IJskonijn

That title is about 13.6 billion years wrong... But yeah, the science (and equipment) is sweet. And it's going to be even sweeter once the Square Kilometer Array is really up and running.

Easy, make the sign out of old F111 fabric (find an old canopy with enough white in it as background, and sew on the letters or whatever on top. Make sure to sew reinforcement on the edges (fold in the edges with reinforcement tape in between for example), otherwise the fabric will rip itself to shreds in freefall. I would imagine it won't add that much drag in freefall that you can't compensate for it, but since my last freefall was half a year ago (a pure necessity because my main refused to open), someone else might want to pitch in on that. On pull time, maybe ask a freeflyer that has experience flying with tubes on how to best handle that.

Pffffttt...flimsy details. Anyone can quit smoking and drinking. Height reduction surgery..... The plot sickens....... He jumped himself, and had such a hard opening that his height instantly reduced by 10 centimeters. From there on, he decided to make everyone else jump instead. Foolproof theory.

Here's my take on the baglock vs linedump discussion. Linedumps (sometimes caused by not stowing properly) hurt as hell, and have been known to kill people. On the other hand, if you have a baglock, you look up, see a ball of shit that's obviously not going any place nice soon, and you chop. No pain, no death, just a difficult search for the canopy (been there, done that, still haven't found it). If I have the feeling that my stows, especially the locking stows, are too weak, I'll double-stow them without sparing a second thought. Also: clickyfied: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nsca5add8g

Sweeping the cables is a solution to the wrong problem. The better solution is to take the time together with your rigger and adjust the cable length down to less than the travel length of your hand(s) when cutting away. Test that length, use whatever method of EPs you want (I personally have one hand on each handle, peel peel punch punch) and measure the maximum distance. For a two-hands-on-one-handle approach this distance will be shorter, since the reach of your opposite arm (left in case of the cutaway handle) will be shorter across your body. Then trim the cables down to where the length above the three-ring loop is less than that distance. That eliminates the need to waste precious seconds (and altitude) by sweeping the cables. On the original discussion, I'm in the don't throw away camp. I'll hang on to them unless I need to drop them, because they might fuck with my reserve deployment if I let go of them. For that reason I prefer the one-hand-per-handle EP procedure (also the one I learned from the beginning). The fact that I still have them when landing is a nice bonus.

For that particular scenario, the wind is very important. You have a much lower airspeed than the small home-sick bowling balls the other guys were flying. I'm going to make two assumptions here: 1. you were all dropped quite a bit upwind from the DZ. 2. your glide angle is exactly the same as their glide angle, and airspeed is the only difference. Now, you all experienced exactly the same wind speed (the gods of weather hate us all equally), but with your lower airspeed (and thus lower downward speed) you stayed up in that wind much longer. If the bowling balls were down in a minute, and you took five minutes, and we assume 15kn winds up at altitude, the winds pushed you a whopping 1852 meters further downwind! Glide angle has nothing to do with it. Wind has everything to do with it. Generally, higher airspeed means you're less affected by wind, but also less able to use it to your advantage.

Good on you for trying to find as much information as you can, but the internet can be a dangerous place in that regard. Much of the information randomly found is of rather poor quality, or from rather questionable sources. For some reasonably vetted material, check this thread in the Swooping & Canopy Control forum (don't let the Swooping discourage you, Canopy Control is vital for everyone with more than zero jumps in their logbook). A book I would especially recommend is The Parachute and its Pilot, by Brian Germain. As to your question regarding glide, that's not trivial to answer. Having the same exit weight will result in a higher wingloading for the 150 sqft canopy pilot, which will typically result in higher airspeed. However, that just means he's down faster, not necessarily further. Whether the glide is influenced is also dependent on the canopy designs and the actual wingloadings. Some canopies are of a design that doesn't really like high wingloading, and they really suffer in performance at very high wingloading. However, my gut feeling would be that due to reduced line drag on the 150 (smaller canopy = shorter lines), the 150 will have slightly better efficiency, and could glide a little bit further. However, these are second-order effects, and should NOT influence your canopy choice in whatever way. Pick a canopy that has handling characteristics (including forward speed, determined in large by your wingloading under the canopy), that you can handle when already deep in the shit (think low-pull, poor spot, crappy winds and landing in a tight field all at once). Also, your assumption of no winds is really limiting. There are almost always winds, and they always influence the options you have under canopy, both in terms of glide, and in terms of reachable area while flying upwind/downwind/crosswind/halfbraked/fullybraked/nobrake.

