angryelf

Where? "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Enjoyed reading through this thread, appreciated the lack of flame throwing and got something out of the information posted. Thanks! "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

111, I don't think he was saying that loading the canopy made it descend slower. What he was trying to say was that the canopy's forward speed increased with more lead to the point of it outrunning the wingsuits, thereby defeating the purpose of adding weight to improve overlap of performance envelopes. I have personally loaded a VK 90 to the point where the WS'er was able to match descent rate easily, but was "pinning" the suit to keep up. I think everyone gets that higher wing loads generally equal faster descending/faster forward. (At some point loading will result in descent rates being unlandable/openings being uncontrollable/etc. I say "generally" because this discussion is pertaining to canopies being loaded in the neighborhood of 3:1 and 4:1 respectively. The question as it pertains to XRW is: whether or not the resulting glide ratio works for the Canopy and the WS? And what are reasonable ways to (somewhat objectively) predict compatibility of a Canopy and a WS? Thus far it seems like a Flysight graph of both the canopy and the WS would be a good starting place with out getting into some complex math or programming. "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

I appreciate the replies. Was at the DeLand camp as well and the difference in canopy design was huge. The engineering banter is pretty interesting, though admittedly a lot of it is over my head. It will be interesting to see how the discipline evolves. "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

XRW is going on at few places these days. Trim tabs from 4-5 years ago are pretty much gone in favor of super high wingloads as the "discipline" continues to progress. There seems to be two totally different ways of measuring compatibilty in regards to canopy size/WL vs WS model. Just for fun-what are the WS surface areas? Canopies are measured in surface area (ft or m squared) and wingloading is an ever present discussion as it pertains to the canopies. In contrast, the wingsuiters only seem to care about glide ratio, descent rate in mph or kph, etc. In short-is there common way to measure compatibility other than "so and so flew a X bird/C Race/ Whatever next to a VK/ Petra/Whatever with 43 lbs of lead and it worked so thats the standard..." Obviously there is a WS pilot and a Canopy pilot component to this. A marginal WS'er cant get max float needed and a marginal canopy pilot can't/shouldn't be risking the WL's necessary for XRW. And there will be a variance for every suit as it is scaled to the pilot making each suit a different size as measured in the usual manner prescribed for canopies... Lastly-is there even a crossover between canopy/WS size, or should the standard of measure be Glide ratio or descent rate dependant? Just throwing it out there.... -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Looks interesting... "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

PM sent "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Pac wing suit jumps are fine if: 1 you coordinate with the pilot and he flys plane tail high/90 Kts or less. 2 keep wings (all 3) closed on exit! 3 exit small and down. I like to barrel roll away as I step out. AAD is a good idea. Talk to the wingsuiters at your DZ. Don't die, have fun. Bigger suits def put you closer to the tail (my opinion), but they can be managed. "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Where? "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

PD Stock/RDS Sliders are same size (19" x 23"). Difference is the distance of grommets set in corner vs. rings being outside corners. Taking RDS to terminal is not recommended on a Velo, but it does work. Sometimes it hurts if the slider isn't perfectly placed during packing. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Great points, but risk acceptance/mitigation is not something that can be assessed in a purely linear fashion. My view is that to maintain the same level of risk whether at a "1" or at a "9" nearly always leads to death/injury; either through complacency OR in constant envelope pushing and finding the true limit of oneself or the environment. A model that has potential for more longevity (as in an athlete that performs at a high level AND lives past 30) involves "waves" of risk taking that are (occasionally) interspersed with "spikes" of risk. Basically-the athlete who wants to do a risky activity (climb a challenging mountain, open a new exit point or take an experimental skydive out of an airplane) builds up to the event. Training, currency and planning figure into his/her logical decision to take the risk to achieve the goal. He/she then dials it back, re-assesses and then trains for the next goal. The author brings up some good points for integrating two risk taking individuals' attitudes towards their pursuits in and outside of their relationship. Neat article!

https://vimeo.com/128783104[/url] Some openings/slider removal clips for those interested. Red slider/rings are mine-rings worked fine on other canopies (velo/pilot), not so hot on the VK. Yellow slider is a stock PD RDS slider. Jumps where you see harness input with big turns while fiddling with the slider or otherwise not 100% focused on traffic-was either the only canopy pilot in the air or I was a minimum of 1000 ft/ 300M below other wings. Obviously-big altitude losing turns in traffic are bad. The terminal jump you see at Raeford I immediately used a riser to turn back towards DZ, intentionally. IF you've ever jumped at Raeford you know it can be bad to open on the East side of the DZ. Canopy opens great at terminal and sub terminal. Jumps where I packed riser offsets, opened in horrible body positions I pretty much got exactly what I expected. Otherwise the wing opens soft, but relatively quickly and always within 20deg of heading. On the last opening you can see the right front riser group getting snagged for a second. I have had this 3 times, 2 terminal/1 sub. the ring is clean, I'm still not sure what is causing it. Either way it clears every time with rear risers. I have 35 jumps on 2 different VK 90's now: one with 300 Vectran and mine which has 500 Vectran. I have no idea how the stock slider behaves on the canopy as I have never jumped a VK with one. I can say that line diameter makes a huge difference in flight on the same wing. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

No idea how it is exactly where you're at-but I have seen this same issue here in the States... Had some "angle flyers"/tunnel rats get pissy with me because I asked a guy on the plane during taxi to thread his chest strap. His buddy looked at me, said: "He's leading our jump, I think he knows how to put his F@$&ing chest strap on!" My response was "cool, show me". I think it's a period of time that will pass, hopefully without too many fatalities. There will always be guys who think they are awesome because they are good at a sport that (really NO ONE) outside of the sport cares about. My recommendation is to ignore then for the most part. That's the hardest thing for a showoff to handle. Only time you can't is if they are putting you or others in danger. Then hit up the experienced jumpers at the DZ to reign em in if it needs to be done. -HFB "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

