your don't tell me about how I'm going to kill myself statement is just asking for it :D Survive for many years and you'll be saying the same things. You'll see:P

billvons list ==> Downsizing Checklist, is a good one. Read it and learn to do all that.

Open high play around ... etc. You have the answer already. Be aggressive but not down low. Stall the canopy. Turn using front risers. Turn using rear risers. Practice flairing with rear risers. If a brake line breaks and you need to land with rear risers, it's important to know the stall point. It's completely different than using toggles and will stuff you into the ground real quick. Ask your S&TA what you should do if you break a brake line.

Any idea why people are suggestion that a 190 may be bad for your health? Be lucky. You may need it. There's some hot canopy pilots at your dz. Pick their brains.

Look in the incident reports under Paul Cousins. He was a very talented man. Same wing load ... one bad decision. Make your landing decisions up high. Obstacle avoidance is an accuracy skill.

Get with some good canopy pilots and have them coach you on accuracy. It's the most important skill you'll ever need. Learn accuracy first. don't try and swoop yet There's plenty of time for that. Accuracy will save you one day. Swooping will not.

Just to be redundantly repetitive:
billvons list ==> Downsizing Checklist, is a good one. Read it and learn to do all that.

Hope that helps

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Ok then. We know how. We just don't know when.

And never landing an F-111 again? Does that mean you're riding your next malfunction in?

t


meaning i won't jump an f-111 again. i hated it, the controls were mushy and it flared for absolute shit.


hookit - thanks, and yeah youre right it was probably asking for it, but i wanted advice on learning the canopy and not flames:S. i have talked extensively with several people at the dz about what canopy size to get. both S&TAs, the DZO, and all the coaches i work with told me to get the 190.
edit to add: i have no interest at all in swooping, in fact it scares the shit out of me. i just wanted advice on getting the most out of this canopy as i plan on jumping it for several hundred jumps.

As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

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meaning i won't jump an f-111 again.



You missed his point. Your reserve is most likely an all F111 seven cell. If you load a 190 at about 1.29, you'll be loading the 210 reserve you are looking at at about 1.15. Thinking about the worst case scenarios I mentioned in the PM's we exchanged, are you confident you can land an all F111 seven cell safely in someone's backyard, at sunset, on your next jump?

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i have no interest at all in swooping, in fact it scares the shit out of me.



Every landing under a modern zp main canopy is essentially a "swoop" landing - the "swoop" being the time between when you slow/stop your vertical descent with the start of your flare and when you slow/stop your horizontal speed with the finish of your flare. A heavier wingloading will generally make the plane out time last longer - ie a longer "swoop" - because (again, generally) you'll be moving faster than you would be under a lighter wingloading. Speed is your friend in many cases, but at your level speed combined with shit happening can be painful, if not deadly.

Learn survival skills (like flat turns, flare turns, accuracy and dealing with various wind situations) under a canopy sized so you can screw up and still walk away.

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i have talked extensively with several people at the dz about what canopy size to get. both S&TAs, the DZO, and all the coaches i work with told me to get the 190.



Lots of very experienced instructors, gear dealers and manufacturers, riggers, swoopers, etc, disagree heartily on this subject. I'm on the conservative end of the scale; I think it's better to be bored under your canopy at 200 jumps after you've pushed it to it's limits and then downsize rather than flying something that you have to be "careful" with for your first 50 or so jumps on it. Others are more aggressive about it - usually these are people who survived the learning curve under a higher wingloading and therefore feel that everyone else will too. I think incident reports support the more conservative approach to first canopy sizing.

Remember that regardless of what anyone recommends to you, it's your legs that will be your landing gear under whatever you choose to fly... and it's usually the landing gear that gets broken in a bad landing...

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Easy guys, i dont think anyone has really helped him out yet on what he should do (except hookitt). Yeah maybe he downsized fast. I dont fully agree with him downsizing that fast either, but he has and we cant change it.

So lets try to focus on helping him out on the canopy that he's on. I think that hookitt gave you some really good advice.

I would suggest (take this as you want, i only have 212 jumps, i dont claim to be an expert) that you really take it easy until you get the feel of the canopy first. Make nice easy straight in approaches, do a bunch of high hop-n-pops with it to get as comfortable as you can with it. Up top be able to fly it slow at first, then work on fast later. Know exactly how it stalls in rear risers and in toggles. Just be careful with it.

O yeah...have fun! B|


--I don't even know enough to know that I dont know--

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Easy guys, i dont think anyone has really helped him out yet on what he should do (except hookitt). Yeah maybe he downsized fast. I dont fully agree with him downsizing that fast either, but he has and we cant change it.