Obligatory Friday Freakout CRW is a bit strange in that respect. It is prime Friday Freakout-territory (been there, done that, even with other experienced CRW-dogs), but when done right, the result is absolutely fantastic!

There is no clear correlation between how elliptical a canopy is vs how it flies. For an interesting listen and view, check John LeBlanc's seminar on planforms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-mUyy1fhjE

Ouch, that's like saying you don't need a parachute to jump because you've got a perfectly good helmet. The only excuse for flying CRW with such canopies is if both of them are already rock-solid CRWdogs with a proven history of flying millimeter-perfect next to eachother. But in that case they should know better than to think a trailing pilot chute is the only risk.

That's going to cost a fortune to ship across the pond... =(

Yup, but its easier to stall a canopy on rears, and that tends to reduce your glide ratio rather drastically. And for many canopies, half-brakes is not the most optimal for extending glide when flying with the wind. But figuring out the very best way to extend the glide for your specific canopy and wingload is something I don't really expect of a 20-jump student. It is also something that takes a few jumps on that canopy and in different weather conditions to dial in. So yeah, finding a good landing spot is more important than squeezing every bit of glide out of your wing. Only recently I saw someone make the main landing DZ, flying downwind at ~100ft, and pound the ground when still trying to land against the wind. Had that person picked a field upwind to land in when still at 2000ft, the ambulance could've stayed home...

Although that works (as CRW-dog, I do it all the time if I need a bit more drive and forward speed relative to the formation), I would rather that a 20-jump student focusses on finding a good out-landing field, rather than try to make the main DZ no matter what. And the effect of toggles is indeed heavily dependent on the wind. If you are flying with the wind, flying half-brake will extend your glide relative to the ground by letting the wind carry you forward, while the exact same half-brake when flying against the wind will shorten your glide relative to the ground (and could easily push you backwards). If you use your brakes to let the wind push you back on final, be sure to let them up early enough. A parachute needs a bit of time to recover into full flight, and full flight gives you a good flare.

A two-out can also realistically occur at normal pull time, if the reserve pin is almost out of the loop and the shock of the main opening takes care of the last little bit. I'll agree that will be a pincheck fail, but two-outs don't happen because everything went perfectly fine. Still, I agree that a two-out downplane burns through your altitude like crazy, so there's not much time to make decisions.

Honestly, I fail to wrap my head around even the concept of a

It's certainly possible to make a contraption that allows you to pull down a huge tail. Pulleys are well known for being a force multiplier (at the cost of having to traverse greater length). However, basic physics still dictates that this is very unlikely to work. In order to stay aloft, you need to replenish the energy in your system (pilot + wing) that is lost. Energy is lost due to drag, and for typical skydivers this energy is taken out of the amount of potential energy available. That's why we generally go down, not up. Making such a thing viable means getting the energy loss below 400 watts, since that's about the limit of what a trained athlete can generate (for normal adults it is about 50 to 150 watts, according to Wikipedia). And this is still not talking at all about how to get that energy from your body into the pilot+wing system. To get to 400 watts energy loss, assuming the entire system weighs 100kg, you need a descend rate at or below 0.4 m/s. (E = m*g*h for potential energy) Let's look at paragliding wings, since they are among the most efficient non-fixed wings that I know of. The Wikipedia article on paragliding quotes glide ratios of 9.3 to 13 in extreme cases, and speeds from 20 km/h to 75km/h. Lets assume both the maximum glide ratio (13) and the minimum speed (20 km/h), since that will minimize the energy requirements. 20 km/h is 5.56 m/s, which at a glide ratio of 13 means 0.43 m/s downward speed. Sooo close, but not enough. And oops, we made some very far-fetched assumptions (100% efficiency in getting the energy you generate into the wing, a top athlete that doesn't get tired, a highly efficient wing flying at very slow speed to minimize energy loss from drag). To succeed, you will need to design a wing that is significantly more efficient than a paragliding wing. If you can do that, I'm sure there are quite a few paragliding (and parachuting) manufacturers that would be happy to hire you onto their design teams. However, as it stands, I see a brighter future for you as an animator.

