daffes

Is the person leading on their feet or their head? Being able to match a head first angle on your feet is a rare skill amongst free fliers, unless the leader is intentionally assuming body positions that are more friendly to feet first fliers. I would recommend against it until you have dozens of feet first angles. If the leader is on their feet and you have a decent sitfly, I suggest you start from a more static position and moves from there. And double check your confidence about being safe. The best way is to get in an angle camp with a smaller group that is ready to learn together with an experienced leader. Two ways are also great to start playing with it.

That's a strong arch buddy, I imagine you could surprise an instructor with it haha! A faster fall rate allows you to turn effectively with a smaller input, usually, in AFF, things happen in a more "slow motion" way. Don't sweat, you'll be fine.

PD has done a full review video series on line types https://www.youtube.com/user/PDBlog/search?query=line+types, watch parts 1 to 8. Vectran is part 4 and HMA is part 5. It's an 8 years old video, so more knowledge is available since then. The video also contradicts skow's comment on HMA being more stretchy. The extra word of mouth knowledge I have is that Vectran lines are easier to evaluate for wear, while lasting about the same number of jumps as HMA, making them, theoretically, safer to jump. I also heard that depending on where you jump, a line may be preferred over another, because of how they react different due to local climate. Fluid wings (Airwolf, HK), PD (valkyrie) and NZ (leia) all ship their xbraced canopies with vectran lines by default. I couldn't get an information on the Petra and Peregrine, but the HK is also shipped with vectran.

Why do you think ratings exist? To be given away? What purpose would it serve if it doesn't rank and identify what's the minimum skill set that each person with that rating has? You don't need a higher license to jump out of planes, the rating is just there to reflect the basics of your skill and experience. If you travel, it's used as a reference to which landing areas you are qualified to land, which jump sizes you should be doing etc... In multiple countries, like Brazil, two A license holders can't do a two-way, for example. The more jumps you have, the lesser your license means.

I've been questioning that. If you keep the exact same body position through freefall, you'll slow down as you fall and air density increases. I wanted to use visual or audible aid for base speed control in big ways, and in this case, normalizing based on barometric pressure would be ideal.

I took multiple Flight-1 and Alter Ego courses since I started swooping and did the default toggle surge, to double fronts straight to accelerating turn, a lot and it worked really well while I was doing 270s. When I went to 450's I struggled to make it work well with fronts and changed to harness only. Initially the turn was weaker, but I had way more control and feel. Entering from full flight didn't work well, I noticed that without a toggle surge, the max vertical speeds were about 5-10 mph lower than with fronts and I wasn't very steep before the snap, but with the toggle surge, I could get the canopy steep enough without burning rotation for it. I still keep my hands on the fronts to avoid giving input on the rears until after the snap. You have to be more disciplined on the beginning of your turn not to screw this up or you'll be a quarter into your turn still flat. On 270's the theoretical maximum of speed difference might be bigger, as others said, the bigger the turn the least it matters. I suggest you invest some time on both before making a call, I started trying it after I posted some flysight data here and someone pm'ed me about it. Worked really nice for me. Current max vertical speeds are about 87mph on a 2.7 WL at 1000ft MSL. It's also good to have multiple techniques on your skillset, not every swoop would be your perfect comp swoop, and it will be easier to improvise when you need.

I also believe you can have a faster downsizing, but I wouldn't skip sizes. Even a simple malfunction on a smaller canopy can be much more intense than on a bigger size. The extra worry with the canopy may limit your progress in other areas of skydiving. There's just so much you can focus on each jump and variables like how many canopies are in the air, your opening altitude, decision altitude etc are all affected by your canopy choice. Where you jump, if you're willing to do more hop n pops etc... all have an impact on your decision. It's not just that you're capable to land the chute on ideal conditions. Flying a rapido 9m safely is no joke, you probably have skills. I fly a 75sqft canopy myself, and have adventured myself speedflying. I flew a 13m spitfire, did about 50 flights and bought myself a mirage RS 11.5m. I got scared on a launch on my spitfire and never flew the mirage, decided to sell it until I have more experience. So, the crossover knowledge helped me but wasn't a complete replacement.

It's pretty common among skydivers. I only had it to be really bad 3 times, one in the last jump of a pretty important event going higher than usual. In allergy season or if my nose is a bit congested, I already take a Sudafed (decongestant) preemptively. Just like we do with kids on commercial planes, chewing gum on the way up also helps preventing pain both on way up or down. Pain almost always comes around breakoff altitude for me for some reason. If it's just mild, sometimes just letting the saliva in will unblock your ears.

Check the multiple designs too. The icarus ones are the slowest ones to attach IMO, then PD. TST and latest Fluid Wings models are the fastest.

You can try to roll them before you stow or you can ask a rigger or the manufacturer to add collapsable strings to the detachable slider if it really bothers you. Have you done enough jumps with one? I find that I remove them and throw inside my jumpsuit quicker than I can colapse and stow on my back. Installing them back when I land does add 1 minute to the pack job though.

Hum =/, let's report a bug to the moderators. By the way, how are your numbers looking like? I'll try to get the max speeds up-high as well.

