Brake adjustment

[ClayFowler 0]

I think I have finally discovered why I cant land this particular PD 190 well. I have flown one other PD190. This was a former Golden Knight rig that had Lord knows how many jumps on it and it flew great. I could get a little glide on the landings when I made a hard trun and rode the front risers in. I just havent been able to do it on my new rig yet and it has less than 100 jumps on it. The last jump I did I noticed that the brakes...with no input by me ride right up at the rings and may even have some tension on them. This explains sloppy slow riser turns. I have 17 jumps on this canopy and I guess the 6 month break before I started jumping again made this diagnosis take a little longer. On to my question...How much should I move the brakes down on the first adjustment. I dont want to burn in on my first try at adjusting them nor do I want to spend another 17 jumps with the brakes too tight. It's loaded at about 1.28 if you need that info.

[spectre230 0]

[ClayFowler 0]

It's a 9 cell F-111. Right now it has a pretty mean recovery arc out of a hard turn....riser or toggle. Reenforcing the idea of the brakes "dragging" Hey I doubt Skymonkeyone would have good landings on his handkerchief Icarus without some "induced" speed. It just seems like I am falling out of the sky instead of gliding in and God forbid I toggle turn too high on final and then dont get the risers before the pressure gets too high. Did that one last weekend and had to seriously run it out as well as deal with the Dropping out of the sky effect. I love the openings of the PD and it flys great...I just think I have to get this brake thing figured and I'll be swoopin again!

[spectre230 0]

[Grogs 0]

I had the exact same problem with my Silhouette. The girl I bought it from had really short arms and had the brake lines shortened, but unfortunately she brought them in too much. I had quite a few hard landings with it until a friend pointed out that my canopy was beginning to bow-tie on landing. I talked to my rigger about it and he had me find the point on the flare where my canopy started to fly backwards and added just enough brake line to bring that all the way down to the bottom of the flare. After he added the extra brake line it felt like I was flying a completely different canopy on riser turns.

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

It appears as though my original answer did not make it to the forum; odd.
Anyway, Clay, my Junior Skymonkey brother,
you should take that main to a rigger and add at least four inches to the control lines. See if that works; it will definitely help. After that, I would add two inches at a time until such a point that you can grab your dive loops (toggles in hand) and pull them to your chest without deflecting the tail. That is how all of my mains have always been set-up, which is to say "loose." If your shit is too tight, like Kris's Stiletto was when I busted my ass, then your canopy will "porpoise" or buck in a riser dive and give the impression that you have high riser pressure. Unsatisfactory. Kris's Stiletto was so bad that the control lines were TIGHT in full flight. It is for that reason that it "bow-tied" on me at the end of my swoop. Ugly.
Chuck

[ClayFowler 0]

Thanks for all the input guys. Right now if I pulled them down to my chest it would stall the canopy in a pretty short time. In fact, I dont pull them much lower than that when I make hard toggle turns. Hopefully I'll get this sorted out and be making my mini swoops by Sunday!

[alan 1]

"Also if you are flying a 7 or 9 cell pd 190 made of f-111 fabric you wont get a lot of glide out of it."
A PD 190 would be a 9 cell, a PD 193 would be a 7 cell.
alan

[ClayFowler 0]

PD 190 F-111....full story is under "Brake Adjustment 2" on the talk back page. Added about 2 and half inches to the brakes and it was a whole new canopy.