I could help him out - but he expressly told me NOT to tell him the most valuable piece of info I can offer.

Don't Die!

We can't change the fact that he's made his desision against the better judgement of people with decades of experience and thousands and thousands of jumps - but we can choose not to support that desision. If I support him, and he dies, am I to blame?

Read these forums. See just how many people were trying to do a straight aproach and saw some obstical - a fence, another canopy, an overshoot into rough terrain, had a brain fart, buried a toggle - and died or smashed themselves into carpentry projects for orthopaedics. Telling someone to do a straight approach is inane. In Skydiving, everything is always OK until it's not - and then someone is rolling around in the dirt, squealing like a pig while his tibia makes plow like scrapes in the dirt and everyone stands around and looks surprised. It's no surprise. The ground doesn't give a fuck.

It makes me tired.

t
It's the year of the Pig.

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I honestly won't give an amen. I realize there are a lot of accidents waiting to happen in the skydiving community with people on DANGEROUS canopies but I do not think you are one of them. A sabre 190 although faster than your Manta is actually a reasonable canopy to learn and teach you the skills you need. I see no point in making people jump crappy beat out F-111 210's till they get 100-200 jumps and then putting them on a sabre 150 where they have no real world experience to keep alive. 1.29:1 on a sabre 190 is not exactly a dangerous wing loading. Some dropzones are training students under sabre 190's and even 170's in the canopy progression program.

On to you though, Don't make me regret my words though, any canopy faster than a Goliath 420 can kill you. Sabre's are zippier canopies so my advice is jump it but learn everything you can.

High altitude hop n pops will give you time to learn the life saving skills such as flat turns and flare turns. Keep your approaches striaght in, don't be in a rush to add turns onto final as much as it looks cool. #1 though, learn accuracy, it is the foundation of landing in the safe location that you chose.

Pull on everything up high.(above 2K, that should be your hard deck for now) Figure out what happens when you pull on one riser and one toggle, pull everything, stall your canopy, bow tie it in half and learn how to recover it. You name it do it, then you will know.

Get a Neptune and really figure out how much altitude loss is associated with each manouver. Analog dials are not an accurate tool in my opinion.

Follow the guidance of your coaches and ask all the questions you can of the canopy pilots around you.


~Chachi

Edited cuz i do math like a 4 year old in the morning.

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Tonto, I understand what your saying. Im not going against you in any way. Since he is on this canopy, shouldnt we at least try to give him advice on how to stay alive? Straight in approaches is the best i could think of on how to keep it safe. Yeah, odds are if there is something in his way and he freaks out he is gonna seriously hurt himself, if not kill himself.

But, what are we to do? Ignore the post and not tell him anything? We could...but i would rather give him something to think about. He can take all this info and just completly ingnore it and do whatever he wants. But, he could listen to it and it could make it just a little more safer for him.

I know, a lot of people are injured due to landing under a canopy that they shouldnt be on due to them freaking out. I do read these forums and i do see what goes on. All i tried to do here is give him some advice to keep him alive.

Im not trying to get smart with you. I know you have far more experience than i do. I just wanted to help him out some.

Blue skies t. :)


--I don't even know enough to know that I dont know--

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Yeah, odds are if there is something in his way and he freaks out he is gonna seriously hurt himself, if not kill himself.



Really? Where you you find said odds? How many people downsize aggressively and make it w/o serious injury or death? Fact is, you don't know, you only know of those who do get hurt. Therefore you cannot possibly justify your statement about what the odds are.

Additionally, everyone is different and it can't be predicted whether or not this person will make a fatal/near fatal turn if he needs to avoid something, or turn into the wind last second, etc. All you can do is arm someone with knowledge, you can never be certain of how or if they'll use said knowledge.

Practice flat turns up high, know how much altitude you lose, then practice them as your turn on to final. That way if you find yourself too low to do a regular turn to final, you'll know if you have the altitude to do a flat turn, or if is better to land downwind, xwind. Practice landing off the wind line just a bit (10 degrees +), and turning into the wind as you execute your flare. Make agressive turns up high and then save yourself by pulling your toggles to get you out of a dive. Be one with the canopy, focus on it, and you will get better with it. Brian's book is an excellent resource, buy it, read it, understand it!

I have no idea what it is like to fly a large square loaded at 1.3 at 30 jumps, so I can't comment on that.

Angela.



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I have no idea what it is like to fly a large square loaded at 1.3 at 30 jumps, so I can't comment on that.



