DaVinciflies

How did you arrive at these altitudes? Are you using a digital altimeter?

I think part of the problem here is the reluctance of more experienced jumpers to help new jumpers to start on the pathway to CP. "You're not ready for this, come back when you have xxx jumps" is part of the problem. It forces these younger jumpers to go out and try to figure things out by themselves. Bill Von's checklist is a better approach, I think. Rather than telling someone "You can't do this", it is better to say "OK - step one to swooping is flying a good pattern. Go and show me that you can land in the peas 5 times in a row", then maybe you move up to learning stalls and then to performance enveloping up high then straight in downwinders etc etc so that the young guy has something positive to work on. And it doesn't always have to be "find a canopy course"

PD are making custom sized Velos now?

It looks like she is flying in 1/2 or more brakes shortly before landing. She then lets up just before flaring. Essentially she caused the canopy to surge right before trying to get it to plane out. The lesson is let the canopy fly on final.

IMO I don't trust the Suunto to be accurate enough for flying a set-up. I frequently land and find my Suunto is +/- 50ft or more off since I left the ground.

You did the right thing. If you can* make your adjustments on final using the harness, then you avoiding putting the canopy into a recovery cycle which in turn retains your airspeed and gives you the best chance of a good landing. Good work, mate. *for emergency avoidance turns, this is not the best option.

Do you have data to show that Velos are less stable than other canopies? I have not flown one but the guys I know who do swear by them in less than favorable winds.

I am certainly not going to say yes or no to your question, but I will provide some information given to me by a PD rep. The Stiletto and Katana are both elliptical canopies, but they are very different in their flight characteristics. The Stiletto is not intended for pilots who are seriously into learning to swoop using modern techniques, whereas the Katana is. These two canopies are on different "progression paths". I believe that PD would recommend that if you want to go the swooping route from a Stiletto then your best route would be to downsize to a Sabre2 for one or more sizes and then transition to a Katana at the same size as the last Sabre2 you had. The reason behind this progression is to get you used to jumping canopies with increasingly long recovery arcs. I hope this is useful to you.

My argument that you will instantly downsize from a 150 to a 120 is exactly right according to your profile. Give me a good reason to fly a smaller reserve than your main. One good reason. That's all I ask. I'd say your judgement is demonstrably fucked up and your assertions in this thread are therefore best ignored. Well played.

Excellent.

so you're saying somebody going from a 139 to a 129 instead of a 119 is being too prudent and shouldnt worry that much about the downsize? ........ why rush a progression when you can stretch it out and maximize learning at each stage? Why then are you planning a 30 sq ft downsize (from a 150 to a 120 according to your profile) if you have a cutaway on your next jump? That's a much more serious downsize for a number of reasons.

Assuming this is done to limit the number of accidents caused by lower experience jumpers getting in over their head, 1.8 seems like a pretty high number. It seems to me that 1.5 might be a better limit. Still pretty sporty and more in line with Germain's chart (in that a D-license requires 500 jumps). I realize this is all theoretical, but unless we have a firm BSR proposal to vote on it is hard for me to know whether the answer is yes or no. I also realize that anyone can pluck numbers from the air, but 1.8 still seems very high to me.

That was my experience, too, and that of a couple of friends. Had some funky off heading openings with the 135. Never hard, in fact it was almost the opposite - it was like they took so long to inflate that any asymmetry could lead to significant yaw and a dive/turn. The story I heard was that during development the larger sizes didn't scale up to well and they tried 20 or more slider solutions to sort the openings out before arriving at the semi-mesh slider. PD released sizes up to and including the 120 initially and then added on 135, 150 and 170 at a later date, IIRC. Of course, others will say body position!!

I'm sorry this will never happen. First off I'm Persian, we are not big on the forgiving or forgetting those who have wronged us. Well then, you're fucked. Yep. If that's your attitude, you are fucked. I've never heard anything so pathetic. You are doing this for attention.

These things don't add up. I think there is some misunderstanding going on somewhere here. If he wants to jump these canopies in low/nil or downwind conditions there will be some running/sliding involved. I load my Katana 120 at 1.75.

Have you seen the free ones from PD. That's a good place to start.

If you're scared of landing, perhaps upsize for the first few jumps of the season on to something where flare technique is less critical. Personally, I have always found that the "muscle memory" for flaring comes right back first jump after a break with no issues.

My issue is that I don't think that is a safe assumption. Any "assumption" of skill level is fraught with risk. I believe we really need to have some way of assessing skill by demonstration. And yes, I realize the implications of this, but it would be the gold standard.

There it is. Slapping jump number restrictions on is not really helping the problem. Lots of pilots with 1200 jumps should not be anywhere near a 2.0 WL on an elliptical or x-brace. Proof of theory and practical application is the only sensible way to go IMO.

Hadn't that guy put over 2,000 jumps on a set of slinks? If so, a failure of maintenance rather than slink design, I would say.

No, no! I was just interested if it was a really new thing they had just introduced. It seems not.

When was your Katana manufactured, and what size is it? Mine (120) was built July 2011 and does not have them.

Can you expand on what you mean by "more forgiving"? Thanks! (genuine question BTW)

Not being able to find/operate your main handle is a total malfunction.

Try holding on to it with a pull-out. You'll have a fight on your hands!!