SVinRider

I went from a VC-79 to a VK-75. The VK compared to the VC Much better openings. More overall lift, even though smaller size. It's not groundbreaking like with the Peregrine but there is more. How much more - hard to tell. I am not flying it efficiently yet. It shuts down extremely well. Flies longer after you've transitioned to toggles. Much more willing to roll into a turn. I felt I had to force the VC to do what I wanted - with the VK I can be much more subtle and and I feel I have more control. I feel this is the biggest advantage - it is much more controllable. It's more prone to 'wobbling' from side to side if you're not smooth on your input. Mostly noticeable on poor water touches or on distance runs. If you do a lazy turn, the rears go all soft and there's nothing there. Get good power and there's a lot. Higher maximum vertical velocity. Should translate into higher horizontal velocity. I'm still getting used to the canopy so am not converting it efficiently yet. The lines wear extremely fast. I only did around 100 jumps on 300s and then they were worn out. Some attribute it to the slider rubbing on the lines just above the slinks. I grab the slider as quickly as possibly but the lines were toast after just under 100 jumps. Getting it relined is more expensive than for a Peregrine for some reason. Same as the VC, but you have to do it almost twice as often. As far as rollout altitude - not sure. I got the VK after the winter break and eased into it, so cannot tell compared to the VC. I guess I could do some VC jumps and find out now.

What size Velo? Comp or regular? Terminal or non terminal openings?

I visited DZDK last week - it's located in Herning, roughly in the middle of Jutland. The pond is as advertised. Perfectly rectangular. One direction only currently, much like the other Danish pond at NJFK. Edges are very good and there's some really nice round non sharp gravel to land in, generously deep. Water's clean and non smelly - for now :D

Better not do something that is bad practice and easily avoidable with a bit of training. You may think you're the only one in the air but it's not certain. There may be multiple passes. Maybe there are canopy pilots on the next load who're out at 5k under small highly loaded canopies, rapidly catching up with you. You may overlook the one person in the air with you, turn into his canopy and kill him. Canopy collisions kill a lot of good people.

The pros will be current no matter what, so for the top 10 it doesn't matter in that sense. I would like to hear the rationale behind the decision though as we have similarly early nationals. It's all of us plebeians with regular jobs who'll have to time vacations and overtime better. It's definitely doable to get decently up to speed but it's difficult to properly set up a training schedule. Bring what you got not what you want.

Stu told me every day is a special occasion for you :D

Not trying to stir the pot. I have some jumps on the Valkyrie-75 so I guess I have tried skydiving a little. I guess I better prove it so here's a video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkKvW5tEdM4 I am not that good of a canopy pilot and there are tons of things I need to correct. Still, these two jumps (zone acc and distance) show how much potential this canopy has. If someone like me can get these results, it kind of speaks for itself.

Never argued it wasn't. As I said in an earlier post, to each his own. Charlie can do whatever turn he wants as long as the only one he endangers is himself. He's a grown man and I am not the swoop police. I just have a natural curiosity as to why people do what they do. I might have missed out on something after all. I find power and control fun and enjoy when I max that out as well as I am capable. Charlie is more of a showman and there's room for both types in my world.

It creates a more complicated sight picture. I would postulate that if you take 100 swoopers, the majority will find altitude judgment easier on the traditional turn because of its simplicity and lighter mental load. You and Charlie might be exceptions but for the vast majority of swoopers keeping it simple is easier and more efficient. It's an interesting discussion with few hard facts. Some we now can establish (placement, speed) with the help of technology - others such as judging altitude are harder to get some good data on. We'd need some a proper control group and even so it'd be difficult to isolate just the variables we're looking at.

I'd love for that to happen. I remember the days when everyone said anything above a 270 was a waste. Technology changed and our knowledge and application of physics and aerodynamics has improved to give us 170 meter distance swoops. It would be interesting if you were proven right. Perhaps you could explain the advantages of this type of turn - because I with my limited knowledge see only drawbacks. It's harder to set up and to predict altitude loss compared to a traditional 450. In addition to that, it's more complicated visually and getting the pictures right will take longer. The change of direction will bleed, not gain energy. Targetting appears more complicated than a 450 or 630 due to the direction change. Maybe throw on a FlySigh GPS for your turn. I have a bunch of 630 degree turns on a Valkyrie-75 you can compare with. That way we have objective data to compare.

There's probably a reason no competitive swooper does a 180 one way followed by a 270 another. I can think of several, but to each his own I guess.