With the exception of the Katana and (maybe) some other canopies-most of PD's wings are designed to use a 19" x 23" slider. the material measurement is the same whether it is removable or not; how it reefs changes (a bit) when the rings/grommets are built into the corners of the slider or are outside of the slider. Which is why PD says no removables on canopies going to terminal... I put a home made removable slider on my VK 90 (from my VE 96) for the first 10 jumps. The rings (which I made) were an 1/8" smaller than PD slider grommets (I.D.). the slider would hang above the risers and flop all over the place. After multiple H&P's that took over 1000 ft to get control of the slider, I switched it out for a PD removable with larger I.D. rings. problem solved, slider comes down/stops on the risers and is easy to remove. The VK "slider flop" is a real thing. I think the flight profile/angle of attack/etc has something to do with it. That being said it is manageable. Like Ian said, rear riser inward pressure helps. Anybody out there on Peregrines/Petras/Leias experiencing this? -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Any word back from AAD on why your Vigil fired? -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

pm sent. "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Weak throw is an issue... As the BASE jumper, whose email you posted pointed out-anytime the bridle can get on the top skin of the Drogue/PC, bad stuff can happen. Drogues are different than PC's, They are bigger, the Bridle they are attached to is wider and lastly; they are anchored by the drogue release system (to the tandem pair). At the end of the day both PC's and Drogues ARE smaller parachutes... With that in mind-pretty much everyone who teaches packing to any audience at any level will teach VARIATIONS of 4 basic truths: 1) Lines in the center, fabric out. 2)Slider/Reefing system properly positioned. 3) line stows clean and organized to include locking stows. 4) container closed properly with bridle routed correctly. Whether it is a PC or a drogue-it is a small canopy. If you put any part of the mesh or the bridle on the top skin-you are essentially packing the "lines" on the outside of the canopy. Furthermore, by rolling any part of the top skin around lines on the top skin you are begging for a line over, with no "lines" you get a "bridle over." Add a big burble, low air speed, weak toss, more fabric, longer "bridle" (applicable in BASE/Tandem AND most modern WS set ups), etc. and you have a potential for knots or more correctly-hitches. (Basically, the bridle is set up for failure by being packed in the wrong place and then exponentially worsened by other variables sending the apex of the drogue tumbling through a ball of crap. The amount of material, fact that there is an "anchor" (tandem pair) takes it the point of totally cinching off. (My guess is that improperly folded skydiving PC's don't routinely fail in this manner because they produce enough drag to clear the curved pin and usually only induce a "slow" opening)... During my tandem course the course examiner talked at length about the importance of what I outlined above as a TI at the DZ had just had the "half hitched drogue, near terminal goat rope" happen to him. In his case he had a very capable camera man who captured the entire thing on his head. Best part of that video is the TI mouthing "are we good?"(because he knows they are accelerating and the video guy is head down) and the video guy shaking his head "NO!"... My opinion is that if you keep the bridle inside the mesh AND set the drogue with certainty (EDIT TO ADD) AND set the drogue into the relative wind-you will not have issues. Another side of the argument is that putting the bridle in constant contact with the mesh can increase the wear on said mesh unnecessarily; reducing drogue/PC life span. (Actually had a huge argument with a packer about this). My view is that drogues/PC's are designed to be replaceable components, they have a service life. Why would we put ourselves at risk for an emergency by trying to add 50 jumps to a pilot chute or drogue? Cheers, -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

what if you put pile in the main container, then have your pad backed with hook? "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

So if you're not putting the LCL through the guide ring on the (rear) riser, do you have to add a loop of material to the brake setting like those found on BASE rigs and Tandem brake settings to pull through the guide ring? Or are you still setting the brakes in the standard keeper? Or is your (third) riser length built to position that guide ring over the toggle setting on the rear riser? Seems to me you would be risking a toggle fire without the guide ring to lock the toggle when setting brakes using only the rear riser setting? "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

I've used 2-4 lbs for 3x5, i think upwards of 6 for the 6x10. My recommendation is build a weight bag that you can add/remove 2lb SOFT shot dive weights to. That way you can adjust the weight for various flags and avoid the dribbling of shot into your sewing machine trying to custom make weights. "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Contact Jay Stokes at CertificationsUnlimited.Com "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

https://vimeo.com/121626448 https://vimeo.com/121626447 Two links above to VK landings. One is POV, the other is outside. Light and variable conditions at 1500 ft MSL (Eloy). VK 90 Demo at 2.7 WL. Pretty nice wing, sad to send it back to PD. If someone wants to make the links clickies, feel free. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Might try the "dz" locator on here or the one on uspa.org... Other than that you've got Start in OH, Skydive Indy in Indianapolis and there used to be a Cessna DZ West of Kansas City (was right off of 70 as I recall, but it coulda been 40). Once you pass that there isn't much off of 70 till Denver except prairie and towns that are super proud of their astronauts... Have fun... "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Compared to Velo: Fronts are light and presure doesn't build anything like on a Velo. Harness inputs are more responsive than any canopy I've ever jumped. Recovery arc is on par w/ Velo, but it "feels" longer because your fronts are so much easier to crank down and you want to drop them and get on rears/toggles to level out. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Just put 4 jumps on a 90 at 2.7 WL. Pretty awesome! "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."