Palsson

Recently I was looking for a new canopy to by after approximately 1200 jumps on a Stiletto. The canopy characteristics I was looking for was exactly how the Katana was described in the commercial last winter. Therefore I borrowed a Katana this summer and did around twenty jumps. The flight characteristics where really nice and just what I was looking for but during my twenty jumps, I had one or maybe two good openings. A month later I got the opportunity to try a used Samurai in the same size as the Katana. The flight characteristics are maybe not exactly the same, but I cannot feel any big differences. They both have negative recovery arcs and the front riser pressure is light and so on. However, the openings are so good that I have never experienced something like this. My decision was easy and I bought the Samurai. I cannot stand crappy openings!

Normally I like to do 180 degree hookturn before landing but recently I have experimented with 540 degree front riser hooturns. However I can not really say it worked out so good. After the 540 front riser turn it is impossible to keep both front risers down to force the canopy to keep on diving if I started my turn to high. This makes it difficult to succeed and it also makes it more dangerous because I cannot start to high if I want the swoop. I'm not sure the 540 hookturn will give me a longer swoop, but the feeling when doing the turn cannot really be compared with the normal 180 degree turn. Does anyone have experience from hookturns like this? What is the best way to increase my control zone in the hookturn so the height where I start my hookturn is not that critical, i.e. I can start the turn high enough.