Spectre-210 vs Old PD-230 (downsizing to my rig:-)

[matt1215 0]

I'm curious about the Spectre-210's flight/landing characteristics and flare-power as compared to those of the old school PD-230 9-cell. My instructors recommended a 190 for me, but I decided on a 210 (WL = .9). After Scott Miller's class, I have lots of new stuff to play with and decided I wasn't in such a hurry to downsize.

I'm debating how soon I should start jumping 210 (not renting=more jumps.

Any suggestions??

[Spizzzarko 0]

Here's a few thoughts...

I want you to go and look at the horizon tomorrow morning. Look at it while standing flat on your feet, then look at it on your tip toes. Notice how your sight picture changes. Now keep the sight picture of the horizon on flat feet in your mind. Your next jump should be a hop and pop fro the top. Now practice flares, and only flare as much as you need to keep the sight picture the same as when standing with flat feet. If this is to much to wrap your head around, try to feel what it is like in your harnes whil not giving any inputs. This is a one G (the force that gravity exerts on your body). Now feel what it is like in your harness when you are flareing. If you feel a lot of pull in your leg straps (more than one G) then you are probably climbing, and flaring to much. Your flare should induce not much more than one G on your wingloading. Another thing that I see people do wrong a lot is to not flare all the way. Go out and take a camel back full of margarita, and just watch people land all day long. I know, It's like watching golf on TV, but it can be exciting, and you can actually learn alot. Not only should you observe what inputs they are giving to their canopy's but look and see what the canopy is actually doing. You will soon learn that you can tell more of what they are doing wrong by looking at the canopy itself, and less at the person. A canopy should be flown into the wind symetricly, and smoothly. If one part is lower than the other, it's an uneven flare. If there is a lot of flare all at once, then they were probably in corner. Learn to observe the recovery arc on the canopy's. You will notice that most people are still in a dive from a front riser input when they give toggle, or rear riser input to dig themselves out. Now when you sober up from the camel Toe (I mean Camel Back) of Margarita, then go and do another hop and pop from the top. Do a turn (it doesn't really matter what type you do), and LISTEN to your canopy. Actually close your eyes and listen. You will notice that your canopy will take quite awhile to recover on its own from this input. I believe the Scott Miller Course says it takes close to 10 seconds for a canopy to recover back to it's own full flight from an input. Another thing you will notice will be that people don't truely fly their canopys on final approach. They tend to point it in the general direction that they want to land, and expect that the canopy will take them there. If you are not continously flying your canopy then you are wrong. Fly that thing untill you get back into the hangar and pack it. If you let the canopy do it's own things it will put you into a bad situation that you may, or may not have the flying skills to get out of. Don't let yourself get into a situaiotn that you have to pull some skills out of your as that you may not have... Been there and done that, it's not cool. Take my word on that one.

Also please be carefull on whom you take advise from. There are many self proclaimed canopy experts out ther, but that doesn't mean they are right. Seek professional help if you are still having problems. Sometimes On DZ.com it's the blind leading the blind, so you have to learn from who ever makes you feel the most comfortable. I hope this helps you out in some sort of way, but the biggest thing is for you to go out and keep trying. DO NOT get frustrated and quit. It will come to you some day, and then it will be as natural as breathing. Untill then good luck and be careful.

Here's a post I made about 2 stage flares:

"I think when people are talking about staged flares they are just passing on bad information! Think of it this way. in it's simplist form there are 3 areas to a landing.

1. Approach
2. Plane out
3. Stopping

To transition from your approach to plane out, you need to give input to the canopy wether it be toggles or rears. Now do you stop from there? NO. You have to give more input to the canopy to transition from plane out to stopping, correct? Now I'm going to introduce a little bit more of a radical concept here, so everyone take a second and catch your breath.....


Let's first of all get rid of this concept of a two or three staged flare. You don't come in flare halfway, stop, and then flare the rest of the way do you? If so you are doing it wrong. Does that method work? Yes, sometimes, but we are a little more advanced than that, aren't we? I believed this concept was brought about by the old timers who were transitioning from F-111 to ZP canopy's. They used this when their canopy's would ballon up when they flared all the way like they were used to with their F-111's.

Let's take the three area's that I spoke of earlier and make them into just one.

1. Landing

You need to start thinking this way because, when you are transitioning to smaller faster canopy's, landing doesn't just happen when your altitude reaches zero. Many of the high speed low drag dudes here will probably agree with me that landing for them starts just after they get everything stowed away after opening. Watch them, and talk to them, and you will soon see that every manuever they make is to set up for landing. There's really no more "Playing Around" when you get to small canopy's. Now let's get back to Landing. Your approach flare and stopping should all be one smooth movement. Only flare as much as you need to maintain the altitude above the ground that you want.

Try looking at the horizon during this part of you landing. I want you to standup right now and look at a far door knob or something out your window on the horizon. Now stand on your toes, and then back on your flat feet. Do you see the difference in your sight picture? Now how much have you actually moved? 3 to 4 inches if that.

