Downsizing 190 to 170?

[Ericmerica 0]

So i am going into my second season in skydiving and have a total of 35 jumps in the last year. I have been jumping a Spectre 190 or Sabre2 190 for the past ten jumps and have landed all of them. I have five more lands on a Sprectre 210 and I feel very comfortable landing a 190. When do you think would be an acceptable time to start jumping a 170? Oh and i weigh 175 pounds. Does any experienced jumper have an opinion? Thanks Eric

[AggieDave 6]

Your profile indicates that you jump at Mile-Hi. There are some incredible canopy pilots and canopy coaches there. They can watch you fly your canopy and help you make that decision much more accurately then anonymous persons on the internet.

If you weigh 175lbs, then your exit weight is around 200lbs. That puts your wingloading close to 1.2:1. While that may not be the end of the world for some, you must remember that jumping at a field elevation that you do many would equate that to similar to a downsize. I found that my canopy felt like it was one size smaller the times I jumped there.

The point and purpose is to state that you really should simply talk to the experienced canopy pilots at your DZ to help guide you.

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

[dragon2 2]

Do a search on here for Brian Germain's wingload chart, also for BillVon's list.

Basically (for your weight and presuming a dropzone at about sea level) a generic progression (you may want to jump BIGGER) would be: stay at the 1:1 wingloading you have now until you have 100 jumps then you can go to a wl of 1.1 (~180 sqft), up wl 1.2 (~165 sqft) after 200 jumps and so on, also make you you can land the canopy you're jumping in any conditions, wind or no wind, downwind, outlandings etc (see BillVonn's list) before downsizing. For the 170, I'd sure wait until 100-150 or the advised 200 jumps depending on your skills and confidence by then. Right now at 35 jumps you ain't seen nothing yet

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[riggerpaul 1]

(Sorry to repeat. Those other posts weren't there while I wrote this.)

Are you in any particular hurry?

You say you weigh 175. Is that in the shower, or out the aircraft door. If in the shower, you likely weigh more like 195 out the aircraft door.

I see you jump at Mile Hi. So, you have a field elevation of about 5000 feet.

What is your currency THIS SEASON? Are all of your jumps last season?

First guess - no, don't go to the 170 now.

Get current, and then, after they've seen how you are performing, talk to the instructors and S&TA at your dropzone.

You have a lot of stuff stacked against you - not a lot of jumps, (probably) not current, high elevation. What's the hurry?

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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So i am going into my second season in skydiving and have a total of 35 jumps in the last year. I have been jumping a Spectre 190 or Sabre2 190 for the past ten jumps and have landed all of them. I have five more lands on a Sprectre 210 and I feel very comfortable landing a 190. When do you think would be an acceptable time to start jumping a 170?

Perhaps three hundred jumps (at 5000 feet MSL density altitude on a cool day and 8000+ on a hot one, a 170 has the forward speed of something between a 135 and a 150) to build muscle memory and are comfortable with all of the survival skills on a 190, such as landing down-wind and cross-wind, landing up and down-hill, making low turns below 50', making post-plane-out turns, landing following a speed inducing maneuver with front risers, and having reasonable accuracy skills.

It's really easy to land parachutes straight ahead into a wide open field, even small ones but that's not the right way to judge things.

You need to be choosing your canopy for what happens when cute girls flash the pilot on sunset load so you have extra altitude, your climbout is delayed because your buddy got hypoxic and got his foot stuck on a seat belt, you have a bad spot, land out, don't see an obstacle in the low light until the last instant, and turn 90 degrees at 50 feet for a down-wind landing on an asphalt road.

Some people point out that canopy piloting skills vary; although unless you've made a habit out of out landings in bad conditions (in which case you should not be down-sizing due to poor judgement) no one can know whether you have mad skillz.

Lots of people got away with being overly aggressive and give you advice based on that, but they're not the ones who'll be visiting the orthopedic surgeon for hardware and bone grafts if things go wrong.

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Oh and i weigh 175 pounds. Does any experienced jumper have an opinion? Thanks Eric

Read Brian Germain's document and follow it

http://www.bigairsportz.com/pdf/bas-sizingchart.pdf

With turbine aircraft, 300 jumps can be just one or two years out of the decades you'll be skydiving. Don't be in a rush.

[davelepka 4]

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I have been jumping a Spectre 190 or Sabre2 190 for the past ten jumps

Just to put that into perspective, I consider ten jumps to be the metric for a 'full day' of skydiving. 8 jumps is means we got off early, and 12 jumps is working overtime, so you have the equivilant of one day's worth of jumps on that canopy.

To be fair, you're coming off the student gear, where you start with a 280ish canopy. In 30 jumps you have downsized 90 sq ft in canopy size, and that's prefectly normal, but now that you're at about a 1 to 1 wingloading, the pace of downsizing is going to come to a screeching halt.

Now you are at the point where you will need a minnimum of 75 or 100 jumps on one size to even be close to ready for the next, and that's if you're really, really good. It could take 150 or 200 if you turn out to be not so good, or take some time off from jumping (currency is king).

[virgin-burner 1]

u'll be fine! - wait, u're not a girl, u will die!

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
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