Kurbe105

True statement on the altitude. Without the pendulum effect of a bigger rotation the wing simply doesn't recover on its own with 2.3 wing loading. It's hard to see but my Neptune said 540' when I initiated the 90. 750' is probably the wheel house. It's crazy because 950' is my normal 270 altitude. You would win the bet. Not sure on the 'no riser' rule. Probably some bad incidents in the past. I have been told that DZO puts the squash on anything that might disrupt the well oiled tandem factory but that's hearsay coming from me. Thank you to those who have chimed in. I never mind embarrassing myself if it helps people learn and be safer.

The gloves seem to be the culprit since I couldn't recreate it without them on. The canopy you see was a packer who got out to do a hop n pop also and he dumped at 3k to try and beat me down. I opened at 5k and hung out in brakes. We communicated on the plane and were well aware of eachothers flight plan. I told him I would follow his pattern and stay behind him, which I did. Since I was behind him I stayed to the right and kept it wide to not crowd his line. Separation was well over 500'. I should have said minimum traffic instead of no traffic. Thank you for the feedback. The lashings I'm getting are worth knowing the cause. Hopefully this thread helps keep someone else safe even if people think I'm dangerous.

I agree. I never should have been there and won't ever go back. I didn't go in there sporting the full RDS being ridiculous and no one told me anything about a 'no riser' rule. I never even got a DZ briefing. He just took my money and said "15 minute call." I just knew he didn't allow more than a 90 onto final because of what I heard from other DZs. I did my thing thinking I was ok with a slow 90 after getting out on a low pass for 1 jump and I'd be on my way. Yes I was low, yes I carved out of it and yes I left quietly. Sorry if I offended you but thank you for your input. If I could remove this post I would. Obviously only one person has had any input about the snagged finger. Lesson learned.

Since you didn't ask what not to do here's a few quick notes... 1) I was taught to thrash the shit out of what I have before downsizing. Meaning, if you don't want to be one of those ass hats landing your hp canopy straight in with 1000+ skydives learn to fly something bigger until you're nailing 270s for at least 200-300 jumps. You should have been taught acceleration cycles and front riser turns under your Saphire 149 before going any smaller. If your coach doesn't know what acceleration and deceleration cycles are I would find a new coach. We've all been there and if you're gonna swoop, it's not "if you pound in but when and how hard." Trust me you want all the wing you can get over your head with the shortest recovery arc possible when it happens! 2) As far as the openings, focus on free flying for your next few hundred jumps or so. It will build your kinesthesia better than anything and you will answer your own question. Until then, I would shelf the katana and go back to the saphire. No need going smaller and faster if you're too scared to make what you have go fast. 3) Learn to carve under a bigger wing before downsizing. When you do find yourself ultra low(notice I said when not if), carve hard before you stab deep. I admit it's saved my femurs more than once. 4) Embrace your haters every true badass has them. I know a world champion canopy pilot who was doing front riser turns with 200 jumps on a Spinletto around 1.5 wing loading. We came from the same DZ and we both got yelled at a lot. He turned into an ace on that thing before going to a xbrace around 800 jumps. It's not impossible you just have to beat the odds with natural talent and proper technique.

Apparently I butt hurt some people pretty bad and that was never my intention. After more video review I noticed I rolled my hands under the steering line when I went for my front risers instead of over. I hurried the acceleration cycle because I knew I was getting low(right at 500') and went straight from brakes to fronts. This could have contributed by creating a loop with the excess brake line slack when I went to rears but I haven't pinpointed it for sure. I have a tendency to grab my rears high at the slinks also. Bottom line... I was a dumb ass who was fortunate enough to have the instincts to get myself out of it. Shit always happens when you're doing something you know you're not supposed to! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa0r00dHcf4

Yeah that's true kind of. But I'm being fully transparent in the hopes that it will keep me or someone else from having this same issue with a much worse outcome. I normally would never visit a DZ that doesn't allow HP landings and I didn't break any rules but sure was pushing the envelope. Slow 90 started above 500' after getting out on a low pass with no traffic in the pattern. They never said anything about a speed limit but I knew what I was planning when I asked if I could do a 90. I added those details because I felt super lucky I wasn't somewhere I could do my normal approach and had to keep it to a 90. Probably karma coming back at me? Anyway here's a picture of the stows...

