Can your canopy be to big????

[jasonRose 0]

Just to clarify I am asking this question and am by no means an expert, although I do have a 100+ jumps which qualifies me right.****sarcasim***

I heard that to light of wing loading could have negative effects when setting up to land under brakes or trying to bleed off alti. With light wing loading the speed in which your canopy is able to fill back up with air, when releasing brakes, is reduced thus not allowing a full flair at landing.

Does this make sense?? It did when I was being explined this

Some day I will have the best staff in the world!!!

[PhreeZone 20]

BASE jumpers load their canopies at .7 or less almost every jump and they are doing the exact thing you are talking about. You might want to ask around there to see how light they have gone with out issues.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Reginald 0]

Lightly loaded canopies can cause problems that a jumper needs to understand and address. Highly loaded canopies can cause problems that jumpers need to understand and address. Medium loaded canopies can cause problems that jumpers need to understand and address. The appropriate loading of a particular make a canopy is dependent largely on what the jumper is trying to do with it. Is there a simple answer? No.

To answer your particular question. I’ll defer to a statement Scott Miller made in his most excellent canopy control class. And that is paraphrased as, “you should return your canopy to full flight for a full ten seconds before landing to assure the canopy is at full speed at landing to allow for a proper flair.”

So my question to you is why would you be in any sort of brakes low enough that you would not have sufficient speed to get a full flair? It sounds more like you had an issue flying the pattern and were compensating for it by overusing your brakes on final. A smaller canopy won’t help the fact that your pattern was the problem.

If I’m missing your point please let me know.

"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things." CP

[Ron 10]

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I heard that to light of wing loading could have negative effects when setting up to land under brakes or trying to bleed off alti. With light wing loading the speed in which your canopy is able to fill back up with air, when releasing brakes, is reduced thus not allowing a full flair at landing.

1. Load of crap.
2. Still a load of crap. One thing to consider anyway is that with a bigger canopy the flare is less critical. Also with a bigger canopy you can in fact land with half brakes up until flare....I have almost 1,000 jumps on accuracy canopies to back that up.
3. Its flare, not flair as in "7 pieces of flair"-Office Space

Reginald said it best...Every WL has things you need to know.

The only read "danger" of a high WL is high winds and penetration. Well, in most cases you should not be jumping in winds that are so high that it matters.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[CanuckInUSA 0]

I'm currently jumping as small as a Velocity 103 (swooping canopy) and as large as a Rock Draggon 303 (BASE canopy). These two canopies obviously behave differently, but they both fly and flare fine. Whoever told you about poor flare capabilities of large lightly loaded canopies doesn't know what they're talking about. My Rock Draggon 303 and Flik 293 (another BASE canopy I own) perform great and are faster than you'd think.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[canedraw4 0]

I found my spectre 170 much easier to fly than my pilot 188.

[tso-d_chris 0]

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Its flare, not flair as in "7 15 pieces of flair"-Office Space

[Reginald 0]

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Reginald said it best...Every WL has things you need to know.

Hmm, I'm going to take a screen shot of that one and hang it in my office!

"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things." CP

[ripcord4 0]

I jump an MT-1XX loaded at .63/1 and can routinely land it at half brakes. Be prepared to back up on windy days, however...not much penetration. I have had no problems with an extra-large canopy.

[Ron 10]

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Its flare, not flair as in "7 15 pieces of flair"-Office Space

I'd love to let you win that...But if I remember correctly the resturant boss was jumping on Aniston for only having 7 pieces.

But more flair is always better....Look at Brian, he has 15 pieces of flair.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[JohnMitchell 16]

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3. Its flare, not flair as in "7 pieces of flair"-Office Space

I think it was "14 pieces of flair." What's the matter? Don't you want to have more than just the minimum amount of flair?

[JohnMitchell 16]

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So my question to you is why would you be in any sort of brakes low enough that you would not have sufficient speed to get a full flair?

Shooting accuracy certainly comes to mind. Also, extremely tight demos and landing uot in dicey spots. I've done all 3 and enjoy having a few extra square feet over my head for those events. Big canopies are safer than small canopies.

[billvon 2,998]

>With light wing loading the speed in which your canopy is able to fill back
> up with air, when releasing brakes, is reduced thus not allowing a full flair
>at landing.

Nope. That sounds like one of those urban legends like the 45 degree rule that gets propagated because it 'sounds right.'

PD recommends keeping a loading of greater than .5, which is probably a good rule of thumb. I've jumped tandem canopies loaded about .4 to 1, and they weren't dangerous, but were painfully slow. On the other hand, I've jumped Stilettos loaded at about .9 to 1 and they were eerily unstable; I attribute that to light loadings on a flat-trim canopy that's intended to be loaded more heavily.

[Reginald 0]

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So my question to you is why would you be in any sort of brakes low enough that you would not have sufficient speed to get a full flair?

Shooting accuracy certainly comes to mind. Also, extremely tight demos and landing uot in dicey spots. I've done all 3 and enjoy having a few extra square feet over my head for those events. Big canopies are safer than small canopies.

Agreed. I didn’t think his question was particularly specific to accuracy landing, but more of a general everyday landing question. A good explanation for his question about “can big canopies be dangerous for braked landings” would be to go into detail on the typical size and make of an accuracy canopy and how it is flown. Personally, I don’t know enough about accuracy canopies to do this in a meaningful way.


In our student program we teach in detail a half-braked approach and landing, which is of course on the A-license card. It’s a good demonstration of why speed is important for flare. Nothing like thudding in once because you don’t get any lift on the bottom end to explain the importance of speed to lift conversion.

"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things." CP

[Ron 10]

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I don’t know enough about accuracy canopies to do this in a meaningful way.

A quick description....I think everyone shoudl learn this.

