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westcoastSD

Terminal Petra opening video

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with fat lines like those any canopy will open nice.



?

Looking at the video they all had either HMA 400 (black) or Vectran 300 (orange).

I believe brake lines on NZA canopies are Vectran 600 (or so) for safety.

You don't want your dental floss rubbing against the rings on your risers...

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Anyone that's going to be using ANY HP crossbraced for everyday use would be wise to order their canopy with such lines, bro.



+1

I've already seen a nasty accident this year from thin lines breaking in a turn in a comp (I don't know for sure if they were used for work jumps too).

Comp lines are not a good choice on a work canopy.
"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

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A good example over the two schools of thought on pulling the risers on opening.

I counted 5 canopies on the video. Im assuming the same wing was piloted by the same person on each take. 2 of the pilots had a habit of pulling the risers and 3 of the pilots did not pull the risers.

Red - no
Purple - no
Yellow - yes (although on one opening no)
White - no
Green - yes

(perhaps the yellow one was piloted by another individual on the last one)

Personally I have always thought that it is best not to pull the risers before a canopy is fully inflated. I thought you are more likely to cause linetwists than prevent them. I have always thought that if necessary, some steering harness pressure may be in place, but no pulling by hand.

After demoing the Scirocco last fall, I started to question my self on this issue. Made one jump with no pulling on the risers and had some horrible linetwists. Someone with more experience on the canopy told me that the Scirocco requires you to pull on the risers on the opening. Even the manual says this. The next two jumps I tried this and contrary to my beliefes it seemed to work. I still had some minor twists on the last one, but it was much better.

The scirocco seemed like a nightmare in terms of its affection towards linetwists. I thought my take on this canopy is still a bit limited, so I searched for some youtube videos on the openings on this canopy to test if others seemed to have same problems.

Yes, they did. You can see some examples here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jiw4NegPVTc


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RmHjnvkZSE

However, Im still not sure if pulling down the risers is a good thing or not? On the second videolink provided it is IMO quite obvious that the pilot is actually preventing linetwists that are clearly beginning to occur. The few openings @ 0:50 and the few after that are the most obvious examples of this.

Also pretty much every scirocco video I could find had a pilot who pulled down the risers. It seems this canopy needs it ?

However, looking at those petra openings it didnt seem to make any difference whether you pulled on the risers or not. What do you think?

Note that I think steering the opening is not the same as pulling on the rears. IMO you can do some steering adustments from the harness also, and also you can simply pull down both rears without really steering the opening.

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Comp lines are not a good choice on a work canopy.



That makes me wonder if they are really a good choice for any canopy



Well they are a good choice on a competition CP wing. The lines make up a significant proportion of the total parasitic drag in the system.

The key is not to abuse (overuse) them.
"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

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After demoing the Scirocco last fall, I started to question my self on this issue. Made one jump with no pulling on the risers and had some horrible linetwists. Someone with more experience on the canopy told me that the Scirocco requires you to pull on the risers on the opening. Even the manual says this.



The openings are quite long if I don't pull on the rears, but it does open after a while. I spoke to the manufacturer about it and they said it was because of my longer risers (25") and they do recommend a specific size for each canopy size.

I always control the openings with the rears on my Scirocco. I've had one major line twist with it when I missed one of the risers and still started to pull for some stupid reason, but I managed to kick it out. The turn was so fast that I managed to hit myself in the head. I've also had a few minor linetwists when the bag or risers has snagged something (uneven opening of the riser covers perhaps?), but I can't blame the canopy for that. When I'm current the canopy opens straight for me, when I'm not it turns around 90 degrees during opening. I don't find it worse than my old X-modded VX or the few velo jumps I've made. But I guess it depends on the WL and size.

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The lines in question are HMA 400 and Vectran 300 ... This video was made for the PIA symposium.

All the footage is taken from 3 different Pilots , myself included. Also the footage is back to back with no editing out . We all have different styles of flying these canopies.

It was really in response to a million emails regarding Petra openings.

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Hey Chris!

Hope all is well! Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on pulling the risers on opening? Its an interesting topic since even the top CP pilots seeem to be divided by this question. Also it seems to be perhaps canopy dependant.

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Dispite all the hype, the Peregrine isn't really a Petra copy. Petra in my opinion simply lead PD to accelerate R&D on an existing project. Dispite that at first glance they appear similar, If you look closer at the 2 wings you'll see they are very different. The only thing they share is the schuman planform i.e an elliptical leading edge. The rest of their planforms are not the same. It's unfair to accuse PD of copying the Petra, they used a planform that the petra also used and lets face it.... Icarus did not invent the idea of an elliptical leading edge, it's been around since the 80's since it was conceived by Mr Schuman and gets used lots on paragliders and speed wings. Did Icarus copy the Velo when they made JVX? probably not but because it has x-braces you could say they did, but did they get all the criticism PD seem to be getting over the Peregrine vs Petra? Doubt it.

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Dispite all the hype, the Peregrine isn't really a Petra copy. Petra in my opinion simply lead PD to accelerate R&D on an existing project. Dispite that at first glance they appear similar, If you look closer at the 2 wings you'll see they are very different. The only thing they share is the schuman planform i.e an elliptical leading edge. The rest of their planforms are not the same. It's unfair to accuse PD of copying the Petra, they used a planform that the petra also used.........
***

You have got to be kidding!
Every chance that "PD type people" had to photo and inspect the Petra was well used when it showed up at the first swoop meets.


Icarus did not invent the idea of an elliptical leading edge, it's been around since the 80's since it was conceived by Mr Schuman and gets used lots on paragliders and speed wings.
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Actually, if you were really up to speed with regards to canopy design, you would know that JoJo Wings did it first to a certain degree with the HOP 330 tandem canopy.


Did Icarus copy the Velo when they made JVX?
***

No, it was the other way around actually.

Icarus used used x-bracing (that was patented for use in skydiving canopies earlier by Bill Coe of PD) to design the FX in 1996.

The Icarus FX basically lead PD to the design of the Velo that came out; circa 1999....


MEL
Skyworks Parachute Service, LLC
www.Skyworksparachuteservice.com

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Did Icarus copy the Velo when they made JVX?
***

No, it was the other way around actually.

Icarus used used x-bracing (that was patented for use in skydiving canopies earlier by Bill Coe of PD) to design the FX in 1996.

The Icarus FX basically lead PD to the design of the Velo that came out; circa 1999....


MEL



Aren't you missing PD's Excalibur out of this story?
"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

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Aren't you missing PD's Excalibur out of this story?



No, I covered it ....
'...that was patented for use in skydiving canopies earlier by Bill Coe of PD)".....

The only thing similar from the Excaliber to the new cross braced canopies is the x-bracing...

MEL
Skyworks Parachute Service, LLC
www.Skyworksparachuteservice.com

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Hey man ,

Well really my preference to use the risers has simply been from a test point of view , I like having my hands near the toggles, when testing brake settings it's handy to be able to get old of them quickly - I'm sure you can figure out why ;-)

Guess this has lead to forming a habit. I like to gently guide the rears on opening, it's not that Petra's ever really "whip" round on opening , they behave like their on rails 99% of the time.

Hope this answers your question.

Chris.

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I should probably add the Petra is much more sensitive in the harness than any other canopy i've flown. Once it's open It can take a little adjusting to keep it flying where you need it. Once you're used to it this becomes second nature. Another reason my preference is to have hold of the rears :-)

Chris.

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