eeva

yes, having a collapsible pilot does make a lot of difference. I've recently replaced mine with a collapsible one, and even on my Merit 190, I've noticed much improvement in making turns, flying in turbulent winds and especially when flaring. Grtz, eva I live not in dreams, but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future - R.M.Rilke

Something that made a lot of difference for me in flying and landing my canopy, is getting a different pilot chute. I used to have a pretty large one, that was not collapsible, without a kill-line or bungee... Since I've got a smaller PC with kill-line, my chute flies much smoother, and I finally feel something happen when I flare.

If you are ever in The Netherlands, try visiting PCMN, a small dropzone about half an hour driving from Amsterdam. We've got a 206 and a 182, and a very open and friendly atmosphere. What I especially like, is that it's not a commerical dropzone; everybody who works there, does so voluntarily. No one is getting payed for anything, everybody just contributes a bit. And being the home-dropzone of some of the Dutch leading teams in FS4 and freeflying, it all seems to work out well

To all you alcoholics out there: yes, I've bought my beer Last week I've been to my first free-fly boogie: Headddown over Spa. I really had a good time overthere, even inspite of the terribly cold nights I've been spending in my tent. I really enjoyed my first 6 en 7 ways, where it turned out that I'm pretty good as a base, being able to just 'freeze' in my sit, and falling pretty fast (according to the happy headdowners). Not moving around in my sit is one thing, moving in a planned direction for a planned distance turnes out to be quite another thing: when trying to move forward, I tend to go up more than in any horizontal direction. Think I just need to push my legs in to keep the speed up. I'll just keep on trying, I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually