What gets you better glide?

[Viking 0]

What gets you the best glide? Does it change with canopy and loading or is it a constant unchanging thing like womens love of shoes and expensive candy?

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[beowulf 1]

Those aren't the only things that will help you make it back from a long spot.
I like to loosen up my chest strap as far as it will go and pull my slider down behind my neck. Getting the risers spread as far apart as possible helps the glide rate.

[TALONSKY 0]

Are we up wind or Down wind. It makes a huge difference. Upwind I personally unstow brakes and go to rear risers. Downwind I just go full glide if I am getting good penetration.
Kirk

[Viking 0]

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I like to loosen up my chest strap as far as it will go and pull my slider down behind my neck.

well thats a gimme dude.

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[ccowden 0]

Well, if this is simple a poll to ask which of those 3 choices gets better glide, then I think it is pretty apparent that it is "brakes unstowed with rear riser." The place where the brakes are set is almost certaily not going to be the best position for glide and will vary greatly from canopy to canopy.

If this is a poll to ask what technique gets the best glide, then you need a few more choices AND you need a scenerio. It matters alot whether you are into the wind or with the wind, how your canopy is loaded, type of canopy, how much input you are using, etc..

You will totally kill your glide if you use a little too much or not enough of any input, so just to say use rears or use brakes is not enough. You have to test and play with different techniques and find what works best for you, on your canopy, at your loading.

Personally, for me, on my Velocity 96 loaded at about 2.2, I like to get my profile down by tucking my knees up and together, slider pulled down and chest strap wide like always, and use the half brakes range. I vary the input from there depending on conditions and how it feels. I like to watch the ground below me to see how fast I am making progress while watching other canopies to compare rate of descent as well as horizontal speed.

But what works for me may not work for others and it really comes down to what your personal preference is with your canopy. Doing canopy flocking jumps is great to play around with different techniques and see what works for you.

[yardhippie 0]

my canopy already has a good glide.

do all the usual, chest strap, slider, etc.

just a little rear input, and let her rip.

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865

[AggieDave 6]

You're going to have to see what your canopy does best with. I've found with my XF2 that rears work the best for a long spot. Just about every PD canopy I've jumped toggles worked the best (obviously it depends on if you're upwind/downwind).

Play with the different configurations and see where the "accuracy spot" moves to.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Widgeon 0]

It will totally depend on the situation of which input to use. I don't really buy the 'leave the brakes stowed' method at all. You could end up fighting your way back and then find yourself below your hard deck, try to release your brakes and then:"OH SHIT, one of 'em is stuck. Now WTF am I going to do?" This is no shit, it killed a girl out in Perris awhile back. Bottom line is, every canopy/pilot/wingloading combination will experience different performance in rears/brakes. You'll have to experiment to find out for yourself.

[Maxx 1]

There is no general answer.. It all depends on the situation (canopy, wind, WL..etc)..

Max

[Jskydiver22 0]

I think a big mistake that I hear most people make is leaving the brakes stowed until 500' or so. First off, like mentioned just a little bit before me, this could become a problem if u go to unstow them then have a problem. But also, probably on almost every canopy, this will kill your glide. If you have your brakes stowed, you have your canopy is in pretty slow flight.

Think about what will allow the canopy to get in a good glide. I would say (depending on the canopy), either 1/4 brakes or rear risers will work the best.

To find out which works best on your canopy, simply do some tests. Fly in brakes for awhile and get a feel of how fast the canopy is going, then go to your rears and see if it feels like you start going faster or slower.

As stated before, this is all going to depend on your canopy. For me on my crossfire2, I feel like rear risers works best though.

Hope this helps!

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

[ccowden 0]

How fast you are going is TOO simple of a test. You have to also guage your descent rate, which is much tougher to do. You have to watch other canopies in the air to compare your descent rate along with your horizontal speed. Like I said above, doing canopy flocking jumps and playing around with a buddy using different techniques is a great way to find what works best. But just seeing which one allows you to go fastest won't tell you much about your glide. If I want to go the fastest, I just leave my canopy in full flight, but that is also going to be a very low glide ratio.

Even if other canopies are flying back faster than you, pay attention to your descent rate in comparison.

