franck102

All good points, although you do control how easy it will be for a given turbulence to collapse your canopy. The pressure in the cells isn't the issue here, the angle of attack is. At one end of the spectrum your canopy will collapse if the angle of attack becomes too shallow to keep the cells inflated, but a perfectly airlocked canopy in the same situation would simply stop generating lift, surge forward and probably slam you into the ground even harder than the collapsed canopy. There is most definitely a best strategy to fly through turbulence with a given canopy, just spend some time watching different pilots flying the same paragliders in severe turbulence. By applying some brakes, you indeed slow down which makes you angle of attack more sensitive to a given variation in the relative wind, but you also increase you angle of attack (on a typical canopy that is), taking it farther away from the extreme at which you canopy will stop flying, and this is I think by far the overriding factor on most canopies. As a practical hint if you can apply a bit of brake and you don't feel you significantly slowed down, but you fell your glide ratio increased significantly, your angle of attack probably just increased as well. At some point the slowing down becomes obvious and the glide ratio starts degrading, this is when you are getting closer to the other end of the spectrum, your angle of attack is high and any turbulence may suddenly increase it enough to stall the canopy. You can get hints at what your angle of attack is doing by watching the top front of you canopy's leading edge, but this is subtle and varies from canopy to canopy. Disclaimer: I used to fly paragliders, not canopies designed to keep flying even if you hang your whole weight on both front risers. Those canopies may fly at a safely high angle of attack even without brakes; but be sure of one thing, if turbulence collapses it, that is because the change in relative wind moved the angle the attack out of the flying range, and you may have prevented it by flying differently to start with. Franck

You may want to think again about how safe it is to come in pulling on both front risers in anything but steady wind with no turbulence. Your may be flying your canopy close to the smallest angle of attack it will accept without collapsing, and a sudden change in the relative wind can take you over the line. BTW the same applies to coming in in deep brakes just above stall speed. Franck

The benefit of using a bit of brake in turbulence is to put your angle of attack in the middle of the range that is acceptable for your canopy. With a canopy designed to keep flying when you pull hard on both front risers you may not need any brakes, but if the leading edge tends to tuck under when you do this you should really consider applying some brakes in strong turbulence. Turbulence is really good at creating large shifts in the angle of attack and if you happen to already be at one of the extremes things will get interesting real fast... Franck

Climbing harnesses use the same kind of hardware, and on all of them you have to pass the webbing one more time in the hardware (on a leg strap you would turn back and upward) to prevent slippage. Did any manufacturer consider using the hardware that way? Franck

Not sure why, but all sailboat sail manufacters recommend that you choose white fabric on your spinnaker, especially in the high stress areas, for maximum longevity... Franck

I have no idea whether it's safe for them to downsise, I only know that on the specific problem of flying their landing pattern they could get in trouble the first time they jump the new canopy in light or no winds. On the other hand if they can fly their pattern in 0 wind with a small margin of safety they should have not trouble doing the same with a slightly smaller canopy. There is more to downsizing safely than just flying the right pattern , see Bill Von's excellent post in another thread in this forum about all the things you should try before you consider to downsize. Franck

My conclusion exactly -) I am sure the Reflex is a fine rig but I don't need the complications right now... I ordered a new Wings, and we are looking at a used Infinity for my wife. Thanks for all the advice! Franck

Michele, You can look at it this way: 3 mph more or less wind while under your current canopy will have a much more dramatic effect on your landing pattern than the change in size you are contemplating. If you can handle the wind variations (there is no way anyone can predict the wind that accurately), you can handle the downsize (just don't start with either extreme). As far as listening to the people who see you fly, let's rephrase: just pick a few you trust, and ignore the others -) My wife has about 15 canopy jumps total, and went from a 288 to a 220 to a 190 in 5 jumps (all F111, 135 exit weight) and didn't think twice about it - same approach, same flare technique. Franck

> So, what you're suggesting is that any decrease in parasite drag due to scaling factors > is off-set by the increase parasite drag caused by increase in airspeed required by the > smaller canopy to maintain the same glide ratio. Yes, based on the fact that drag increases linearly with the surface but with the square of the speed (approximatively of course). > Remember that the increase in airspeed will also increase the lift It will increase the coefficient of lift (lift / surface used to generate it) but not the actual lift of the flying canopy (will always be just what it takes to balance the suspended weight). The actual drag on the other hand will increase because of the speed, since even assuming you can keep the drag of the canopy constant the drag of the pilot will increase for sure, and most probably so will the drag of the lines. > What do you have in the way of hard data or are you just spouting theory like the rest of us?

