Flying in Breaks

[Thedivingdog 0]

If you opened very far from the LZ and wanted to maximize your chances of getting back how should you apply your breaks?

[JohnnyMarko 1]

Que canopy?

[AggieDave 6]

Your brakes should be applied somewhere between full flight and a stall. Your body position can help. Use the "accuracy spot" to locate the best glide to achieve your desired distance across the ground.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Thedivingdog 0]

I have a pd170. 1/4,1/2?. How would you position your body?

[AggieDave 6]

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I have a pd170. 1/4,1/2?. How would you position your body?

An actual PD170, the F111 9-cell or is it something like a Sabre?

Your body position under canopy is much like your body position in freefall. If you tuck up in a ball you have less drag and will go faster. Less drag means you will go further as well.

If you get the chance to do some no-contact proximity flying, then you can play with this concept to move in front of and behind another canopy relatively on the horizontal plane.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[DBCOOPER 5]

Brakes won't help you if you down wind, only if your up wind.

Replying to: Re: Stall On Jump Run Emergency Procedure? by billvon

If the plane is unrecoverable then exiting is a very very good idea.

[Divalent 145]

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... how should you apply your breaks?

According to all I've read, it depends on whether you are upwind or downwind, and how high the winds are. If upwind in a stiff wind, deep brakes can slow your descent and allow you to get carried along by the winds. But if you are downwind, brakes will likely make your position worse, giving you a steeper descent angle. In that case, depending on the headwind speed and your canopy, rear risers may help.

Regardless of wind speed and direction, you do want to reduce your body's drag by reducing your surface area.

[Thedivingdog 0]

Cool. It's an old school f1-11. It's old, but it's cheap, and it works.

[flashvortx 0]

If you have a nice upper wind pushing you towards the landing area, then you want to take advantage of those winds as long as possible by staying in them for as long as possible. That is when you would use your breaks, since they slow your decent. The stiffer the winds, the deeper into breaks I go.

If you are downwind from the landing area, then you want to make your canopy fly as efficiently as possible, and a good way to do that is with some rear riser input. This is something you'll get a feel for. I think I pull down maybe 4 inches or so, but you'll get to a point where it feels like the canopy is penetrating the air better. I'll usually tuck my legs behind me too to cut down on a bit of drag and get myself an extra few feet.

You can also make your canopy fly more efficiently by loosening your chest strap once you've done your controllability check. Doing so will plane out the canopy a little and let it fly closer the shape of an airplane wing. You may need to pull your slider down to your shoulders for it to work best, but I don't pull mine down and I do notice a difference. And don't remove then chest strap, just loosen it.

Brian Germain's book "The Parachute and its Pilot" is a good read.

[rehmwa 2]

exactly what did you break and how broken is it?

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[BrokenR1 0]

Trying to fly something that breaks does not sound fun.

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Rap is to music what etch-a-sketch is to art.

[TSISK 0]

Break... to separate into parts with suddenness or violence

Brake... something used to slow down or stop movement or activity

[thrillstalker 0]

loosen your chest strap and bring your slider all the way down to your neck. bring your legs up towards your chest to decrease surface area thus decreasing drag.

each canopy is different so you just kinda have to find the sweet spot on yours for the toggles or rear risers.

a high hop n pop is a good way to figure this out

"Never grow a wishbone, where your backbone ought to be."

[shah269 0]

Dumb question. I've utilized deep brakes to "hold" waiting for others to land while doing so I appeared to loose very little altitude. I'm on a 260 navigator student rig. How is this possible? How is the wing generating any lift?

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[airtwardo 7]

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exactly what did you break and how broken is it?

Yeah...for a minute I thought it was another Femur/Swooper thread!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[mjosparky 4]

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You can also make your canopy fly more efficiently by loosening your chest strap once you've done your controllability check. Doing so will plane out the canopy a little and let it fly closer the shape of an airplane wing. You may need to pull your slider down to your shoulders for it to work best, but I don't pull mine down and I do notice a difference. And don't remove then chest strap, just loosen it.

