F111 porosity question

[park1231 0]

I recently purchased my first rig with a Cruislite 220 main. Jumped it for the first time today and upon landed discovered that it didnt flare much at all resulting in a minor crash. I did several test flares in the air and those seemed ok. As far as my newbie eyes can tell the canopy is in really good condition definately better than many of the rental rigs. Is it possible to get the porosity tested to see if maybe this cruiselite has reached its retirement?

[GroundZero 0]

how many jumps are reported on that canopy?

Chris

[Unstable 8]

The general test is to take the tail of the canopy and with your mouth, see how much air you can force through the material of the canopy. I currently have over 150 jumps on a leaky, old, f111 canopy, sucks doesn't it???

=========Shaun ==========

[NightJumper 0]

Quote

Is it possible to get the porosity tested to see if maybe this cruiselite has reached its retirement?

Yes it is. Most of the canopy manufactures have porosity meters.

[darkwing 4]

I have a few jumps on a new Cruiselite XL and I don't think you should expect much out of the flare, even if the porosity is good. How much do you weigh?

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

[nicknitro71 0]

Hi,

I have a Bruselite 220, one of the newest made. The flare sucks as simple as that and I'm only loading it .77. The only thing is to flare hard between 15-20 feet. Forget two/three/multi stage bullshit flare! Once you are no lower than 15 and no higher than 20 pull those toggles all way down and start hoping. I can stand them up but forget about swooping or soft landings!

I got it for the Bridge mainly and some low H&P (2000-3000). If this is your main canopy, well sell it and get a Spectre!

Memento Audere Semper

903

[park1231 0]

i weigh 170lbs so about 190 out the door. I tried the blow air through the canopy test when I first got it and no air went through. less than 100 jumps are reported on the canopy and from a visual inspection it appears true.

I tried to flare it like the rental canopies that I have experience with (sabre170, triathalons etc).

Wont burying both toggles at around 20ft cause the canopy to stall?

[darkwing 4]

A cruiselite will not flare remotely like a Sabre or a Triathlon.

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

[park1231 0]

could you please elaborate on how the flare is differant?

[darkwing 4]

I pretty much agree with NickNitro. The flare is very mushy by modern standards. You don't get the response during flare that you get with a modern canopy. Flare, and brace for impact.

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

[BASE813 0]

are you sure that you are coming in on full drive and have you checked out the length of your lower control lines?

How about picking up some forward speed using the front risers then using this forward speed to convert to more lift?

F1-11 flare very differently to ZP anyway.

Just my 2 dodars worth!!

[park1231 0]

Thanks for the advice so far. Im sure it has enough speed to execute a proper flare. One of my landings was downwind and still not much of a flare. Im going to try flaring higher to see how that works and I saw a thread on rec.skydiving talking about adding an additional brake line attachment point to an inboard cell. I had the entire rig and canopy checked out by a master rigger before jumping it.

[dterrick 0]

I jump a Raven (similar design, 7 cell F 111) with many many hundred jumps on it. I feel your pain and have a suggestion or 2.

First, if you're anywhere near 1:1 loaded, it only gets worse. Mine is 'so bad' that I have learned to front riser carve almost by necessity. Well, not really necessity but the added speed gives me added lift and the initial flare is stronger. Then I run... sometimes a bit and sometimes a lot.

Methinks what happens (to us) as the porosity of the canopy increases is that at less than full drive it simply does not have enough lift to keep you from dropping faster than you'd like. Final aproach in part brakes only makes this worse. Of course, our canopies aren;t that zippy to begin with so riser induced speed should not be a problem. Check this out with your STA or DZO before you start trying advanced manouvers - I did.

When you crash are you landing on your butt or falling forward? Butt plants are likely the effects of your canopy stalling. It stops flying but you don't. Faceplants are likely caused by a late flare. In my case I was faceplanting - going for the BIG FAST LATE flare. Then Hutch suggested I flare earlier and the canopy started dropping me on my can, sometimes suddenly. Timing the flare of a tired F-111 is a tricky procedure but if you can do it on the CL then you can likely land anything.

Dave

PS: I've flown Bruiselites as well and out student 220's have far more flare than my Raven 220. Of course, they also have about 500 jumps less than my canopy...

[park1231 0]

Well after a couple weeks of jumping this canopy here are my observations. If there is anything over ~8mph wind I can stand up the landings no problem as long as I land against the wind. The problem landings are on no wind or near no wind days. On these landings when I flare the canopy still has a lot of forward motion and vertical speec ... I end up having to run it out.