I'm going to open this up since it's still a mystery to me. https://youtu.be/GWYf53lRR4w Has anyone ever heard of getting a finger tip caught in the steering line guide ring with gloves on as they transition from rear risers to toggles? I was visiting family out of town and the DZ only allowed 90 deg turns and no high performance landings. I was planning a hit and run! 90 deg turns not being my normal approach(270s are my comfort zone) I ended up about 20 feet low but a small carve in rears was all that was needed and no pucker factor yet. You can see the shadow in the video(easier in full HD) as I transitioned from rears to toggles. For approx 1 full second I was deep in right toggle as I was pulling my left hand(open grip, toggle only, pointer finger straight out) with just enough force to keep it flying level while wiggling my left pointer finger trying to get it free from the steering line guide ring. I kept the wing level and figured on letting the right toggle go back to full flight as the left side stalled(split second thought to not get body slammed and shatter my pelvis) and slide it out as best I could. I was planed out about 6 inches off the ground with my legs up and straight out as if I was low on a pond and trying to not chow. Something I picked up from TJ way back in the day! Fortunately my glove came loose before I got to the stall point and I got a nice pop of lift once I was deep in both toggles, almost making it back up to my feet. Pucker factor was HUGE by this point!!! No one on the ground was experienced enough to even spot what happened in the sequence. Just a bunch of wuffos and a local drunk watching the first load(who ran and told the DZO on me... dick!!!). All they saw and heard was me ripping through the landing area and I got asked to leave the DZ pretty quick for doing a high performance landing. It was a fun jump but the more I think about it the scarier it gets. Coming from a Velo 103, I wore those gloves on every high performance landing for at least the last 300 jumps but haven't worn them since. This was the 1 and only time it's ever happened and I still haven't figured out exactly how my finger got snagged. I was thinking maybe the brand new and really stiff HMA along with the brake stow being slack(from using rears not toggles) maybe had something to do with it?? The only difference in set up I have noticed is that NZA sets up the brake stows on the JVX in a double loop arrangement unlike PDs traditional finger trapped piece of extra line at the brake set point with the main line running all the way to the toggle. Juicy for sure!!! Feel free to share and criticize. I've dished out plenty so now it's time for my medicine. With winter time in the US and needing gloves again it may just save a broken pelvis!! https://youtu.be/GWYf53lRR4w

I'm sorry Charlie. This has gotten way out of hand. I didn't mean to be such a douche and attack you personally. The world would be a dull place with out you. I'm sorry again.

Be careful what you say when you name drop. Nick Batsch was very much emulating someone when he started breaking records, Jay Moledzki to be exact. I know because I was there in Lake Wales Dec 2005 when Nick, myself, and a few others trained for a week with him(don't get me started on acceleration and deceleration cycles). When we all left to go back to the grind after the holiday, Nick stayed behind to train with Jay for another week. Why? Because Jay was the best in the world at that time and that's who Nick wanted to be better than. After that it was hours of studying tape and working to perfect his body position through the corner. I specifically remember Jay putting the smack down on one of our buds because he was consistently coming close to a dynamic stall on rear risers while coming through the corner. That's what he was comfortable with but that's no reason for Jay to let it continue when he knew how dangerous it really was. Thanks to Jay's coaching and tough love our friend Robert was throwing down superman's a few months later. Charlie is Charlie and has always been able to get away with things others can't his entire life, some people are just like that. It's entertaining in a 'Ridiculousness' kind of way. That being said I'm the first to admit when I over state something. I did notice 1 for sure, maybe 2 swoops(couldn't tell from the shadow) in the first video where there was no toggle input until the very end and those swoops were very long and powerful. The majority however have quite a bit of toggle input before even planing out and this is just WRONG for the norm under a HP x-braced canopy.

