Sky_doggy

Hi, Could someone help me understand why canopies of 150 square feet or less are deemed high performance? There is currently a thread titled Perris “11/29/2014” that has drifted onto discussions about smaller canopy sizes for lighter people being considered high performance even if the canopy is lightly loaded. Let me frame the question. I understand that there are design factors such as elliptical, recovery arc's, pitch angle, riser pressure and so forth that go into a canopy for swooping or other high performance activities but my question is around more benign canopies such as the Pulse and Pilot in smaller sizes. If for example someone is jumping a Pilot 150 that is loaded at 1 to 1 or less they are considered to be flying a high performance canopy. When I have asked about this I have been told that it is because the lines are shorter but I don't understand this statement. Surely everything in is proportion, that is to say that the length of the lines would proportionally the same in relation to the canopy area. I'd appreciate if someone could help me with the rationale behind this.

Congrats on the job! David Ha ha, thanks but I do it to pay for my drug habit aka. Skydiving

I can second David's comments. I am training in an Otter at the moment and for newbie jump pilots this "busy shit".... Arriving at the jump point at the right altitude is like doing a precision ILS, except you have to talk to ATC, and the local CTAF and spiral down without hitting anyone or stressing the airframe and watch for jumpers in the pattern and the dumb ass's landing on the runway in front of you..... and you get to do it all over about 15 times in a day.... phew... Yup, keep us fed and watered.

Sometimes I wish this forum had a "Like" Button

Read DSE advise 10 times. I started at around 250 jumps and from my experience, if you are going with low jump numbers like I did then make sure you are current. Try to be jumping a couple of times a week so that you are really comfortable that you can handle things not going to well without freaking out. The other is choose your WS coach carefully. I did a one day class with someone who is known in the sport and I now know the class was pretty poor. Ask around, get references. When you don't know anything then everyone looks like an expert. "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king" Good luck.

Hey Kelly, I'd like to offer a couple of comments. Firstly this forum is a pretty tough crowd. At first it used to piss me off but the reality is that the culture if this forum isn't likely to change and despite the wise ass'd comments the intention of most of the posters is good. As to audible’s. I suspect there is probably 101 forum comments on this but I do want to caution you that they are habit forming and it is very easy to develop bad habits with altitude awareness. I had a very poignant reminder of this and I will now on occasions leave my dytter out keep me in the habit using my altimeter. Lastly, if you are new the sport I'd suggest you save your money and buy a secondhand dytter until you start exploring some of the sports disciplines such as wing suiting, tracking, free flying or whatever to know what you really need. I think I paid $60 for my second hand dytter.

Trevor, Two questions. Which model Tork do you use, I'm guessing that the base model would prolly do the trick. Secondly, doyou think it is practical to do a semi permanent mount a N3-A and speakers. I was thinking that I could mount the N3 on the outside of my Z1 and put a small hole for the speaker wires. Thanks mate.

Jerry this is very valuable information, thank you for sharing. I will talk to the PD folks before I go any further down this road.

Hi all, I have been reflecting on some of the posts in the incidents forums regarding ADD and landing under a reserve unconscious. My current setup is a Pilot 168 & PDR 176 and I am considering replacing the PDR 176 with an Optimum 193. Please correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it conventional wisdom suggests that your reserve should be close in size to your main in case you have a two out situation. The thought being that if the canopies are close in size then this would be a more controllable situation. My question is, is there any data or empirical testing that supports this, or is it just a hypothesis?

I suppose if you want to drop skydivers you can't just stencil 'EXPERIMENTAL' on the side. Bummer. Actually, I think you can't do any commercial ops in an experimental. Now, if it wasn't a commercial operation and nobody was paying for the jump, may actually be legal. Not exactly. We've had this discussion before. I don't know the specifics, but some people who do made comments in THIS thread. Apparently, experimentals have a list of approved operations on the cert. If skydiving isn't listed on there, it's not legal. Not that it can't be done. Or hasn't been done. I have an experimental aircraft and skydiving & commercial operations are written as exclusions in the operating limitations. I guess theoretically you could get the local FSDO alter the operating limitations but my guess is that it would be a could day in hell before that happened.

I had a similar experience, I ordered in September and I only got sporadic messages from Chris. The suit finally arrived in December and it was 2" too long and the colours were incorrect. I sent him a message and he responded immediately. He paid for the rigger at my DZ to fix the length and offered to remake the suit in the correct colours. From my experience I think Chris really cares but is just overwhelmed on a number of fronts. He has a great product and I hope he can go the distance.

Thank you everyone. I did do some flying with Brianne and for me she was an excellent coach.

I went to an aviation safety lecture given by Rod Machado at the Oshkosh airshow this year. Rod is a very engaging humorous speaker, an experienced CFI and among other things has a degree in Psychology. He asked the audience when is the best time to make important aviation decisions such as weather, approach minimums, and so on. The answer was, "on the ground", because in a high stress situation your cognitive ability is impaired. How does this translate to skydiving? Simple really. Decide what your altitude is for a cutaway on the ground and then the only decision you have to make in the air is "are we there yet", not.... "ah just a little more and I can fix this." I have personally been on this slippery slope and rode line twists from 3000' to 1600', cutting away and ended up in the saddle at 1200'. So, for me the decision now is "Am I at 2300' feet?" If the answer is yes then cut away. For someone else it might be a different altitude, but the key is to make this decision on the ground and then in a high stress situation all you have to do is make a yes/no decision. Just my 2 cents worth.

Hi, I plan on going to Eloy latter this month to do some jumping and tunnel work and I am looking for some recommendations for tunnel coaches. My interest is belly work and perhaps learning how some techniques for tandem camera flying. I have had mixed experiences with tunnel coaching, I found the coaches at Denver were really good, but my last trip to Orlando was a bust and I wasted my money. To be fair the coach for the first 15 m was okay, but the second guy had no clue on how to teach. Thanski

Hi DSE, I certainly agree that if you are learning wingsuiting with jump numbers in the 200 ~ 300 range then you need to be super current. For a beginner its a bit like jumping out with a straight jacket on that can quickly turn into a nylon coffin if you get behind the game. I only have 300 jumps and 10 Wingsuits which makes me a newbee for sure, but with all due respect is saying if some one is getting line twists then the instruction the got was incorrect ? This stuff isn't like learning to fly an airplane with an instructor ready to grab the controlls if you screw up. You can spend all day talking about it, hopping out of a mock up, laying on a skate practicing tossing out your hacky and so on, but ultimately when you standing in the door and jump you are on your own. Sure, doing it right depends on getting good instruction in first place, but it also depends on flawless execution of what you have learnt for the first time. Just my 2 cents worth.

Hello, I have owned both a Pulse 170 and now a Pilot 168. I load them at 1.1 I found that the Pulse opened a little "crisper" than the Pilot, but I wouldn't say that it was a "harder" opening canopy, perhaps saying the Pilot snivels a little longer. They both fly pretty flat, both give consistent openings but I find the Pilot more fun to fly. I also have a semi stowless bag and the openings feel less snatchy I don't know how better to describe it. Lastly, there are techniques that you can use at deployment that can get your body a little more vertical during as the canopy opens which helps your neck. Ultimately though, as DSE says, they can all bite and the only way you can be sure that you won't get cracked is not to do it.

A guy at my DZ ordered on in late July and it turned up last weekend. Its a really sharp looking suit. Probably worth the wait.

Me either, I have jumped over 200 + Psycho pack jobs and they work well. I took a little tweaking at first for my canopy, and you will need a short bridle extension. Psycho packing was introduced by George Galloway Precision Aerodynamics. If he had named it "Precision packing" instead then everyone would probably think its great. Once in a while I might get an off heading or 1 ~ 2 line twists. I used to blame my pack job thinking that after 300 jumps I should have body position figured out, but I was wrong. I have recently started to learn wing suit flying where body position is vital at deployment time. What I am finding is that I get perfect deployments every time because I am focusing on body position.

I noticed that after the guy with the green canopy cut away that his reserve didn't open up straight immediately. Am I correct in assuming that he didn't have an RSL? If so, would the situation gotten a bit tougher if his reserve had immediately deployed ? I know that its all speculation but I am curious as to what some of the CRW guys think. Cheers

Hi I recently purchased a Pilot 168 ZPX from a staff member at my DZ. It has a new line set on it and the guy told me in the spirit of full disclosure that the canopy has a slight right turning tendency and it did it even prior to the new line set. I jumped it for a day and tried (at altitude) stalls, flight in deep brakes, flat turns and anything else I could think of and it flew perfectly for me. The only thing I could think of is that the guy I bought it off may not sit quite symmetrically in his harness. My guess is that something similar is going on with the new owner of your canopy. Cheers

I have a similar profile to yours. I am 195 out the door and I have recently down sized from a Pilot 188 to a Pilot 168. The change wasn't dramatic, a little more responsive, a bit faster and more flare.

Hi I am I am planning on learning camera flying next season. I am working with the camera flyers at my DZ and I plan on starting with fun jumper 4 ways and then a 4 way team When I become more experienced. My question is about gear. I have a crummy neck and I am looking for recommendations for light weight cameras and helmemts. Semi related to this question, snag issues aside, is a GoPro/Ragecam lense a viable option? Thanks

I emailed Mads at Mads Larsen ([email protected]) last week about a new product purchase and received a response the next day.

We all have to work through this. It's easier for some than others. Brians book might be worth a look see: http://www.transcendingfear.com/books.html

Does anyone know who owns the intellectual property for these training videos? I'd like to be able to purchase a copy, or even better, ask if they would make them available on iStore for purchase. If you haven't seen them, they are well worth a look. http://www.youtube.com/...ZwLtEzkZ8wWeRk7GCrTt