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jheadley

LEARNING how to swoop, long or short recovery arc?

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agreed. but as with most things about canopy progressiong it is subjective.

I have more experience than I care to remember with hard or squirly openings. There is still a picture floating around (I think loudiamond has it) of my neck (bloody and shreded) after a hard opening. So hard it put me in the hospital.



I love bleeding from my armpits and crotch

and I love spinning on my back

ooo ooo can I have a Velo?

Dave
http://www.skyjunky.com

CSpenceFLY - I can't believe the number of people willing to bet their life on someone else doing the right thing.

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Actually that injury happened under a Sabre2. line dump can get ya no matter what canopy you are under. And what you just said is another instance of the demonization of the velocity. It will only wack you if you fail to properly pack it. When people use "tricks" to pack a velocity they are eventually going to get wacked. Make it neat, flake your slider, pay attention to PD's recomended packing procedure and don't dump head down and I promise you you will never get thumped.
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"But I'm Just doin what I have to do to survive"-MM

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I promise you you will never get thumped



But can you promise that it won't try and kill you with a violent spinner and/or nasty line twists? Nope you can't do that. It's just the nature of the beast that every once in a while you cross-braced swoop machine will try and kill you.


Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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Think about line twists; your canopy is static it always has the same shape and the same lines (give or take the smallest of incrimental measurments). What is dynamic about an opening? You, your body position and your state of mind. If you take this into consideration it boils right back down to what I already said; its the pilot not the canopy. Granted the dynamics of highly eliptical cross-braced canopy are such that once a line twist occurs it is harder to recover and can easily become more violent than a more conservative design. I am not claiming that I haven't had line twists on my Velo (only happened once) but it wasn't the Velo out to kill me I made an error and I payed for it. My only cutaway, however, was on a non-crossbraced eliptical. (Vengeance 150) It is more about the shape of wing (degree of taper) than the cross braces when talking about violence of spin.
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"But I'm Just doin what I have to do to survive"-MM

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My statement was quantified heavily. If you follow all the proper steps every time then yes you will never get thumped. If you, however, let one stow get dry rot or fail to leave enough exess from riser to last stow, or don't fully flake your slider you will eventually get thumped.

If you get wacked it can be traced back to improper packing or body position every time. You have to agree that you don't just get wacked out of nowhere it is caused by something.

If it is preventible one time it is preventible every time, the factors are just to easily controlled for it not to be.
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"But I'm Just doin what I have to do to survive"-MM

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If you get wacked it can be traced back to improper packing or body position every time. You have to agree that you don't just get wacked out of nowhere it is caused by something.



Yeah cause throwing material into a hurricane produces predictable results each time [:/]

I agree you can REDUCE your chances but you can never eliminate them. By the shear nature of the amount of variables (and combinations thereof) there are on any given deployment you will never have the same set twice.

Hope you remember that flying your canopy. You can't do safe front riser approaches either. Just SAFER.

Blues,
Ian
To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. ~ Lao-Tzu

It's all good, they're my brothers ~ Mariann Kramer

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I agree that the vast majority of the time, bad body position is the #1 reason for off heading and/or line twist openings. But with all due respect, you don't have enough jumps (neither do I) to say that you've seen it all. My last reserve ride (3 to date) was a violent spinner and I swear I had a decent body position when I pitched. The canopy just took off on me (I thought a brake might have fired on opening, but it didn't). Sometimes the shit just wants to hit the fan with these canopies. When you've got thousands of cross-braced jumps, then maybe I'll believe you. But not now.


Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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I promise you you will never get thumped



But can you promise that it won't try and kill you with a violent spinner and/or nasty line twists? Nope you can't do that. It's just the nature of the beast that every once in a while you cross-braced swoop machine will try and kill you.



I am going to go home and tell my girlfriend if she gets all the lines right flakes evenly puts it in the bag that she will definately get thumped

Dave
http://www.skyjunky.com

CSpenceFLY - I can't believe the number of people willing to bet their life on someone else doing the right thing.

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Actually that injury happened under a Sabre2. line dump can get ya no matter what canopy you are under. And what you just said is another instance of the demonization of the velocity. It will only wack you if you fail to properly pack it. When people use "tricks" to pack a velocity they are eventually going to get wacked. Make it neat, flake your slider, pay attention to PD's recomended packing procedure and don't dump head down and I promise you you will never get thumped.



hey man I bled out of my armpits on a safire....

you can bleed out of your armpits or get thrown around on any canopy dude...

and I have been spun on my back pretty nasty on my crossfire 129...(harness problem not canopy problem, one of the buckles on that container needed replacing....)

its ugly man

Dave
http://www.skyjunky.com

CSpenceFLY - I can't believe the number of people willing to bet their life on someone else doing the right thing.

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All I am saying is that bad openings are not resultant of the canopy design they are a result of a force that acts on the canopy, be it body position, packing, or some strange meteorlogical force. If it were canopy design it would happen every time. That information is not derived from jump numbers but from design experience and common sense.
--------------------------------------------------
"But I'm Just doin what I have to do to survive"-MM

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I learned the basics of swooping on a Sabre1 135 at approx 1.25 W/L. This canopy had a VERY short recovery arc, and I don't believe it was the best tool for learning, because you had to start the turn so very low (270 at around 200-250 feet, 90 at less than 100).

After I had a pretty good handle on that canopy, I moved to a Sabre2 120, W/L about 1.45. This canopy has a very nice recovery arc... it's long enough that I can start the turn much higher, but short enough to recover quickly with toggles. I do not think this canopy would have been a good choice for learning the very basics either. Perhaps a size larger Sabre2 would have been more appropriate for the beginning.

For the record, I agree with all the statements that the Sabre2 is one of the most underappreciated swooping machines. I am relatively inefficient with my swoops (often plane out too high), but I'm regularly getting as much or more distance that everything at my DZ except for the cross-braced pocket-rockets. It will be several hundred jumps before I have a reason to downsize. When I do, it will likley be a Sabre2 107.
"Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

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That's a bold statement. Any canopy can thump you at any time.
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what the hell would you know:P

seriously though he's right, I jump a pilot and I've even gotten slammed a couple times.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

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