What was your turn progression?

[Blink 0]

At what jumps numbers did you guys start doing:
Double Fronts, 90's, 180's and 270's?

Looking back, do you feel you really had them dialed in before moving on, or were you just anxious, lets be honest.

I ask purely for curiosity sake. I am currently doing 90's and can get a nice landing, but not 100% of the time, hence continuing 90's, but I'm sure everyone knows someone who has "skipped steps" or hurried along after they had two nice landings in a row.

[dharma1976 0]

this is length of time on turns not jump numbers

double fronts - 30 jumps
90s - 20 jumps -downsize 10 jumps broke leg- upsized- 50 jumps
180s - 500 jumps dialed in through 170 sabre2, 150 sabre2, 129 crossfire2, 119 Crossfire2
270s - started on crossfire 2 119/109 keeping it going on Velocity 103 - 96 about 400 jumps or so now still playing with them and having fun.

slider down on neck started at 175 jumps
rear risers started about when I had 600 jumps

D

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.

[danielcroft 2]

I was thinking of starting a similar thread the other day.
Double fronts: 100 jumps (or so) (various 170 sq/ft canopies @ 1.1:1 & 150 sq/ft @ 1.23:1)

I'm currently doing
I have several friends helping me.

[Chris-Ottawa 0]

Hey,

It might be wise to include when people started using Rear Risers to land. I'd say it's a common misconception that this is what you "should" be doing when you swoop. Adding rear risers into the mix changes EVERYTHING. You have a lot more to think about at the critical decision point and you need to understand when to bail, and when you can still bail. Practice this up high - A LOT.

My progression:
Double fronts...~5 jumps
45's: ~15 jumps
90's from about jump 100 to now (400), and about 99% of those are swooping landings on various sized canpies. I've JUST recently (~20 jumps) started adding in rear rsers on the jumps that feel right duringthe turn.

One thing that I've learnt is never to "commit" to anything. For example: If you're going to add in rear risers...don't use the mentality that if that's what you said you're going to do, so you should do it...have that as an "option" should your turn be good up to that point. I think people hurt themselves when they commit to a swoop. Another good example is if you have a bad setup, say you're 90 feet lower than normal, do you do the same swoop, do you swoop at all? What do you do?

I have no intend, nor need to go bigger on my turns. I'm getting PLENTY of swoop and I can't ace it every time so I don't move on. 90's are the building block.

"When once you have tasted flight..."

[Fab 0]

80 jumps double front
100 jumps 90 degrees
300 jumps 270 degrees

more or less :)..

skipped the 180

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[skyshimas 0]

started playing at around 150 jump mark
used doubles couple times- got bored
tried 90's couple times also got bored
did 180's untill i had about 850 jumps
now turning 270's was thinking on moving to 450's but not current(confident) enough to do it and there's a lot more to learn before moving on. Now, landing on rears I started quite late. Would have one landing on rears once in a while but not constantly until I moved on to XB canopies. It's much easier to do them on cross braced canopy. I heard from a very well known swooper that there's really no reason to use rears until one moves on to cross braced. I don't know it's just the way it hapened to me. Cheers

[phoenixlpr 0]

Quote

I heard from a very well known swooper that there's really no reason to use rears until one moves on to cross braced. I don't know it's just the way it hapened to me.

I'd say not much use of rears on landing on a canopy with positive recovery. It makes sense to get out a canopy from dive with rears if the canopy would stay in dive anyway.

[YISkyDive 0]

25 – 70: straight in Triathlon 210 1.1:1
70 – 110: double fronts Triathlon 210 1.1: 1
110 – 190: Riser 90s and various aggressive flat and toggle turns down low to learn ground avoidance and emergency situation bail. Triathlon 210 1.1:1
200 – 330: 90s and 180s Diablo 170 1.35 :1
332 – 880: 90, 180s, 270s xf2 149 1.5 :1
600 – 880: 90, 180, 270 360 xf2 139 1.7 :1
880 - 2000 180, 270, 360, 450, 540, 720, 900 Velo111 2.35 :1

My progression is model no one should emulate. I knew about swooping 10 years before I could skydive and I started skydiving with the lone intent of swooping. I had a close friend die because of swooping before I started jumping and I watched friends get hurt. Also, I was 18 and stupid so that did not help either.

Never got hurt, I don’t feel I was in any real danger because I learned ground avoidance VERY early on and used it commonly. I almost snapped a leg on the triathlon during a 90, but that’s sort of were the tune changed from swooping to low turns.

New folks, new jumpers, to be swoopers: you do not learn swooping by swooping. Until about 550 jumps all I was doing was turning a canopy low to the ground. Understanding AoA, wind, flaring on toggles to one side or another or even just correcting a mistake is what learning to swoop is about. Plain and simple, if someone asks me for advice on a turn I want to see them fly the degree of turn to the deck and not for just one jump. It took me 100s of jumps of merely doing just the rotation without focusing on speed building to be able to turn how I do today. It also kept me alive in my progression, I believe. The moment you focus on getting steep and building speed and distance to soon is the moment you’ll get kicked regardless of some progression.

I did not go for rears or steep accelerating turns till about 500 and 750 jumps respectively. I started hitting gates at about 600 jumps and I really started learning my velocity at about 1300 jumps.

My most accurate turn of choice is a 450. I suck at building speed out of a 270 and I am not as accurate with that turn… a byproduct of rushing the progression. I hit the gates 9/10 times (5ft wide 5 ft high) and I average 275 – 300 feet (I jump in stupid baggy clothes and camera wings) and have my PR of 360 – 370ish ft with jeans and a tee (into wind). No RDS.

I am happy with my progression and just wish I could focus more on swooping and less on work! Those considering swooping, learn to fly your canopy at a shallow angle of attack to your target. Go wide of your target, always, and resist the temptation to increase your angle of attack to fast. Understand how to flare turn your canopy + 90s without induced speed – what is going to keep you alive is not a glamorous swoop but the skills that you use when the glamorous swoop goes to shit for whatever reason.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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I ask purely for curiosity sake. I am currently doing 90's and can get a nice landing, but not 100% of the time, hence continuing 90's, but I'm sure everyone knows someone who has "skipped steps" or hurried along after they had two nice landings in a row.

I like a high carving 90 degree turn a lot. It fits into a standard pattern, is good for accuracy, and will take you through gates at 50 MPH. Where that's not enough fun in a straight line you can do it going around a corner (although that does hurt your distance).

I didn't really learn to fly a parachute until after I had maybe 900 jumps at a 1.6-1.7 wing loading. It would have been more fun, less scary, and gotten fewer grass stains on my rig if I'd done it sooner.