> I doubt even Paul or Bill do this while they jump: > My current descent rate is x feet per second, and the dropzone is y yards away, > so with windspeed of z miles per hour on a heading of q degrees, I need to begin > my final approach precisely at the following point... Right, I have no idea what the glide ratio of my current canopy is, and I can still land it anywhere I want. > I bet they take note of the wind, and know their canopies, so just get into a > zen-like state where they know, "Hmm. To land there, I need to do this." Quite right, you just keep doing all that again every 10 seconds so you can adapt your plan. Franck

Actually, she's still just learning and is not very current. I would prefer for her to jump a couple weekends in a row on the canopy she's currently using before downsizing. I think that's the general consensus of most of the folks that have worked with her as well. Ooops, sorry I forgot the obvious, take the advice of the people who have seen you fly over anything you read here! Franck

Actually drag on the lines is roughly proportional to surface x (speed squared), so even the shorter lines on the smaller canopy will generate much more drag - that's why microlines are more critical on a fast flying canopy. Not too sure about the surface drag, but the same may apply... Franck

Michelle, you don't need to know sh*t about glide ratios, rate of descent or any other fancy technical stuff to have great landings, those things are only only useful to fuel long arguments on the ground around a beer. You know how to land your current canopy, going down one size won't make any difference and you'll adapt just fine. Just go for it! Franck

True in theory, although in practice if you downsize significantly on a given canopy design you glide ratio will deteriorate significantly as well. That is because the drag of your body remains the same and affects the smaller canopy more, the lightly loaded fabric of the large canopy will match the intended airfoil section better, and the smaller canopy will have more induced drag (same air molecules for both...). Just trying to add my two cents to the good-reasons-not-to-downsize pool... smaller canopies don't glide as well as larger ones -)

Michele, rather than trying to plan your approach (if the wind is x then at y feet I'll turn for my base leg) I would recommend that you choose a pattern (e.g. downwind - cross-wind - final), know roughly when & where to enter it, then learn to adapt it in real time to land where you want. This includes comparing your ground speed in the downwind leg to your previous landings - this tells you how much wind there is, if you're screaming along you'll want to turn cross-wind a bit earlier that usual. n the cross-wind leg try to actually follow a line on the ground that is 90 degree to the wind - how much you need to point your canopy into the wind to do that will also tell you how much wind there is. On that same cross-wind leg look where you would land if you kept going straight until you land. If it's 400' away you know if you turned into the wind right now you would land somewhere between 400' (no wind) and 0' (wind = your canopy's forward speed) from your turn. If you keep doing this and factor the wind you'll know at any instant how you should adapt your pattern. The reason why a predefined plan (with turning points & heights) doesn't work too well is that our canopies forward speeds are very close to the speed of the winds we fly in. The consequence is that a minor difference in wind speed will dramatically affect your glide ratio with respect to the ground, which is what matters as far as your approach is concerned. This is not just perception, a large canopy with the greatest glide ratio in the world can fall straight down in a 15 mph head wind (ground glide ratio = 0), while a small canopy would still make progress. Franck

That's exactly what I am concerned about - jumping the rig in those 2 weeks. I'll try to find a rigger who can get it to settle during the week as someone suggested, I am more comfortable with that approach... Thanks for all the feedback! Franck

Hi all, I am considering buying a reflex as my first rig. I have read all the Reflex threads on the site, and I understand the reserve takes a bit of practice to pack right and the pop-top may need to be retightened between repacks. The question I have is, how safe is the rig when the pop-top happens to be less than perfectly tight? The pop-top on the rig I am looking at is quite loose (I can slip more than a finger under the pop-top), and it seems it would be really easy to snag a line under it, especially if deploying while unstable. Is a not-so-tight Reflex safe to jump? If a line does get caught under the pop-top, could that affect the reserve deployment in any way? Thanks for your input! Franck