You're either lying and aware of it or you believe what you're saying and are completely unaware of where you are in the controls during the dive. Either way it's scary!! Hook turns are a thing of the past. https://vimeo.com/123978145 If you keep arguing I'll keep picking apart your videos!! Nothing but stabage!!! In the toggles while the canopy is still vertical. I would honestly estimate about 350'-400' too low. Own it to earn respect or deny it to get none? I don't care... not my video

You don't get it Charlie... If your technique is so amazing why haven't you set any distance or speed world records? People come to this forum to learn how to be better canopy pilots over all sizes and wing loadings. You're acting like flying your canopy dangerously close to it's recovery limit on a consistent basis is cool. NOT COOL AT ALL!! I couldn't care less about your initiation non-sense and what direction you rotate, but you're coming out of it WAY TOO LOW and trying to justify it. Then when you can't justify it you turn into a man-child and make ludicrous remarks like the one I quoted above. If you want to be a bad influence, keep it at your DZ. I know old dogs don't learn knew tricks but I don't want younger jumpers thinking this is how Canopy Piloting has evolved as a discipline. Downright embarrassing

Would have been better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're an idiot but instead you opened it and removed all doubt!!! Better bump up that initiation altitude and train with some people who know what's up if you want to be competitive. Oh wait... competing requires wearing a hard helmet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkKtC0SVuNE In this video link I counted ZERO people who had to use toggles to get their canopy out of the dive. But they're just World Championship competitors so what would they know... In your videos I counted ZERO swoops where you didn't have to use your toggles to recover. There's a reason people get booted from comps for flying their shit like that! If you're honestly proud of your approach and these videos, it shows how very little respect you have for the wing you're flying Moderator if I'm out of line please feel free to remove this post but I'd bet it will probably stay in the interest of showing people what not to do

It's kills your acceleration and starts the deceleration phase while the canopy is still trying to dive and wants to accelerate. Even if you maintain the airspeed you've built, you stop accelerating and acceleration(not just speed) all the way through the corner is the 'golden key to the kingdom!!!' Thanks for stepping up and saying something Ian!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk1g2O1CUq8 Skip to the 4:00 mark and tell me where his hands go when he gets in the front risers ;)

If you really want to be a canopy pilot and an ambassador for the discipline, it's small minded people like this you must be more mature than. The evolution of swooping has separated us from the rest of the jumpers mainly for our own safety. There is absolutely no safe way to do a 270 deg turn from 900' in the main load traffic pattern. The obvious solution for a swoop friendly DZ IMO is anything more than 90 deg turn only be allowed on low passes. Professional canopy pilot coaching also helps silence the critics. Shows you're dedicated to flying your wing properly, you're not just trying to look cool. Now if the DZO is trying to protect people from themselves then he or she is just a control freak and I wouldn't want to jump there anyway!!!

Anyone ever use a GoPro mounted on the gates? You wouldn't know immediately but you could go back and review the tape to see if you broke the plane of the gates and then just delete the empty footage. I don't have a Black edition but if you can operate it with your phone then it can be turned on and off remotely. Just a thought to not spend $5k.

I've never used a swivel. The end of my lanyard is finger trapped with a locking stitch and hooked through the threaded locking ring on the end of my D-bag. It's a little bit of a pain to untwist each jump but no chance of a swivel breaking. I attached a pic from when I also learned not to stow the lanyard past the cascade. Not sure if that little tension knot would have caused a spinner but I'm glad I didn't find out. It was just an itchy feeling in my belly that made me open up the pack job.

