proswooper

Just curious. When and where did you see this? How long ago? A production Velo or comp? Did it happen during a competition? What were the conditions? Thermals? Winds? Turbulence? Is it on video? Details please. A very similar incident happen to me at an FLCPA meet at Skydive the Farm on a standard Velo 96. Happened at 1200ft as I initiated the turn, was a mildly bumpy day. I recovered and landed the canopy. I put several hundred more jumps on that canopy and never had it happen again. Someone else jumped it on a new lineset and it happened again and now again several hundred jumps later, it hasn't happened again. Strange and I would say probably a turbulence issue both times.. who really knows. The Petra is still in the R&D stage and the few pilots using them understand that.

Peanut I am the new (to Skydive Alabama) DZO that has made the AAD rule FOR PEOPLE WITH LESS THAN 500JUMPS. You are not affected by the rule and I implemented it for safety reasons for the younger jumpers. when we took over the dropzone. At the same time we have committed hundreds of thousands of dollars towards increasing the fun jumper population by bringing in a faster bigger plane, building cabins for people to sleep in on the weekends, a tiki bar, new padded carpeted packing area just to mention a few. We are also working with the airport on trying to get heating, air and insulation in the hangar. You have a choice, but I hope this helps it.

Just to let everyone know we will be opening saturday officially, it is a diamond in the rough right now but slowly we are getting it together.

Thanks Ian Basically a small aircraft DZ aimed at keeping it simple, and safe for swoopers to do their thing! Swoopers tend to get the short end of the stick at any other DZ. Well if you want to swoop you can come to us and never have more than three or four other canopy pilots in the air with you at any given time, just like competition. We will have full time noodle courses set up and cheap hopnpops always. If people are willing to support the idea then we will also put in a Pond. The landing area is very smooth regardless, we also have drinks/snack shack, showers, pool, covered packing, and Free Camping. Hotels are just 4 miles away. Aircraft will be turbo 206 or a suped up 182 (not sure which i am bringing down from michigan just yet) and from Nov to Feb we will have a super otter (starting 2010)

We are going to be flying with as few as 3 people to make a load go so you do the math. We are keeping things small to cater to a small select group of people, swoopers. We also will be doing tandems but they will mostly be on saturdays. Tandems and swoopers only, hence : Swoopers Paradise.

Ok So we are opening a swoop oriented dropzone just outside of Orlando in Coleman, There will be either a turbo 206 or a suped up 182. either way the hop'n pops will be cheap. I am a swooper at heart and we want to make this the premier Canopy Piloting training Destination in the country so please come check us out, We will be opening pretty soon around the third week of this month. We plan to have full time IPC swoop courses set up and generally share the love in any way possible.

First impressions: comparison between sensei zp/x81 velo 79 and jvx 79 all without RDS and with 350lb hma. I put a few jumps on a zp81 and also a zpx 81. firstly the openings are very nice for a xbrace. I have jumped both canopies with camera equipment without a worry. my loading is 2.89. The front riser pressure is a little higher than a velo 79 and a little less than a JVX 79. The toggle pressure is solid making for very nice stopping power (easy to shut down). I would say definitely higher than jvx and similar to the velo. Recovery arc is shorter than a velo79 and very similar to a jvx 79. Speed times through the FAI course was faster than the JVX 79 and very similar to the velo (sometimes better sometimes worse). Distance. this canopy definitely went a little further than the standard velo for me. it is very comparable to the jvx, and I think with a full RDS it has competitive potential. Overall impression. I like the openings, the speed is nice, the distance is good but i would like to do the comparison with a full RDS on all canopies to get a better idea of any "hidden potential" All jumps were made over two days in similar conditions with all canopies in the same configuration with the same pilot: me. Remember flight characteristics are something that you have to get accustomed to no matter what you fly. they are not better or worse than something else just different. the best pilots are the ones that have mastered the flight characteristics of their particular canopy and therefore can put it where they need to, how they need to, when ever they need to. hope this helps.

Good jumps all day followed by big bonfires in the evening.

I had the pleasure of swimming (chowing) in this pond last year and it is awesome. for those US jumpers it is very similar to the mile high pond in shape and size .. .. and depth.

I dont like to say anything in these discussions for so many obvious reasons but making one general statement about a jvx's flight characteristics is missleading. the canopy comes in many different configurations each with very different flight characteristics. some stilleto like and some 'velo dive long' like. all publicly available. the flight characteristics do not scale with the sizes and the same configuration in a different size will produce a different flight characteristic. for example i had three 87s in different material, all typically went the same distances but all had extremely different front riser pressures and toggle pressures and recovery arcs. it was like flying three totally different canopies. so asking how the jvx compares to a velo is like asking how does an aerodyne canopy compare to the velo. naturally the response is which aerodyne canopy...but to make some general statements JVX ~the all sail in competition trim has a very long recovery arc very close to velo if not the same in my experience, however the ability to fly it low and use rear inputs to recover is great and can make a recovery arc seem short- this comes down to flying style- I liked to come out of the turn high and let it fly, Nick Batch for instance likes it low and dirty. more toggle pressure lighter front riser pressure than the other two models. ~the hybrid in competition trim has a very short recovery arc and agreed that this is super stilleto like. much heavier front riser pressure ~the all zp in competition trim is in the middle of the two as far as recovery arc and similar front pressure to the hybrid. They all have slightly different opening characteristics which again changes with the size you fly, some are really nice some are not so nice. I have found that the smaller sizes typically open nicely and the bigger ones (above 95sq ft) open more briskely. VELO has much lighter front riser pressure than all the JVXs i have ever jumped, and typically has a long recovery arc, similar to the all sail JVX in competition trim. The big separator tho is the raw stopping power of the velo. the JVX doesn't come close. I do prefer the velo openings to the jvx and the velo has consistent flight characteristics across the board. This is a testament to the company behind it doing the necessary R&D in the set available sizes. i have a lot of jumps on both and it is hard to say one dominates the other in performance. I have had record breaking runs on both. I do however have to say that if you want to be taken care of the only way to go is PD. these comparisons are assuming cascaded 350lb HMA and full RDS on all canopies.

thats not what your wife said!

kodiak is a squeeze with 14 people in it. doesn't climb nearly as well as a pac even though they advertise a similar climb rate. it will be a good improvement on a porter tho

Ok So the Beech99 is doing 9min to 15K!!! get over here and jump that thang!

There will be organisers, drinking, a super beech99, drinking, a caravan, drinking, two cessnas, drinking, free camping, oh and a little bit of drunkenness! bring a friend and do twice as many jumps! ( some of you are thinking 'now thats a bargain' :)

Pricket can handle anything. the other day i saw him running .. while holding a knife!!!!