There are a good amount of samples here if you're interested on maximum speeds on a landing. if you just want to know maximum theoretical speeds (terminal speed), you can open high and spin several rotations to reach terminal, unfortunately that won't give you terminal speed at ground level due to air density. My max vertical on a turn now is 87mph, ~2.7 WL, Airwolf 75 sq ft, not using full RDS, 450 turn, dropzone at 1000ft MSL. (flysight file linked). 08-37-02 awesome 87.CSV 05-44-00 clean 86.CSV

I paid my 7 AFF jumps before doing any jumps, maybe I could not have liked it and lost money, but I was pretty sure I wanted to reach at least the clear to solo state and the DZ offered a free outside video for paying in full. I used it only on my 10th jump and it was one my favorite jumps ever to plan this 2 way with my previous instructor, way more fun than the AFF videos itself. DZs in North California usually offer you a return offer deal that you must buy on the same day for $100, close to half price. At least Skydive California and Skydance do.

I have put those 3 canopies on my rig: 1) Airwolf 75 with FT 30 on the Top Skin and Ribs (Hybrid type 1) 2) Helix 84 Hybrid (Ribs, Mini ribs and xbraces) (similar amount of sail as a hybrid VK) 3) VK 84 non-Hybrid "3" packs about a size smaller than "1" and "2". "1" and "2" pack about the same size.

There's a pro swooper on my DZ that does it for H&Ps, doesn't for freeflying and told me not to do it for freeflying if I decided to follow his technique. I'm not sure if he experienced the issue himself or not. Just the wind can be enough to "pull" your chest strap. Fast dives like belly angles can make this worse. Freeflying (beginner or advanced) has a lot of "unpredictable touching", complicated exits etc... I agree with the DZO here. On another note, it's usually a mistake to try to squeeze too many things on a single jump or try the maximum swooping performance on busy freefly loads, most people can't focus on everything at the same time. I used to jump a belly band and remove my chest strap on every load. I realized I was bringing my post-opening procedures lower than advisable (RDS, chest-strap etc...), now I only wear my belly band on hop n pop days. I'd say it's not worth to risk it.

Very nice! Not trying to be picky but at least one guy did a butt fly exit :P, so 8 way still my call out haha

You mean, successful one :P? A highly skilled group can likely pull off an 8 way chunk.

might help to think where your feet are instead of where your knees or legs are, there are hand signals for legs too wide, practice responding to it on the ground and your instructor should be able to correct you on the sky. Wide is tempting because it gives you more stability, but makes maneuvering harder.

Nice summary, also, a lot of the novelty is pushed by competitive skydiving, which is evaluated based on time, not altitude loss, so, falling faster, produces a competitive advantage since you can move faster in the wind and turn points faster (besides the precision). I'll be honest though, it does bother me when I can't fly head down in situations like a slower-speed hybrid, thinking about getting a baggier set of clothing to pull this kind of shit

The fastest way to close vertical distance is by assuming a vertical position (normally head down), if you exit presenting your belly instead, it will take longer to closer the vertical gap. You also want to consider the horizontal gap as well, if you exit head down, the prop blast won't help you close the horizontal distance. This might be different depending on how many people are getting out before you. Being able to spot the base as you leave the plane is also important. You also want to consider if you have the freefly skills necessary to do a headdown dive on a belly formation. You also want to consider that head down closing speeds on a belly formation has the potential to be dangerous. So, if you leave on your belly, by all means, I'd leave facing the tail, if you can leave on your head, the top of your head should be towards the nose. I'd be curious to hear more from people who have experience on both belly and head down big ways.

This weekend I put some work on my turn, only using fronts for the first 90 now. I planned out high on this one, but the curves (speed, dive angle etc) are pretty close to what I am aiming for. I'm flying an Airwolf 75 ~2.6 WL and 11-12 seconds also seems like the sweet spot. Now that I'm mostly happy with the shape I'll fine tune the initial altitude. It's interesting how you keep the vertical speed constant, even increasing a bit, after you finished your snap. My vertical speed starts dropping as soon as I finish my snap. 17-36-14.CSV

I think this thread went sideways. There are multiple levels of gear checks, your pre-jump routine is different from your routine when purchasing gear, from what your rigger would do while performing a repack, or after you had a bad landing that could have damaged the harness. If you're doing another video, I suggest you limit the scope of your gear check to what's expected of a sport jumper with their familiar gear, similar to what an AFF instructor is expected to perform on a student rental rig. Then make a comment like "Periodically and for any extraordinary situation, make sure to have a rigger of trust inspecting your gear"

Why not? That sounds smart

Thanks for sharing, nice turns! I've played with harness only VS double fronts turns a bit, but I only applied toggle surge on double fronts turns and went from full flight on harness only. If I read it right, you got +4mph on your max vert mostly by doing a stronger toggle surge and staying a couple seconds longer going straight on the top. (12 seconds turn instead of 10 seconds turn) The main thing I can tell that is different from my 450's is that my turn rate is faster after the first 90'. Last time I got coaching I was told to try to make the second 90' faster and slow it down again for the third 90, but I think I'm overdoing it given the numbers. I'll focus on keeping my turn rate below 50 (measured on gswoop) until the final snap, seems to be working well both for you and a local jumper.

up, looking for good 450s examples now :)