[crazydiver 0]

To bring it down to basics...a general rule of thumb is...deep breaks will keep you in the air longest, but create drag and give you much less forward speed. rear risers in no wind conditions or into the wind conditions will give you the best glide. In deep breaks, with the wind at your back, the wind will push you along as you are trying to keep yourself in the air. Rear risers will produce less forward wind resistance. Slight variations of each will be personal, but this is a good general guide.

Cheers,
Travis

[marks 0]

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I think a big mistake that I hear most people make is leaving the brakes stowed until 500' or so. First off, like mentioned just a little bit before me, this could become a problem if u go to unstow them then have a problem. But also, probably on almost every canopy, this will kill your glide. If you have your brakes stowed, you have your canopy is in pretty slow flight.

Think about what will allow the canopy to get in a good glide. I would say (depending on the canopy), either 1/4 brakes or rear risers will work the best.

To find out which works best on your canopy, simply do some tests. Fly in brakes for awhile and get a feel of how fast the canopy is going, then go to your rears and see if it feels like you start going faster or slower.

As stated before, this is all going to depend on your canopy. For me on my crossfire2, I feel like rear risers works best though.

Hope this helps!

i know a friend who left his toggles stowed till 1000 ft because of a long spot. he unstowed the toggles and the canopy collapsed. he is in a wheel chair for the rest of his life.

[Reginald 0]

The only way to answer this is to test for yourself different methods in varying conditions. You can use the accuracy trick to determine what inputs give you the most distance. I always thought rear risers would give me the most distance with a long upwind spot. It turns out very deep brakes actually gives me the most distance. I know this because I can see the difference in my landing point!

I think the best thing I ever did for understanding my canopy was to take Scott Millers canopy control class. He doesn’t tell you how things work he makes you go do things in the air that demonstrate how things work. You learn by doing!

Blues,
R

"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things." CP

[piisfish 135]

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There is no general answer.. It all depends on the situation (canopy, wind, WL..etc)..

the glide is a flight characteristic given by the polar of your wing and it´s profile.

Wind will not modify the glide ratio.

Flight performances are measured/calculated at relative wind speed, not at ground speed.

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[ccowden 0]

Yes, but when we are talking about what glide ratio works best to get back to the target, ground speed is a huge factor and it absolutely matters if you are into the wind or with the wind as to what glide ratio works best to get you there.

[Jskydiver22 0]

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How fast you are going is TOO simple of a test. You have to also guage your descent rate, which is much tougher to do. You have to watch other canopies in the air to compare your descent rate along with your horizontal speed. Like I said above, doing canopy flocking jumps and playing around with a buddy using different techniques is a great way to find what works best. But just seeing which one allows you to go fastest won't tell you much about your glide. If I want to go the fastest, I just leave my canopy in full flight, but that is also going to be a very low glide ratio.

Even if other canopies are flying back faster than you, pay attention to your descent rate in comparison.

Good points. If you have a Neptune, you can watch the descent rate in feet per second I believe. As far as I know, it doesn't record anything, but you can make mental note.

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

[piisfish 135]

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Yes, but when we are talking about what glide ratio works best to get back to the target.

maybe playing with words, but the poster never asked for that....

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[jenkincb00 0]

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I think a big mistake that I hear most people make is leaving the brakes stowed until 500' or so. First off, like mentioned just a little bit before me, this could become a problem if u go to unstow them then have a problem. But also, probably on almost every canopy, this will kill your glide. If you have your brakes stowed, you have your canopy is in pretty slow flight.

Think about what will allow the canopy to get in a good glide. I would say (depending on the canopy), either 1/4 brakes or rear risers will work the best.

To find out which works best on your canopy, simply do some tests. Fly in brakes for awhile and get a feel of how fast the canopy is going, then go to your rears and see if it feels like you start going faster or slower.

As stated before, this is all going to depend on your canopy. For me on my crossfire2, I feel like rear risers works best though.

Hope this helps!

I'm with you, this is part of any good controls check following opening, you need to know if you can stear the canopy and properly flare it for landing leaving the brakes stowed and going to the rears shouldn't even be a possibility. I teach students the "3 S's" and the third "S" is stearing, following square, and slider at least halfway down. How do you know if it stears properly without unstowing the brakes?

