p3h

Today I saw one very good canopy pilot from my DZ kiting a weird wing. It showed up that that was a speed wing and that guy speed flies a lot. He told me that speed flying can be an awesome tool for improving my canopy piloting skills and I should search for Speed Fly Soboba in Southern California, because apparently they have very good teachers, great mountain and good weather pretty much all year round. I found this on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-P9a-qje6M Anyone tried it yet or have been over there, because I'm planning to make a trip over there as it seems it's not only a good training but a lot of fun too. I've heard too that that some skydivers stops skydiving just to speed fly as you get more flying, more excitement and it's 5 times cheaper. Because to be honest, I find canopy flying more exciting than the free fall part.

Thanks guys!

Hi, I'm considering buying a Storm for wingsuiting and ideally I would like to load it between 1.5 - 1.7, which would correspond to Storm 120 or 107 as I'm 180lbs exit. I want to get some more swooping power and still have good on heading, forgiving openings. I jumped a Storm 150 with 1.2 WL during my first WS flight course and openings were straight on heading even though my body position sucked - when I switched to a Saffire2 139 afterwards, I got linetwists every time. Anyone wingsuiting a Storm with WL like that who could share their experiences? What WL / size I should be aiming for to get the best of it in both openings and swooping?

Hi, I'm considering buying a new Micron 310 - really love the magnetic risers and stowless bag. Is there anyone jumping a wingsuit in a Micron? Are there any issues with it? Because for some reason I can find opinions about other containers for WS jumps, but not for Micron, and the UPT rather don't associate itself with WS in any way like on their website with longer bridle, bigger PC, open corners mods available.

For those who asked why I'm asking about the riser strength - I just want to better understand and calculate which riser configuration would be more appropriate for any particular use - RW1 / RW7 rings in a standard riser configuration or RW1 / RW7 rings in a reversed riser with no grommet hole. There is lots of interesting info about this topic elsewhere and the conclusion I got are very interesting also. For example that the difference in the leverage between RW1 and RW7 rings is so huge, than especially for heavier jumpers it really can make a difference either in hard cutaway pull during high G forces experienced or a hard opening where the yellow cutaway cable would be pulled through the riser grommet. For example 200# guy experiencing 10G hard opening (and probably it could be even harder) receiving 90% of this force on one riser could get his yellow cable pulled through the grommet with RW7 mini rings. For skydiving it's not that of a big problem, but let say for base jumping it would be huge. So in the end especially with the RW7 mini rings the most common failure mode would be not a riser break as I would assume before, but rather yellow cable pull due to more than 60# force transferred to the yellow cable.

Type17 is 2500# rated and Type8 is 4000# and let say they will definitely break with more load than that. Does their breaking strength refers to the each tape or both together? So assuming the load will be distributed 50/50 to each tape, can I theoretically suspend 5000# on the Type17 and 8000# on the Type8?

How a rear riser stall differs from a braked stall? Rear riser stall seems to happen because of too big angle of attack which separates the airflow from the upper side of the wing so it cannot be diverted down at the end [reference „Understanding Flight” by Anderson & Eberhardt]. And it looks that way, as at first an airfoil still is pressurized, but want to „break” chord wise. So how the braked stall (by pulling toggles) works and how both differs, because from experience I can tell that they look differently (braked stall looks more like a butterfly where an airfoil breaks span wise and end cells want to touch themselves), so it seems for me that they work differently as well? It seems that when I pull toggles I increase drag in the tail section of a canopy, which in result pulls nose portion up increasing AoA. Also pulled toggles create drag via pulled fabric in the tail section which slows canopy's forward speed. So does the braked stall happen because: a) Airflow over the top skin separates from the wing and is not creating downwash at the end b) The AoA is so big that the nose inlets are too high angled to let the air in (the bottom skin blocks it) to keep cells pressurized c) Drag created by braked fabric in the tail and increased AoA (if increased AoA increase also drag which I don't know but it seems so) reduce canopy's airspeed so much, so there is less and less air coming into the cells to keep them pressurized. But why the center cell/cells seem to be better pressurized than the outer cells that are breaking to the inside? d) All of them together in some proportions e) Something else like the fact that brake lines are not placed in the center of the tail. For me it seems like the reason is that the pressure in the cells drops by either option B), option C) or both of them, and then when pressure drops, brake lines have enough power to pull end cells inward as they are connected only at the outer cells end. But at that time, canopy still has forward speed, just not enough pressure. So this stall which we see in a shape of a „butterfly” is just the begining of a stall as there is still air coming into cells, but once the airflow will be blocked to the inside of cells by increased AoA (by the bottom skin) or by zero airspeed created by increased drag/AoA, then a canopy will totally collapse. But which one is it? Would a headwind let a canopy to be pressurized longer, as it could inject itself into the cells even when a canopy brakes to zero airspeed, like when you kite a canopy on the ground in high wind? This is totally messed up for me at this point – and maybe the explanation is really simple? Your turn.

Hi, Let's say I'm on my final landing upwind, I'm close to the ground and I notice someone landing downwind head on to me. Am I thinking correctly that I should steer away with my rear riser and body (instead of a toggle) to prevent canopy from diving into the ground? And I should turn to the right as this gets the biggest probability that another person will turn to the right also, as everywhere (as far as I know) they teach that emergency turns like in cloud should in the right direction?

Hi, While I was ordering Infinity container I said that I want articulated harness (they only do rings on legstraps), cut in laterals and all the wingsuit mods so I could have good rig for freefly/wingsuit (I don't do WS yet) They responded that they do not recommend articulated harness or cut in laterals (one of them, don't remember now which one) for WS because they said that they had complaints of some sort from customers. This was forwarded to me by my dealer who had been told this by guys from infinity and I had to make a decision whether I want these options or not. Finally I took both these options mainly for freeflying but I'm still wondering why would cut in laterals or articulated harness be bad for WS (again I don't remember which option was not recommended for WS, it was either cut in laterals or articulated harness)?

Lines looked old but not extremely fuzzy, they weren't very slippery though as new lines are. The main question is whether it is possible that this problem comes from old lines and not from low w/l or design

Hi, I was testing two safires 2 - 189 and 169 (rental gear). My exit weight is 190lbs and on both of them I experienced slider hangups + end cell closures resulting in spin / line twists on openings (I made 15 jumps and had slider hangups on every one of them) Is it normal or this gear was in bad condition ? My friend was jumping the same safire 2 189 after me and had slider hangups as well I'm thinking about buying safire 2 over Pilot but if safire opens like that then buying it is out of question

Thanks for suggesting Travis, right now couple more people recommended him to me as well - I will try to catch him.

Hi, I'm looking to get some freefly coaching at Perris (currently for sitflying) - who should I look or ask for?