And I still unfortunately see quite a few CRWdogs with tethers on their hook knives... Yes, losing the hook knife is a potential issue. Been there, done that (I still like to think there's an alligator in Florida somewhere with a headache because of my hook knife). The better solution is to carry multiple hook knives, so you have spares. And while you're at it, carry them at different positions. I have two in a pouch on my chest-strap, accessible from both sides, one on my right leg (sewn onto my jumpsuit) and one under the left mudflap. And when in doubt, remember the CRW-dog reason for carrying 10 hook knives. ^_^

Easy, there are other threads on this forum where you can go yell at people for wanting to jump with a camera. Or go to an actual dropzone. There's nothing wrong with taking future growth potential into account when searching for a helmet. I don't think helmets are purely a fashion statement, although looking at some people (and the prices of helmets) that may seem to be the case. In the old days (at least, as the stories are told by people older and wiser than I am), helmets where a student thing, to be ditched as soon as was allowed. Luckily, nowadays they are much more common, in part due to mandatory helmet use for certain disciplines. Here in the Netherlands, a hard helmet is required for freefly jumps. And even when helmets are just a plastic shell with some fabric liner, I agree that in any given situation having A helmet is much better than having NO helmet. On the other hand, having no helmet may make a person more careful, reducing their chance of getting into such a situation in the first place, so the net worth may not be beneficial. The easiest solution would be to require helmets that conform to some safety standard. An easy pick would be EN966, which is the EU safety standard for paragliding, hang gliding and ultralight helmets. In the meantime, I'm going to stick with my skate helmet for CRW, and I'll probably pick up a PG helmet when I start getting into canopy piloting. I don't do much freefall, so I have no real need for a freefall-proof helmet.

The economics of developing a crash-safe (defined by meeting applicable standards) helmets specifically for skydiving does not look good, indeed due to the small market. Let's turn the problem around: What helmets are out there in the world, used for other sports than skydiving, that meet some standards for crash safety (like EN 966, EN 1077 or EN 1078) and are suitable for skydiving use? I personally use a half-shell skate helmet that meets EN 1078. It is perfect for CRW, but not suited for freefall. The few times I took it to a longer delay than 2 seconds, it started rattling around on my head due to the high airspeed. And the fact that not all jumpers use the safest equipment available is eternal. We cannot change that, we can only try to educate as many as possible on what the best safety options are, and councel them to use it. Edit: A bit of google later, I've found something that's quite close to OP's initial request. http://www.icaro2000.com/Products/Helmets/SkyDive/SkyDive.htm. Anyone on these forums that have experience with this type of helmet? They say on the website it meets EN966.

https://www.actiefstoffen.nl/ https://www.aktivstoffe.de/ https://www.activefabrics.co.uk/ FTFY

That said, if I had to buy a jumpticket for every Dutch jumper who has a main that's on the limit of what he/she is allowed to jump, and a reserve that's quite a bit smaller (I've seen 190 mains and 160 reserves in one rig!), I'd be broke. I still fail to understand why people want small reserves... I'd guess there's a 50:50 chance of a >120 size reserve killing you if you fly it straight and level with toggles on half-brakes into the ground with no flare whatsoever. But what are the chances of that happening... /s

My personal experience with a baglocked cutaway (no tandem) is purely theoretical, as the canopy is still camping out in the Estonian woods. But based on loads of talk with riggers, I concluded that the baglocked main went down like a homesick bowlingball, especially relative to a freebag. I chopped at 13kft in 0-5kt winds at altitude. My freebag landed 1500m downwind of my approximate exit point, and I think my main landed at most 50-100m downwind of that exit point, in part because my pilot chute was the culprit (it never did its bloody job, hence the chop). Due to inaccuracy in the exit point, I've got an area of 100x300m where I think my main is. All trees with heavy undergrowth. So, if you're willing to go search for it, I still have a €200 bounty on its recovery =).

That canopy has room to rattle around in the freebag! Interesting that the Speed is so much smaller in pack volumes than other low-volume reserves. I assume it's either different fabric, different construction (less reinforcement tapes?) and/or different way of measuring size. If it's fabric, why aren't other manufacturers using it? If it's construction, what effect does it have on reliability? (unintentional reserve openings during freefly come to mind...). And how are sizes of canopies measured anyway? I know it differs from manufacturer to manufacturer, but can that really explains a massive size difference?

Because....cold. You can't grip anything very well with numb fingers. As a CRW-dog, I absolutely LOVE having blocks on my rears. But it has its downsides, for example more bulk on the riser. That may look ugly on packing, or worse, prevent you from properly closing the riser cover. Also, it might prevent pulling down the slider fully. For CRW, we don't care for the extra bulk, it's peanuts relative to the crap we put on our front risers, and the big-ass toggles we have anyway. And good gloves don't encumber you. If you can operate a zipper with the gloves on, they are good enough. As a matter of fact, having good grippy gloves can help during EP's, since you can get a better grip on cutaway pillows etc.

I'm using MaxiFlex gloves (clickety click). They provide excellent grip on risers & stuff, but they do tend to fall apart after a season or two. But for