***

[brianfry713 0]

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Good points. If you have a Neptune, you can watch the descent rate in feet per second I believe. As far as I know, it doesn't record anything, but you can make mental note.

The Neptune records data for the entire skydive and canopy flight. You need to upload it to Paralog to see the details of your descent rate. The jump profile graphs this out and your can scroll through it with a cursor to look at the exact numbers.

BASE 1224, Senior Parachute Rigger, CPL ASEL IA, AGI, IGI
USPA Coach & UPT Tandem Instructor, PRO, Altimaster Field Support Representative

[BMFin 0]

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To bring it down to basics...a general rule of thumb is...deep breaks will keep you in the air longest, but create drag and give you much less forward speed. rear risers in no wind conditions or into the wind conditions will give you the best glide. In deep breaks, with the wind at your back, the wind will push you along as you are trying to keep yourself in the air. Rear risers will produce less forward wind resistance. Slight variations of each will be personal, but this is a good general guide.

This is how I see it too...


Upwind -> Full flight no risers
(if you have a slow canopy and its a strong upwind it might be more efficient to use frontrisers for a better penetration)


No wind -> Rears

Downwind -> Rears with brakes



Someone told me sometimes that you can learn to see the point in the ground where you would land with the current brake/riser -setup and wind -setup (wich will ofcourse vary depending your altitude as long with the estimated place of descent.)

When u fly a canopy Forward and look at the ground there are areas that are (appearing) to moving further ahead horizontally and parts that (appear) to come closer all the time horizontally. When you find the point in between that doesnt seem to do either, that would be the point where you are heading to land.

I havent much been practicing this so I cant prove this to be true but it sounds right in theory anyway..

Anyone heard of this ?

[ccowden 0]

Wow, maybe I am not very schooled on this subject, but your information seems WAY off to me.

Full flight would almost never be your BEST glide in any wind conditions, and front risers will totally kill your glide.

Brakes with rears??? What are you doing... wrapping your brake lines around your hands so you can also use rears?

Maybe I am wrong here, but I think i have a pretty good understanding of canopy flight, certainly not and expert, but a good knowledge of it, and I think your info is WAY off.

Anyone else care to comment?

[BMFin 0]

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Full flight would almost never be your BEST glide in any wind conditions, and front risers will totally kill your glide.

simple example:

You are going upwind full glide with a Xsqft. canopy and your canopy flys just a little bit faster (mph) than the air coming towards you.

Canopy flys 10mph (relative to the air)
Air is coming at you 9mph (relative to the ground)

This means you are going 1mph relative to the ground.


Now if you apply brakes or risers you will be flying less than 10mph and you will be staying still or going backwards. (relative to the ground)

In the given conditions I would actually use some fronts to cover more distance.

The degree of how much fronts I cant say, becouse it depends on the canopy and the windconditions...

Did I make any sense ?

[Widgeon 0]

If this was an actual performance vs conditions scenario....I think it would be wise to sit that load out, IMHO or have some real faith in the spot.

If you open up downwind of the DZ and you are trying to fight your way back, front risers are not the hands down correct answer. Altitude permitting, a small addition of fronts(while INCREASING your descent rate) might give you more ground speed to make it home. If you've got the altitude to work with, it might be your best bet. However, I think you'll find that a certain place in the control range of your rears will yield better results. Rears flatten out your glide and retain more speed than toggles will. Use of the accuracy trick is the only way to know for sure, and what input to use will be unique to the situation.

If you open upwind of the DZ and are needing to stretch it back, toggles will conserve the most amount of altitude while lowering your ground speed. This might be better than rear risers and on most canopy designs I've been jumping, this would most likely be the first technique I would try in the situation you described above.

I would find it to be very rare that full flight is the best flight mode to get back. Maybe in a severe crabbing situation with a very strong crosswind to heading relationship but I seriously doubt it.

I don't think your that far off, but you can't deal with absolutes in these scenarios because they're never the same variables.

[marks 0]

acctually chris,i see what he is trying to say, and im going to dare to try and say it a way in wich it makes more sense. (because im horrible at that) but i know what he is talking about and he isnt way off, he just isnt getting the point across correctly.

in other words, you either miss understood him, or he failed to explain hiself correctly.

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