I do however.

It was a severe mistake, I wouldn't listen to those around me about my canopy choice and long story short, I was VERY lucky that I wasn't seriously hurt instead of bruised and scraped.

No skill involved in my survival, it was 100% luck, nothing but luck.

Even a large canopy can and will kill you quickly when you don't have the skill to fly it OR if you make a mistake. For instance, go read Incidents, there is the story of a student under a 280sq ft student canopy who made a mistake and is now dead.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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No skill involved in my survival, it was 100% luck, nothing but luck.



Well, if you do get training on a canopy, and do work to get to know it and gain understanding, you have more than just luck on your side:) Hopefully that is what this person will do if he does indeed intend to fly this canopy. There are people who get the training and fly higher w/l earlier on, some dzs have a fast progression with compare to others (sdc is one I believe). I have no idea what is avail to this person at their dz.


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For instance, go read Incidents, there is the story of a student under a 280sq ft student canopy who made a mistake and is now dead.



Yes, I read the incident. Reports like these throw all guesses out the window. People assume that low jump jumpers will be ok on a low w/l and will hurt or kill themselves on a high w/l. Both have been proven right and wrong time and time again. There isn't a correct formula that works for everyone, and sometimes it doesn't matter what someone is on, they just aren't cut out for this.

And, like I said before, i'm sure that there are a lot more people being aggressive with w/l at low #s than is realized to many. Those that make it through ok don't end up in this forum or in Parachutist, and so we don't know about them and many just assume that anything other than low w/l for a low # jumper will result in severe injury or fatatlity because that is what gets reported.


Angela.



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Dude have you been to a canopy course yet? If you are that unsure about what to do ...thats a good place to start. You will of course take your newly acquired 190 sabre there...and emerge a hopefully more assured and technically adroit user of your wing.

..but then again i havent been to one myself...but its high on my agenda..

give it horns!

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As I said earlier, I'm tired.

When someone posts "don't tell me I'm going to die" or words to that effect, at 30 jumps, with one jump on the canopy they have chosen to buy, it reeks of arrogance and ignorance, which in my opinion is a deadly combination.

Sure, educate by all means, but there must be some point at which you say, "No." If a very talented 4 year old child asked if they could swim alone, would you allow it? If an 8 year old wanted to take the family car to the shops, would you say yes?

There are all types on this site. There are those who will teach people with few jumps to BASE, or fly a wingsuit, or fly a highly loaded canopy. There are also those who are so tired of saying "I fucking told you so, you pipe!" I'm all for education. I have 1000's of swoops and many of those I have mentored are better canopy pilots than me now and have returned the favour. But those I choose to mentor don't aproach me with a "Don't tell me .......... because I've heard it before." There is no right or wrong in life, but there is consequence. This is true for all things.

t
It's the year of the Pig.

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As I said earlier, I'm tired.

When someone posts "don't tell me I'm going to die" or words to that effect, at 30 jumps, with one jump on the canopy they have chosen to buy, it reeks of arrogance and ignorance, which in my opinion is a deadly combination.
t


True but ...
Tonto, of course when you started jumping (and I have looked at your profile so I understand that was a long time ago) you’d never have been so arrogant/ignorant?!?

Now I’m fairly new to jumping myself and I’m pretty cautious because already I’ve seen enough people broken, and I don’t want to add myself to that list. But there is a line between giving out the invaluable advice you’ll have accumulated over the years and just putting down less experienced jumpers (which I see all too often on these forums) because it’s all to easy to do, constructive criticism is the only way forward.

P.S I’m not trying to make any friends on here and I do respect the rights of others to post their opinions! This is mine and I reserve the right to change it any damn time I like! ;)

(skygods, remember you too started out as students once)

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jeez what a shitstorm....okay, to clarify: i am not into swooping or any high performance landings. Tonto, i said "dont tell me im going to die, ive heard it before" to try and get my post answered and not degenerate into this flame party. you said i am making a decision with all these decades of experience telling me not to do it. bullshit. i have decades of jump experience that specifically recommended this canopy to me. my AFF-I has 4000 jumps, my DZO has 4000 jumps, my main coach has 1400, my S&TAs have 6000 between the two, need i go on? all of them (and more) recommended the 190 to me.
now having said that, i apologize to everyone. i did not mean to come across as arrogant and know it all or whatever. but think about this: i KNOW my coaches, DZO, AFF-Is, and S&TAs, and they know me. i do NOT know any of you, nor do you know me. whose opinion would YOU trust in my shoes?

As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

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