If your RDS is giving you 'brisk' openings at terminal then maybe try another brand. I have a Chupacabra RDS and noticed that I actually get better openings with a 10-15 second delay under my Velo 103 compared to sub-terminal. Some people complain about the smallish stainless steel gromets getting hung up on their dive loops but I don't have any issues with them at all. Of course I'm not using those big gnarly crew dive loops and my risers are stiched giving zero interference with the gromets. Here's a link if you want to check them out. http://thrill-inc.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=59

I thought this would be pertinent to the thread. Here's a link to some excellent points Brian Germain makes about leaning forward in the harness I never even thought of. It has more to do with safety than performance but still very valid points to reinforce the body position! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU1mL3YLOIY

More than once an AAD has claimed a life instead of saving one. Let's not forget Adrian Nicholas. He was one of the great pioneers of freeflying and swooping in the sport. Godspeed my friend. You are not forgotten! http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=1834550;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Nicholas While swooping is definitely a black art, I don't believe in making anything more dangerous than it has to be. If you swoop a high performance canopy and have an AAD with good batteries installed in your rig(even if it's turned off), there is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS(do I need to stress ALWAYS anymore) a possibility that thing could malfunction and send a false electrical signal that ends everything for that jumper. Please don't confuse this with me saying AADs are dangerous for everyone. If you're a freefall junkie making conservative landings(anything less than 90deg approach even with front risers) then by all means the risk/reward makes sense. I do believe myself however, that if you're making high performance landings with rotations beyond 180deg it's well worth doing some soul searching and evaluating the risk/reward ratio of having an AAD for yourself. Going back to the original article for a minute, I also feel if a person jumps a small, highly loaded canopy without a hard helmet they are simply complacent, stupid and it's only a matter of time before natural selection weeds them out.

So you get the point not to mess with the slider. A good idea I do like is to route my risers outside the riser covers for hop-n-pops. It's less wear on the rig and gives me cleaner airflow for canopy piloting. It's simple to just stow them if needed in the plane or to put back in the gear bag.

Keep those pants in your gear bag so you don't stain up any other pairs! Tell people you're training to be a swooper when you slide it in. You're still at a light wingloading so you'll figure it out eventually without any major damage. No wind is just a milder version of downwind. When I decided to learn downwind landings at a 2:1 wingloading, I did nothing but crash for at least 25 jumps before I finally got it (and some of them were like gnarly downhill mountain bike crashes). There's a fine art to sliding in on all fours with your hands behind you and winding up on your feet at the end. Your toggles will pay the price with the green and brown stains but keeping your weight back and sliding is better than leaning too far forward and face planting followed by your heels hitting you in the back of the head! If you try to transition from a slide to a run too early you're done! If you jump out west or somewhere there's not smooth grass it's best to let your feet touch down in front of you like landing gear as you flare and just slide on your bum to save your hands. No points for standing up your landings, but if you walk away you can get on another load.

drop zone: noun an incestuous cesspool of broken and discarded people. Abbreviation: DZ You never breakup with your skydiving girlfriend... you just lose your turn

you either gained some serious weight, or got really bad at math during your break I got fat! I'm 225 out the door with no lead now. I put on about 30lbs. It's awesome. Now I can get up to almost 2.5:1 with my same weight belt from 6 years ago if I can fit it around my belly when the time comes!

I was in your exact situation last year. I had been out of the sport for 6 years after a plane crash and the last canopy I jumped was a JVX85 @2.2:1. No one at this new DZ knew me so they made me make my first jump back under a 220. Definitely overkill but they didn't know me so I understood. After that I put 1 jump on a Sabre 170, 2 jumps on a Sabre150 and then went back to my old Jedei105 for 8 jumps before finally settling under a Velo103 with a 2.1:1 wingloading(Don't judge me, the voices in my head said I'd be fine). I do have to say that I forgot how fast a 2:1 wingloading was and was glad to have 12 jumps under my belt before getting back under a x-brace and dealing with a full RDS. Obviously it didn't take long for the visuals and old routine to come back. It was only 7 more jumps under my Velo before I was back to doing 270 deg approaches from 700' but I also did nothing but hop-n-pops and focused solely on flying my wing. I still avoid canopy traffic like a hot girl at the DZ with HPV!!! Bottom line is do whatever your belly is comfortable with. No one knows what you're capable of better than you. I'll choose risky confidence over indecisive conservatism every time.