> frank, > > i have to second chris. > > when i was still a relatively new jumper i had a situation where i deployed in several twists > onder a fairly high loaded wing. as i went into a flat spin If you can't get the canopy to fly straight to begin with, you most definitely can't be "sure that you'll be able to land it", I wouldn't even wait for my decision altitude to cut it away. > thinking, analyzing, indecision, decision all take time which you do not have. Well you do have the time to do all that *until* you reach your decision altitude, at which point I agree it is time to act. > you hit your hard deck without a 4s canopy = ching-ching Personally it's more like cutaway at decision altitude unless I've already come to the conclusion that landing what I have is safer than cutting away. I do trust my emergency procedures but cutting away also has its risks. Franck

To me the decision altitude is when I decide that I'm going to land the canopy and not cutaway. I would personally choose the line twists any day over a cutaway, but that's based on my canopy (lightly loaded student canopy) and my experience (years of paragliding). If you are sure that you can get rid of the twists, and that that'll make the canopy landable, I don't see why you should chop. BTW, most often you can steer (and stop a turn) with twists by moving in the harness or using the toggles, and you can even land with a few twists. Franck

> The only other piece of advice is "relax"...the moment you find you're not in control, take a deep > breath, smile, and exhale...and then "rest" on the column of air... I just cleared level 5 on my 3rd attempt after similar problems (uncontrolled left turn would start anytime I did something) I tried to relax-arch-put legs out to stop the turn, but that didn't work and I just grew more scared of that turn with each attempt. What worked for me was to reverse the order: agressively stop the turn as soon as it started, without thinking about relaxing/arching or using proper technique, then I was able to relax because I knew I wasn't out of control. Most JMs it seems will try not to step in to early to give you a chance to learn. This is great if you are confident and just need to figure out the technique, but if you get scared/tense maybe you'll want to ask your JM to step in a bit sooner to help with stability until you build up some confidence. Disclaimer: I was in your position 2 days ago, so take this for what it's worth - and of course talk to your JM about anything you want to try. Franck

Franck

> Please rethink that, spectre is very forgiving on sloppy packing, Depending on how quickly she can transition to BOC she may be able to try a spectre soon, so we may reconsider. > Instead of buying 1 new rig for sharing, think of 2 used rigs From the used ads I found (this site, enclave, the dz), it doesn't work out that way at all... in fact the new hornet rig is cheaper than any remotely suitable used rig I could find -) We'll probably get 2 rigs someday, but for now a new rig fitted for both of us will be a huge improvement as compared to the student/rental gear we're using right now. Thanks - Franck

We're getting ready to buy our first canopy, and after reading all I could (a million thanks for this site!) and talking to many people the choice more or less comes down to hornet vs. sabre2, both 170. The rig the Hornet comes with is $1300 cheaper than the rig with the Sabre2, and I would get the Hornet without any hesitation but for one thing: there are quite a few people who complained about hard openings. I'll be sharing this rig with my wife, and she already complains of lower back pains after 8 jumps on a 220 student canopy; I'm not sure she could live with the once-in-while slammer... so my questions are: - if we buy a Hornet and spend time learning the subtleties of packing & experiment with different approaches, can we be quite sure that we'll find a way to get consistent soft openings? - I've seen people mention larger sliders. Para-service who sells the Hornet says people have done that for the heatwave, but never asked for it for the Hornet - did anyone try it and did it help? My wife is 115 lbs and just graduated from AFF. She may have to wear weights when flying with others (had to for almost all her AFF jumps). BTW, a few questions we already answered: we want to buy now mostly because rentals for 2 are pretty expensive, and we'll have to wait 2 month after ordering. And we're quite confident that we know what kind of canopy we want to fly. The Sabre is out because we don't want slammers... and even if you don't have any with your sabre many others do so we'll just not take the chance... The Spectre is out because I'd much rather fly a canopy that has a good glide and doesn't sink in turns (used to be a paraglider) We'll probably buy new unless you can point me to a used rig that flies like a sabre2/hornet 170, has the best possible fit for my wife and me, and whose price can compete with para-service's deal on the hornet/wings rig ($2600 with the options). Any advice greatly appreciated! Thanks, Franck

> I've flown a whole approach to the DZ in deep brakes before I had taken this to mean that you had landed the canopy like this as well - from the replies I realize that's probably not what you meant. Stalling a non extreme canopy is a lot of fun of course, I do it all the time... Franck

> In the scenario you outlined (sudden tail gust while just above the stall point), simply easing up the toggles a bit ought to recover the stall in less than 50 feet (much faster with practice and a 7 cell specifically designed for stall recovery and stability). Good point... as long as you are aware of the fact that you may stall at any time and you know how your chute will behave everything's cool Franck