An accuracy approach (Which can be flown under ANY canopy) is an approach where you use the middle of the flight range as the normal (NOTE: that is *most* times the half brake position). This allows you to adjust your landing point by adding or reducing the brake input. But by being in the middle of the flight envelope you can go either way. If you are at full flight, or at full sink (Stall) you can only adjust one way.

The middle of the flight range of a given canopy can different based off of: Design, line lengths, twists in the steering lines, Shrink of the lines...ect.

But the half brake setting is the best place to start until you know the best setting.

From the middle of the control range you can adjust your touch down point in either direction the max amount.

If I have to land in a tight area:
I take my canopy to half brakes...From there I decide if I am going to over or undershoot my target area.

If I am going to undershoot, I go to 1/4 brakes to see if I am going to make it....If I am still not going to make it, I go to best glide (Which depending on the type/design/WL might be full flight, 1/4 brakes, rear risers...ect) and I look for an alternate landing site if possible. If I screwed up so bad as to be short and no way to make it I select the best place to crash and crash with my wings level. The best place my be a rooftop, pool..ect.

If I am going to overshoot I pull my brakes down to 3/4 and see if I can get back on target...If not I can sink my canopy, or make small *FLAT* turns to bring me back on target (This all depends on my canopy/wingload/winds/ ect. If I am under my big canopy...I'll sink it. If I am under a tiny eliptical, I'll make small turns.)

All the time I am trying to fly a "profile" that at the middle control range of the canopy has me landing at the point I want. That way if I am coming in short or long I can adjust. At full flight, or even best glide, you can not gain distance, only reduce. That limits my choices by half.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[tso-d_chris 0]

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Its flare, not flair as in "7 15 pieces of flair"-Office Space

I'd love to let you win that...But if I remember correctly the resturant boss was jumping on Aniston for only having 7 pieces.

But more flair is always better....Look at Brian, he has 15 pieces of flair.

Now I'm gonna have to watch that damn movie again. Damn you, Ron. I just trashed it off my local hard drive the day before you made that post.

"I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob."

For Great Deals on Gear

[Reginald 0]

Hey Ron, good description of a braked approach for accuracy. How about you elaborate on the effects on the flare at different levels of brake and maybe a little about the design of an accuracy canopy.

"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things." CP

[TomAiello 26]

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BASE jumpers load their canopies at .7 or less almost every jump and they are doing the exact thing you are talking about. You might want to ask around there to see how light they have gone with out issues.

.5 or less has really been no problem for me, in terms of canopy flight and recovery.

There are some slider down inflation issues that start to kick in at very low wingloadings, but many of them are greatly reduced by bottom skin inlets.

But for the flight, stall, and recovery issues that the original poster was asking about, it's my general opinion that bigger is better, not worse.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[Ron 10]

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Now I'm gonna have to watch that damn movie again. Damn you, Ron. I just trashed it off my local hard drive the day before you made that post

Makes ya wonder how I knew that huh?

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Ron 10]

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Hey Ron, good description of a braked approach for accuracy. How about you elaborate on the effects on the flare at different levels of brake and maybe a little about the design of an accuracy canopy.

That is much harder to do....Flare amount at different levels of brakes depends on canopy design and WL.

Accuracy canopies are normally 7 cells with low aspect ratios (aspect ratio is the ratio of the distance from end cell to end cell to the distance front to back).

The higher the aspect ratio the higher performance the canopy in most cases. For example:
Velocity 103 has an aspect ratio of 2.69:1
Stilleto 107 is 2.68:1
Sabre2 is 2.58:1
PD Reserve is 2.1:1

Other factors such as WL, line trim, cord, ect all effect performance as well (mainly speed). But in general, lower aspect ratios are less responsive turning.

Accuracy canopies are made to fly in half brakes...One important difference is they are sized larger since a bigger canopy flies and lands slower.

Some accuracy canopies have vents on the bottom that allow air not only to enter from the nose to keep the canopy inflated, but they also have vents on the bottom.

While you could fly a Stiletto 107 in at half brakes....Its gonna hurt.

So while the accuracy approach is a GREAT thing to learn...I would try to have a full speed approach to landing if possible under sport canopies.

But that does not mean you can't fly an accuracy approach until 100 feet or so and then let it fly.

*IMPORTANT* let the brakes up smoothly and slowly at an altitude that the canopy has time to recover. When you use brakes the canopy slows down. If you let the brakes up fast, the canopy will dive towards the ground to build speed...Thats bad folks. Practice this up high till you have an idea.

But if the options are smack into the ground at half brakes and PLF, or fly full speed into a tree....I'll half break and PLF thanks.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[jasonRose 0]

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So my question to you is why would you be in any sort of brakes low enough that you would not have sufficient speed to get a full flair? It sounds more like you had an issue flying the pattern and were compensating for it by overusing your brakes on final. A smaller canopy won’t help the fact that your pattern was the problem.

If I’m missing your point please let me know.

Thanks for the insight with your other posts I found them informative.

. I felt I must clarify on the above.. Currently I have no issues with my canopy and few issues with landing (everyone has room for improvement, right). Your assumption is wrong, a master rigger was explaining this to a friend of mine, of which she has a wing loading of .8:1

Some day I will have the best staff in the world!!!

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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So my question to you is why would you be in any sort of brakes low enough that you would not have sufficient speed to get a full flair?

I would never dream of doing this with one of my skydiving canopies, but I get better standup landings under either one of my monster BASE canopies by approaching in 1/2 brakes and finishing my flare from there. Of course this has a lot to do with the design of my BASE canopies as both are vented (which promote quick openings) and have valves (similar to airlocks) which allow the canopy to maintain it's pressurization and thus it's form while flying the canopy in deep brakes.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over