Now that you have that mastered, think about continuing your flare only as much as you need to, so that your sight picture doesn't change! I told you it was going to get radicle! Now that we are flying flat and level over the gound we eventually need to stop. Well just keep flaring, and maintaining your sight picture. Eventually you will have flared so much that your canopy will no longer beable to produce the amount of lift required to hold your body in the air. This is usually when you put your feet down on the ground.

I can't tell you how many people I see that don't fly their canopy to it's fullest potential, and then complain that their canopy doesn't have enough flare to support their fat ass's, and that they need to get a Velocity because it has a more powerfull flare

Learn to flare your canopy all of the way. You should not have to run out your landings very much if you are flaring it correctly, even on low wind to no wind days.

If you change your thought process, and learn to fly your canopy to it's fullest then you will be unstopable!"

Here's some more specific advice. Try to keep two steps ahead of your canopy. When I say that, I mean that you should be a proactive pilot instead of a reactive pilot. Being proactive is planning ahead where you want to be over the ground at a certain altitude. It also means seeing bad situations and avioding them. This can be as simple as watching your friends land before you and seeing their canopy's collapse because of some wierd turbulance, and then not landing where they were landing. Being a reactive pilot would be seeing your friends canopy collapse and then land right were they landed and trying to deal with the turbulance. There is a certain amount of reactivity that you need to have, but thinking ahead will almost always keep you out of trouble.

If you can find a friend who is jumping a similar canopy with a similar loading, then I suggest you both do some hop and pops from the top. Practice flying in formation. Have your friend lead, and signal his or her turn direction with his legs, and just fly in formation. Just like a freefall you need to dirt dive it, and plan it out. Most importantly stick to the plan.

When you get down you will realize how much you actually had to fly the canopy to stay in formation even if you were just going straight. This is what I mean by continously flying the canopy untill you are packing it. While you are flying in this formation practice using all of your controll inputs, and seeing what each one does. Have your friend fly around in full flight instead of brakes as you both will be very tired when you get down.

The more you practice this the closer you can get to each other, and this will require much more precision flying. Get with an AFF instructor and review what to do in a wrap just in case, but the best way to not get into a wrap is to communicate and fly smoothly.

Smoothe control inputs are imparative, and I want you to focus on only making smoothe inputs from now on. If you are yanking and banking on your inputs, then you were flying reactivly, and not thinking ahead of the canopy. Do you see how it all comes around full circle?

Let me know if any of this stuff is too nebulous for you. I hope this helps out, and please don't be affraid to ask questions. Good luck, and tell me how all of this works out for you.

[bob.dino 0]

How many jumps does the PD230 have on it? It's an F111 canopy, so it becomes more porous with time, which affects its flare.

[alw 0]

Hey Matt - PM me next time you plan to be at the DZ and I'll bring the video stuff so we can record your landings. That will help too.

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Every day is a bonus - every night is an adventure.

[matt1215 0]

The 230 has a great many jumps on it. It's probably the least rented rig on the rack, more faded and ragged-out than the Falcon-265 I was jumping in AFF. The Navigator-240 I rented at a different DZ set me down just a little faster than the Falcon and a lot slower than the PD-230. My Spectre has about 100 jumps on it.

[bob.dino 0]

Talk to someone that has seen you fly, but my gut feeling would be that a ZP 210 would be easier to fly than a ragged-out F111 230.

This is based on my experience of doing 50-ish jumps on an old Airforce 220 - an F111 7-cell - then downsizing to a Spectre 190. It was like night and day. Landing the Spectre was consistently much easier.

However, remember that anything said by an instructor that knows you and your flying overrides what I say.

[Spizzzarko 0]

You say jumping a ZP-210 would be easier to fly than an f-111 230.

I say It's not easier, but different. I feel there is such a rush put on people to downsize and go to ZP that there is less of a emphasis put on learning proper technique. ZP is not the cure all to bad landings, properly learned technique is.

[bob.dino 0]

Quote

You say jumping a ZP-210 would be easier to fly than an f-111 230.

I say It's not easier, but different. I feel there is such a rush put on people to downsize and go to ZP that there is less of a emphasis put on learning proper technique. ZP is not the cure all to bad landings, properly learned technique is.

I understand exactly where you're coming from and, to be honest, you're probably right. However, in my experience, and in that of a teammate, once an F111 canopy gets a certain number of jumps on it, it starts to land inconsistently. The ZP canopy provides consistency, so you know that your crap landings are your fault and not that of the canopy .

Make sense?

[matt1215 0]

Quote

...once an F111 canopy gets a certain number of jumps on it, it starts to land inconsistently. The ZP canopy provides consistency, so you know that your crap landings are your fault and not that of the canopy .

Make sense?

F111 vs ZP makes that big of a difference? WOW!!!

[Spizzzarko 0]

I would hesitate to use the word inconsistantly when it comes to a more porus F-111 canopy. I would phrase it as landing differently. You will have to flare a little faster to get the same amount of lifting power out of it, or you can start your flare a hair higher to allow for the sink caused by the porosity that has developed over time. Also line trim may have a lot to do with the canopies performance. Lines do go out of trim, and many dz's do not stay on top of their student gear line trim, as it would hurt business to much to take a rig down for maintenance.