frost

"Exaggerate and trust yourself!" - Jay Mo. I believe that was the foundation of our guiding principles at SoFPiDaRF!

You shouldn't be. There is a hand full of people IN THE WORLD capable of doing that, even in a competition setting (with all the new canopies, RDS, weights and wingloadings). Your everyday Joe Swooper would be lucky to get 300 feet of swoop - on any given day, on any x-braced canopy, at any wingloading. Still shocked? Maybe you need to clearly state your requirements and questions. People are telling you that there are many great pilots who fly larger wings that can and have out swooped mediocre pilots under small high performance wings. If you havent seen that yet, well... look around, jump a little more, get some more knowledge and experience. Come back to this thread in 5 years, post what you've found out. But meanwhile, here is a personal invite for you and the like-minded to join SoFPiDaRF - the best canopy school in the world, where we tell you EXACTLY what you want to hear. Why? Cause you're a grown ass man and can make your own decisions. Nobody knows your skills better than you. SoFPiDaRF - School of Fast Progress in Downsizing and Radical Flying. Because nobody knows your skills better than you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy27ORjYBt4 A 270 swoop with a superman thrown in for a good count under a 9 cell Magellan 120 (equivalent of a Sabre-2) @ 2:1. While wearing a wingsuit (extra drag). The camera was set up to film the deployment, hence the unusual POV. Yes, you CAN outswoop a mediocre swooper on a tiny elliptical by learning how to fly a "normal" canopy well. It's been done many times before.

There are at least two large threads regarding the canopy downsize history with jump numbers. Why start a new one?

In comparison to running a couple 182s, the Otter would be significantly more expensive. Keep in mind that DZs run Otters for 3 reasons - lift capacity, high altitude capability, and speed. None of those are required for running hop n pops. I would imagine you could save an easy 25% to 30% off the price of jumps by running 182s. We were comparing costs Otter flying for a full altitude load vs Otter dropping 4 passes of swoopers. Going with a couple of 182s is a great solution. I dont think competitors would object at all, especially the ones stuck on the 3rd and 4th Otter pass and even more so if it brings the price of a competition/practice jump to 14 bucks. SoFPiDaRF - School of Fast Progress in Downsizing and Radical Flying. Because nobody knows your skills better than you.

Circle for 20 minutes at lower throttle or climb for 16-17? I dont know about "horribly expensive", Dave. I hear you on everything else, although i am not sure that these expenses really have come up in price that much in 6 years to justify doubling the costs of participating. Perhaps they did, i dont know. One thing for certain - it's not getting any cheaper and it's probably keeping some from participating. You have to pay your way, buy an official USPA suit and take off your sponsor logos to represent US at the World Meet. Shouldn't the organization provide some kind of support, even if partial?

is that what's causing incidents these days? Canopies with short recovery are to blame? You DONT have "a lot more altitude" to make decisions!! Dont suggest this to anyone new to swooping and dont post that on these forums. That's dangerous and deadly advice. But i do like it!! Wont you come join the School of Fast Progress in Downsizing and Radical Flying on Facebook? SoFPiDaRF - School of Fast Progress in Downsizing and Radical Flying. Because nobody knows your skills better than you.

I try to speak from personal experience, especially when giving advice. that's a hint ;) That is not true at all. I can point you to two people in CA for possible demos. PM me if interested.

i think that feedback and comparison of JVX opening and flight characteristics is questionable at best, especially when I read about its "dirty low and quick" recovery and then take into consideration the second part about Velocity characteristics. OP - bottom line: any current production x-braced canopy will perform required tasks very well, if you have the skills and ability to handle it. I would also throw in Scirocco for your consideration - a Ukrainian made HP X-baced canopy. Here is the discussion thread: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3908301. The cost of Scirocco in a competition trim is vey low compared to its counterparts, the quality is very high and performance is world class. You could demo it in several sized the States these days - there are several top US pilots (sponsored and non-sponsored) that are jumping it now.

Yes, i agree - he was a bit behind the power curve, but i think he learned his lessons, so let's just move on. Those lessons of course are: "Get a smaller canopy", "Add more rotation" and of course the most important one: "Trust your rears". SoFPiDaRF - School of Fast Progress in Downsizing and Radical Flying. Because nobody knows your skills better than you.

Doing the superman in the harness on the pop up was fun three years ago when there were one or two people doing it. I also thought it helped a tiny bit plus it was different and I was trying something new. But we all have seen world record distance runs with non of that body language (Wuzi Wagner, Jay, JT, GW) so i think we can agree that there is little benefit to doing the superman in the harness, if any.

I think we can and will, Dave. Everything goes in cycles, you've been at it long enough to have seen it. Ultra small canopies got bigger, then smaller again, back to bigger... RW, Freefly, vRW... JT was saying on the IPC facebook group about something along the lines of "those who've been swooping since the beginning" - dude, he is like 3rd or 4th generation and we are 5th or 6th. Swooping was swooping when there were no x-braced canopies and way before most current "old school" competitors made their first skydive. I bet people like Chuck can tell us all about it. Soon enough, i think, people will get tired of CPC and RPSN/freestyle type events will make a come back. I may be wrong, but i sure do hope it happens.

Marcus Antebi, the legendary media janitor. He is on Facebook and the Swoop videos are on youtube, protected though. Shoot him a message.

Chuck. I was thinking of you as i was writing that :) Morris, of course. We do what we like to do and if we dont like it - hopefully we dont have to do it ;) My points were two fold: 1 - unfortunately some of the modern day pilots have no idea what it's like to be in a fun competition like the old RPSN. CPC/PST style events is all they know... 2 - there should be a choice and if someone (especially an organizer) is not liking the current rules - nothing is stopping them from changing them and running a comp how they see fit.

Well, here is the first hand account about the new rules and safety. Anyone who knows anything knows that Al knows everything there is to know about shrimpin bidnez running a comp. http://swoopleague.com/