As long as you have a slider on the canopy will only spread out as far as the slider allows. By pulling down to the bottom of the risers it will allow the risers spread out but loosing the chest strap will not make any difference. You must remove the slider of have a split slider for it to get wider down to the chest strap.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[FlyingRadio 0]

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Dumb question. I've utilized deep brakes to "hold" waiting for others to land while doing so I appeared to loose very little altitude. I'm on a 260 navigator student rig. How is this possible? How is the wing generating any lift?

Far from a dumb question, this gets into some operational fundamentals of flying a canopy. Your canopy is always generating lift (this is what keeps you from falling out of the sky) and you can change how much lift is generated by using control inputs, namely toggles and rear risers.

The further you go into brakes, the more your canopy levels out relative to the horizon. This slows your fall rate down, allowing you to stay airborne longer. You can use this for vertical separation from other canopies, or simply to enjoy a nice view for longer.

Going into braked flight also means you're exposing the canopy to the winds at altitude for longer, and this is what can get you back from a long spot (with a tailwind) by "riding" out the wind for a longer period of time. Rear risers work similarly, and various canopy types and sizes have a slightly different ideal amount of brakes or risers to hold to get the most distance. You can try out different amounts of brakes (half, 3/4, nearly full brakes) up high to get a feel for how this changes the flight.

For the opposite effect, pulling on front risers will decrease lift by pitching the canopy down relative to the horizon (a dive,) resulting in increased speed and descent rate. So will turns and spins.

It's also a good idea to know what the stalling point of your canopy is with both toggles and rear risers. Eventually, if you hold both toggles down far enough, the canopy will deform and stall. Doing this up high (well above 2500') will let you know how far you can hold brakes safely without stalling the canopy. It's also a useful thing to know if you have a bad approach and need every bit of flare you can get; the last thing you want on your final approach is a canopy stall at 12'. Just remember to let the toggles back slowly if you try this (best might be to talk to an instructor to get some of these tips if you haven't done this before.)

--
Radio

[quade 4]

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The further you go into brakes, the more your canopy levels out relative to the horizon. This slows your fall rate down, allowing you to stay airborne longer.

No. This is simply untrue.

I'm talking about sustained flight and not dynamic flight such as flaring to land.

The absolute least descent rate that a canopy can maintain will be at the highest lift over drag. This is where the highest amount of lift is being produced for the lowest amount of drag.

This usually happens with application of rear risers. However, this is also tiring and not as precise because the rear risers have a great amount of effect for a small amount of input.

Brakes are normally used for sustained periods when a person wants to delay landing because it's easier to control. The tradeoff though is you are also increasing the amount of drag the canopy makes.

Up to a certain point, this is an acceptable trade off. For me this would be holding brakes at about ear level.

Beyond that cross over point you're actually creating far more drag than lift and you're actually descending faster than if you had simply done nothing at all and left the parachute in full flight.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[millertime24 8]

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If you opened very far from the LZ and wanted to maximize your chances of getting back how should you apply your breaks?

A good start would be to ask your local instructors/H/P canopy pilots. Asking for advice on this website is sort of like pissing in the wind.... It's a great relief, but you usually end up having gained nothing but useless garbage.

Muff #5048

[airtwardo 7]

For me this would be holding brakes at about ear level.

Same here, in fact what I do is hold the toggles in two fingers and stick my thumbs under the MLW at the highest point, you have control but it doesn't tax any strength keeping them down...when you're old and outta shape, that matters!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[solodude59 0]

hehe....'breaks'

In freefall, you have the rest of your life to figure out what's wrong. -Joe, AFF Instructor

[pchapman 279]

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The absolute least descent rate that a canopy can maintain will be at the highest lift over drag.

Whoops, highest L over D is best glide angle (through the air mass). Lowest descent rate will be slightly slower on the drag polar. Although on a slow draggy vehicle the two points will be very close.

As for the question by shah, the simple answer is that it just works out that the lowest descent rate is in fairly deep brakes. Curving the back of the air foil a lot, with brakes, allows it to create more lift at a slower speed, but also more drag. A wing is efficient at deflecting air down from its original path around the wing, creating lots of lift per unit drag.

The equilibrium condition will be slower flight. Even if the angle of descent is a little steeper than at the most efficient case, you're still slow enough that the overall descent rate is lower than at any other time.