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pyrodude

Rear Riser Landings

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I have a question that's been bouncing around in my noodle for a couple months. Let's say a skydiver with only a modest number of jumps pulls and deploys a lightly loaded canopy without incident.
It's there and square and flying straight. Upon unstowing the brake lines he discovers a knot that precludes flaring on the one side. He's now at 4K. What would be the problem with flying to the LZ and landing with rear risers as opposed to chopping?

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Been there, done that and Tara's right.

The exact thing happened to me down in Spaceland last year. I had to wrap the opposite brakeline around my hand to even them out, then steer with my rear risers. I was pretty close to the stall point and only kept it because I knew I could control it well enough to land (with a PLF). If I thought I would have to make more radical corrections, such as avoiding traffic or landing off, I would have definitely chopped it.

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...I had to wrap the opposite brakeline around my hand to even them out, then steer with my rear risers. I was pretty close to the stall point and only kept it because I knew I could control it well enough to land (with a PLF). If I thought I would have to make more radical corrections, such as avoiding traffic or landing off, I would have definitely chopped it.


Why not to cut the knoted line and get the main with almost full speed/control range?
Why drink and drive, if you can smoke and fly?

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Why don't you ask you instructor if you can do a couple of practice rear riser turns and flares on your next jump (don't be discouraged if he has it a little later on the agenda). I teach rear riser flares as an option on my first jump course and have had a first jumper do so. He stood the landing up at 3000' ASL.

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I tried a rear riser landing a few weeks ago, I was so focused on flaring at the right time that I didn't notice I was holding the rear risers halfway below the top. So when I went to flare....I only got about half as much flare as I wanted, causing me to have a somewhat hard landing. Luckily my wingloading is only about .75 so my descent rate is already pretty slow, but not slow enough to stand up a landing without flaring.

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To expand on what Bigun and tetra316 said...

Bigun is right in that it's really not that big of a deal. IF...you know where your rear riser stall point is so that you don't exceed it on landing.

It's not going to flare like toggle flares do but it does plane out nicely and it generally will be somewhat faster.

Personally, I'm reluctant to advise AFF students to land on rears until they get to find that stall point up high and get to practice the rear flare without stalling the canopy. I do get them to do rear flares up high during AFF canopy training with an eye towards finding that stall point.
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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A couple of years ago an experienced jumper tried that and stalled the canopy on landing. He's now sitting in a wheel-chair...

I know the stall point of my canopy on rear risers and do rear-risers landing regularly (switching to toggles at the end).

I'd chop it. If I couldn't chop (like the jumper mentioned above - he had the habit of not releasing the brakes until 100ft - bad!), I'd at least cut both steering lines.

Klaus
My Logbook

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It could be done, but you must be very careful when flaring with the risers like that. Don't screw up, or this could happen:
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2909720;#2909720

Read the post from [tdog], #15 in that thread. In that injury, it was a breakfire instead of a knot like you are suggesting, but it is still a loss of control on one side. His adivce is very relevant to your question.

Edit: specifically, I am talking about the second to last paragraph in his post. Best to read the whole thread to get the whole picture.

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You, popsjumper and the rest are correct about the stall point and I should have extended my answer or followed my own advice about not answering these kinds of questions on the net or pointing them to their Instructor and for that I apologize.
Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

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AFF students at my dropzone are taught that if a steering line breaks they can use the rear risers to steer and flare. The fact of the matter is, if that's the only problem with the canopy its a lot better than maybe having the reserve not work. The canopies are so big that even w/o any flare at all it's way more survivable than going to the reserve and having it malfunction, the student screwing up the emergency procedures or the RSL/AAD failing. At least that is my understanding of why we teach it that way.

FWIW, if it happened to me personally, I would land it. I have a lot of landings on just rears. I'm a swooper though so, that answer won't work for everyone!
~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

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That happened to me when I was at about 60 jumps, demoing a new canopy at a boogie. One riser was twisted during hook-up so every time I flared I started swinging like a pendulum. I did some practice flares on the rears up high and determined that I could land it like that, and did, without incident. I don't see anything wrong with landing on your rears in this situation, as long as you are aware of the stall point. And be prepared to PLF!!!

Enemiga Rodriguez, PMS #369, OrFun #25, Team Dirty Sanchez #116, Pelt Head #29, Muff #4091

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On my 4th AFF jump I experienced a broken steering toggle. Other than that, canopy controlled fine with the rears, and I landed it with no incident. That was on a 260 (I'm 190).
Skydiving: You either learn from other's mistakes, or they'll learn from yours.

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I had 50ish jumps, misrouted my right brake line so it caused a tension knot around the stow. I thought of cutting away, but I had enough altitude to practice on my rears and landed it without incident.
FWIW, it turned out to be the right choice for me.
There is an art, or rather a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, and try it. - Douglas Adams

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I have landed on my rears twice as intentional practice. But for the first time ever, I had difficulty unstowing my toggle a few jumps ago.

When it wouldn't budge and I started turning of a sudden, it startled me slightly, I stopped pulling and pulled my opposite other toggle into half brakes, to straighten out my flight (I turned only 90 degrees or so it was counterbalanced quickly). Then I had a moment to inspect the problem of the stuck toggle, it was some kind of very simple hang up. Unstowing the toggle differently cleared it instantly -- I was now flying normally with unstowed toggled and the landing proceeded normally. This all happened in 3 seconds.

Lesson learned: Keep a careful eye on how I stow my toggles next time.

If I couldn't fix it I knew I would land on my rears. I'd probably do one of two things: (1) If the stuck toggle was safely stowed then I have both hands avialable to attempt to safely restow the other toggle while flying straight (I'm still flying a good old 170 square) or failing that, (2) Hook knife cut the other toggle line if the line was easily accessible (I could easily reach it without accidentally cutting other lines), and failing that, (3) reserve. That'd just be me for my canopy (not your canopy, not for students). That's assuming I was flying nice and straight and can safely maintain doing that while I did either 1 or 2, otherwise it's my reserve, pronto. I am really too squeamish about wrapping my toggles and trying to rear-riser flare at the same time.

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I have a question that's been bouncing around in my noodle for a couple months. Let's say a skydiver with only a modest number of jumps pulls and deploys a lightly loaded canopy without incident.
It's there and square and flying straight. Upon unstowing the brake lines he discovers a knot that precludes flaring on the one side. He's now at 4K. What would be the problem with flying to the LZ and landing with rear risers as opposed to chopping?



Your scenario raises a few points which I haven't seen addressed yet (my apologies if they were, I just skimmed the thread).

If you have one brake released, and one locked, you're going to be in a turning configuration. That leaves you with 2 options to level the canopy out: A single rear riser OR the opposite toggle to the pull the equivalent amount of tail down. Also, since you are having to slow your canopy down to cause it to fly straight and level, you're going to be flying significantly slower than usual which, in turn, will significantly RAISE your chance of stalling the canopy on rears when landing.

If I had a brake line snap on opening, I'd probably land it on rears (not recommending others do). If I had a toggle hang up, like you described, I would cut it away since there are too many moving parts for the pilot to consider, and deal with, to land it safely, IMO.

edit: FWIW your choices will be very heavily dependent on pilot skill, as well as wingloading and canopy size.
Ian
Performance Designs Factory Team

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