kieran_kearney

Thanks for this advice. I also have got into the habit of doing some spiralling, mainly to bleed altitude and the fun of it. I would make sure there were no other canopiesQuote close to me and never saw it as a safety issue. I will be more careful from now on. Also, in relation to wing loading. I have a wingloading of 1 on my Sabre 190. I was going to downsize to 170, but one of my instructors told me to hold off until I was completely confident with my canopy skills, and he also mentiopned that sooner or later I would land off, and maybe with minimal outs, so a nice big fat 190 would be the safest way to deal with such a situation. I repacked my 190 back into my rig on his advice and sure enough, 4 jumps later, on opening I found myself a long way from the DZ and very little outs, apart from a small patch of green surrounded by trees directly beneath me. I set myself up to land in this small patch and did a nice soft landing in the middle of the patch of green, which ironically turned out to be cemetary. I was glad I heeded the advice of my instructor. If I was flying the 170 I would have been coming in a lot faster into that patch of green, and my have done something stupid to avoid obstacles. I will fly my Sabre 190 for several more jumps and will ONLY downsize when my instructors and me are confident I can handle the added performance.