danielcroft

I'm by no means a CRW guy but I've jumped a regular Storm on demo for 5 or so jumps, didn't strike me as any steeper than anything else in the market (somewhere between a Sabre 2 and a Spectre) and the flare was great, no problem with landings. Never jumped a Lightning so can't compare.

I learnt daffy first but have since switched to hook as my default.

The problem is that there's no way to tell if the person asking the question is a DIGIT or just a "curious guy". People often take answers that are meant to be informational to be some form of approval for the action that the person decides they want to read. It's a lot safer to fill a thread with warning and cautionary tales and hope that the OP will actually talk to someone about it because saying they did doesn't mean anything. Personally I ask everyone I know stuff before I come to this forum and ask. The difference can be seen in the way the OP asks the question and the way they respond to negative comments. "Get coaching" is the same thing as telling a student who asks a question to talk to their instructor. The person on the ground not only will know the OP but will also be able to gauge their attitude as well as their understanding of the subject.

I feel like this thread would be more accurate if you guys all posted your wing loadings. JP, if you were loading your 88 @ 2.5, you'd still be loading your 120 @ 1.8, that's still a pretty feisty canopy.

Litigious is the word you're looking for. Is it the people or the legal system? Chicken or egg.

Your harness input will change between canopies and loadings. When you're on a lightly loaded canopy (like you are) you're not going to get a lot out of a harness turn. It's good to practice the techniques though as they're good habits. When people talk about "cleaning up your turns" what (I believe) they're talking about is "coordinated turns" which Brian Germain covers nicely in his book Parachute and its Pilot (http://www.amazon.com/Parachute-And-Its-Pilot-The/dp/0977627721). The idea is to use harness in addition to brakes when initiating a turn as it's more aerodynamically efficient. Doing solely a harness turn is considered an accelerated turn (at least that's my understanding). You should work on these things with someone local to you so that they can explain in person and make sure you're understanding what's going on. It's often the case, especially when we're new to something that our perspective is clouded and doesn't allow us to see what we're really doing. Talk to your instructors (if that 13 jumps is right). Canopy flight is a very rewarding part of this sport but, as I'm sure you know, not without its risks. Information is useful but should be treated with respect. Chat with your instructors and go from there.

There are solutions for that, there's an aluminum piece that people have screwed to their visor, personally I don't want that on my visor, would make flipping it up pretty awkward. Mchamp has it right, very good placement. I took my mount off a while back because I was doing a bunch of tunnel time, when I put it back on today, I put it too far forward. : (

I have a G2, the concept is the same. You mount it far enough back that you can open your visor and see without obstruction but far enough forward that you can use the camera without having hours of video of the front of your helmet.

Feet first break off seems like a really bad idea to me, you're going exactly to the space you can't see. How is that safe? How about a simple and slow 180 in place, clear airspace all around (including looking up) and then belly track away? I've done a couple of front loops to back tracks from (small) formations and, while they're a lot of fun, the control factor is going to be an issue. Clearly I'm not the greatest skydiver in the world so I know that others are better at this stuff than me but that doesn't make anyone immune from mistakes.

Glad they've finally done this! Now we see how hard it is to get a big head up record. HD is 108 right? I'd think that upright would take a while to get there.

Good plan Dave. : ) Wouldn't call you old though. ; )

GoPro just doesn't have the quality period. I use my CX150 when I actually want to get nice video. The GPHD (v1) has good HD video and the Hero2 has better video but doesn't match a real camera. Aside from that, I can get a hypeye and really good quality lens for me CX. I'd wear the CX all the time if I could get it on my full face (and not be super sketchy doing it).

I highly loaded canopy is not the solution to turbulence. A clear mind and a comfortable seat on the ground is.

That's not how I saw it. The person videoing's canopy was not facing away from the trees, the canopy was perpendicular to the trees meaning that the individual who had the collapse was flying into the wind (which was also perpendicular to the trees) when the collapse happened. Maybe i'm not remembering the video correctly but at no point did I feel like the wind was coming over the trees. If it were then this video (other than the unfortunate resulting injuries) is a non-event from which nothing except "holy crap turbulence is scary" can be learnt.

Not sure why you think the turbulence came from the trees to the side of the canopy, it was the right side that collapsed that was closest to the camera. Yeah, there was a discussion on the potential for splash turbulence or whatever you want to call it but I'm not sure why you'd think that was the case here. As for the video being taken down, I think given that someone was really seriously hurt, it's a tough call. The person who put it up was probably asked to take it down by friends/family of the injured jumper in which case, while I'd prefer we could look at it to learn, I can completely understand them wanting it taken down.

I was checking someone else's backpack while they were getting on the bus the other morning for gear issues. I've checked for my hackey more than once. I too like to try to track when it's windy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s91IY7z9xs We really need to get Swoop and Swoop 2 online somewhere, who owns the rights?

I caught that video on SoFPiDaRF before it was taken down. The person apparently suffered pretty serious injuries, I hope they make a full recovery. To me it looked as though the video was shot on a very high wind day. The videographer is kiting their canopy with no trouble and even used their rear risers to stall the canopy to the ground. My impression of the incident was that the gusty winds (you could hear gusts on the video pretty clearly) carried turbulence which caused a +75% frontal collapse of the right side of the person's canopy (which appeared to me to be semi-elliptical). It took a second for the canopy to re-inflate but when it did, it wasn't fully inflated at first which resulted in an off heading spiral into the ground. The person appeared to impact almost horizontally. Someone asked for 911 to be called straight away. Just because we could say that the wind was the likely culprit in this case, or that there are some trees off camera that were contributing turbulence doesn't mean that we can just sit back and say job done. We're participating in a sport where simple decisions can result in death and even when we do everything right, shit can still go wrong. Best wishes to jumper and family.

No it's not. You can go do the artistic events. I'm not saying our point is invalid, just that your analogy is.

Worst thing in that video was trying to catch the freebag IMO, otherwise I didn't have any issue with it. I also wondered why he released the toggles but I guess he was just trying to see if he could resolve the problem before cutting which is reasonable IMO.

Cool article, thanks for posting.

I'm only posting so I can follow the awesome thread. PULL THEM STRANGS!

I have one but don't really use it all that much. It's convenient if I really want to review something quick but for the most part I just need to remember to turn it off. If I were doing it again, I'd probably not have bought it.

We're not going to "save" people who can't help themselves, I get that. We either get on the slippery slope of banning part of our sport or we look at ways to improve our tools and training to mitigate the risk as much as possible. Fact is, it seems that the majority of swoop injuries in the recent past have been with more experienced jumpers, maybe a little beep in their ear could have made the difference? We all fight complacency, sometimes we lose.