Upsizing - evolution or the new trend?

[frost 1]

I keep noticing the new "selling my very small heavily loaded fast falling canopy to upsize ads all over the place. When I was in Perris a few years back, heard JC Coclasure say that he was jumping a 120 now to get longer swoops. I think I see that trend followed at my local DZ too. Not saying good or bad, trying to be like the big boys or what... just curious if anyone else has noted it.

SoFPiDaRF - School of Fast Progress in Downsizing and Radical Flying. Because nobody knows your skills better than you.

[skygod7777 0]

i would agree.


in my case i bought my 85 vx loaded at 2.5. i had it for about a year and a half and gained some weight and got up to about 2.65. i had no plans to compete, i just wanted a fast canopy. i put about 400 jumps on it, and decided that i wanted to compete, so i sold it and bought a 96 velo.

some other cases you may see is that everyone is starting to figured out also that 2.1 or 2.0 is best for distance, not 2.2 or 2.3 or even 2.4 so that's why they are upsizing.


or the bigger canopies with lead go the distance better than a smaller one at the same wing loading. take luigi on icarus's team, he wheres like 50 pounds of lead to load up a larger canopy because he's a small guy and would load up a 70 at like 2.0.

later

[jdhill 0]

I think there is a division growing in the HP canopy world... some are going to go as small as they can, because they want to go fast... others, particularly on the competion side of the house, have realized that optimum performance does not mean as small as you can walk away from... some of this is due to more experiance, some is from evolution of the competitions themselves.

There are even some people who are getting bigger canopies, then putting on weight to get to the "right" wingloading...

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[diablopilot 2]

I upsized in the past year. I had an 88 and a 93 and now jump a 93 and a 98. Performance issues are what changed for me. Wanted to be able to do sone things I couldn't at a 2.5 loading.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[VectorBoy 0]

Wanted to be able to do some things I couldn't at a 2.5 loading.

[diablopilot 2]

Distance improved, freestyle moves became alot easier, less twitchy, and easier to manage as conditions decraged (hot turbulent days)

Thing like that.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[proswooper 2]

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i sold it and bought a 96 velo.

good move kelly ~~

[skygod7777 0]

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good move kelly ~~

haha, well i didn't really have much of a choice, a vx of the same size wouldn't fit into my container, so i was limited to velo's, fx's, or xaos 21's.......so a velo was my only real choice.


later

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

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Wanted to be able to do some things I couldn't at a 2.5 loading.

What would that be?

[diablopilot 2]

I hate it when I look back at a post and realize I didn't spell check it.......

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decraged

meant degraded.......

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[VectorBoy 0]

We still love ya- and thanks for the reply.

[CanopyPiloting 0]

EVOLUTION and TREND. High performance parachutes of the future are going to be built with a improved cell structure and better design parameters making the wing more efficent. As the wing becomes more efficent pilots will be able to fly slightly smaller canopies again, if they want...Jim

www.icarusnz.com

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

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As the wing becomes more efficent pilots will be able to fly slightly smaller canopies again, if they want...Jim

I don't know about that. I didn't have any problems landing a 65 safely when I had one, but there was not a single task that it was useful for other than pure speed. It was a worthless competition main and didn't swoop that far. Personally, I am really glad that the competition trend is bigger. Not only are the larger mains far more versitile and even *gasp!* safer, it likely helps us in promoting safe sizing to the up-and-comers and "beer line" chimps who would otherwise tout differently in their own little microcosms.
While there may eventually be stiffer, more efficient wings in the future, I don't really see where competitors would have any cause to downsize again. The only caveat to that might be IPC/PST speed courses. The only issue with the upsizing trend/evolution is that people are having to buy new containers to fit their now too-big mains. That, of course, is only a vanity issue anyway.

Chuck

[CanopyPiloting 0]

I think it's great we are all upsizing too but that's with the CURRENT canopies available to swoopers. I am not at liberty to discuss any new cell structure or wing technology but I will tell you that if a smaller wing can carry as much lift through rigidity as as a larger wing but have less drag.... there is an advantage, Again, there is no canopy for sale on the market like this yet but I image there will be in the next year or two. Hang gliders are much, much more rigid than semi-rigid ram air parachutes. Competition handgliders choose to fly wings much smaller than larger and have more manuverability and performance (less drag). With small modern high performance parachutes (flying mattress) the canopy losses shape to easily causing all shorts of problems like wing distortion, flow seperation, ect. Larger wings address this problem by creating a larger area to distort and more surface area to carry low pressure over the wing but also have more parasite drag. Image too if I told you that a new generation wing in the 80sqft range packed like a 135! The future is so bright I have to wear shades. Any additional comments on this topic should be sent over to our ongoing thread at www.canopypiloting.com ...Jim