Professor

Triangular bracing on the nose, in front of each of the load bearing ribs. It looks sort of like the bracing on a comp. cobalt, only half as much. Named after Howard Adams, I think. It can be done to heatwaves and cobalts, for sure. I'm not sure if it can be done to the older pre-cobalt stuff (alphas, spaces, vipers), or hornets. I haven't flown an H-mod'ed canopy, but from what I hear, it's well worth the $150 or so you pay for it. Blues Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Neel put it pretty well. I like to look at the wind, figure out where the spot is going to be (or watch some jump runs), and get an idea of what sort of approach I'm going to be doing, where I want to be above the ground when I start my turn, how much I'm going to slide during the turn, where and how much turbulence there is, where exactly I want to land, yada yada. I also like to think of a few different approaches, in case I end up coming from a different direction, or I don't like the situation. Generally, just think about the landing, what I'd like to do, and what I'll do if I can't do what I want to. Oh, and run aroud the landing area w/ your arms over your head, and your eyes closed, pretending to do 180's and 270's, and flaring. That might help, too. Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Some people probably are getting lucky, not everyone is dedicated to becoming a better pilot, some just want to swoop the beer line and look cool. I thought I was the only one who did this Ted Like a giddy school girl.

I would say so. It's a good idea to learn the basics of swooping on a canopy that isn't going to hospitalize you when you fuck up. And the really good guys can swoop the shit out of anything, you don't need a xbraced canopy to get good swoops. The only problem I have w/ learning on the big stuff is that sometimes it's harder to really manipulate your turns because of the higher riser pressure, but since you're on a 120 already anyway, this probably isn't going to be much of a problem. I'd say go for something modern, but not super high performance, like a Sabre 2, Safire 2 or even a Cobalt, if you can get one of them. Take care Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Sure, other stuff, especially size, is also very important. My point is that for a given amount of toggle input, a highly elliptical canopy (I mean stiletto, xfire, samuri class stuff), will respond much more to the same toggle input. If you pull a toggle down to your shoulder, a stiletto is going to turn a lot more than a sabre of the same size. This could be a problem for a low time jumper who hadn't adjusted to the subtler input of the elliptical. But, I'm not against using lightly shaped canopies for student use, and I would tend to agree w/ you, it's not canopy shape that's killing people, other stuff is more important. Blues Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Probably. Elliptical canopies are much more responsive to toggle input, and things happen faster on heavier loaded canopies, so it's easier to get startled and overreact. 200 jumps on a moderately (1.3ish) loaded ellip is probably fine for an average jumper, but keep your head up and fly the canopy, don't let it get ahead of you. Have fun Ted Like a giddy school girl.

I've seen, and used, the 'breath' one, and made up a few while trying to show my friends how to head down. We use a shake, or the AFF 'arch' hand signal in reverse, to mean 'stop arching', and pointing to my eyes to mean 'look straight out'. 'fly towards me' and 'stop' are pretty self explanatory, and spinning your finger around an axis means rotate around that axis (flip, turn, cartwheel). That about it. It'd be interesting to know what other people use. Blues Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Size is one factor in how fast a canopy turns and responds to input. Other stuff comes into play too (planform, elipticalness

I've never flown either, but both should be suitable for her. Remember that the Safire (and maybe the omega) are measured using Precision's system, which gives measurements about 9% smaller than PD's system. Have her jump both, and see which one she likes. I know people who fly and like each one. Take care Ted Like a giddy school girl.

That's true, The VX does list for $2500 and sell for 1900, so the Onyx is probably going to end up being the same sort of deal. I've heard from a couple people I trust who are familiar with it that it's not ready yet, but who knows. One way or the other, I'm not ready for it either, so this is academic anyway. Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Yeah, square 1 has velocities for $1700, and other stuff is comparable. Something about releasing a canopy on april fools day seems suspicious. Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Saw one this weekend. The pilot said he thought it would be a while before it was released, but I guess not.. For 2600$, it better be damn good. The reason for the low pack volume is that it has half as many non-load bearing ribs, and no D-line braces. It'll be interesting to hear what people think of this thing, once they get demos out. Blues Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Switzerland won the America's Cub. It's just like Holland, but landlocked. Ted Like a giddy school girl.

How many jumps does the canopy have on it? If it's up around 400-500, you might want to think about a reline. I've had a canopy that got progessively worse and worse opening, and a reline cured it. Hope this isn't, since relines are expensive, but if it's due, it could help quite a bit. Blues Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Coming out of the corner, definitely. Nothing beats the rush of diving at the ground and pulling out. Blues Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Maybe... I think the chest rings allow the MLWs to move more independently of each other, which is why PdF says chest rings lead to bad openings (you could argue that chest rings just amplify the results of bad body position, but that's a different discussion). It seems to me that this added independence and flex would increase the responsiveness to harness input. I doubt it makes much difference, though. Just losening your chest strap would probably have more effect. Again, this is just my speculation. Blues Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Hey, I've got a stiletto @ 1.9 or so in a fully articulated Odyssey. It flies straight. I got the articulation for comfort, but I can see how it could make the canopy more sensitive to harness input, which would be a bonus for swooping. Sounds like your friends harness is screwed up , but 1/8 inch doesn't seem like it could make that big a difference. Could some other part of the harness be off? Did anybody else try jumping the rig? Good luck, hope you figure out what's wrong. Having a useless H/C would suck. Let us know if you figure it out. Ted Like a giddy school girl.

NO IT'S NOT It's what progression did YOU take, It's very simple Whoa, relax, I think he has a good point. You yourself agreed that training method doesn't matter, so what's the point of the question? To answer it, though, I was trained at a small S/L DZ, and now jump at a small AFF DZ. To Michael: All the experienced jumpers at both DZ's are very good about helping out low timers. Both DZ's had their share of good pilots, but neither really had any "competition" class swoopers. This might have an effect on the quality of the swoopers coming out of small DZ's, since that level of knowledge is unavailable. Another thing, since most of the really great swoopers have been in the sport for quite a while, and would have been trained a long time ago, a disporportionant amount were probably trained on S/L. Blues Ted Like a giddy school girl.

I've never even seen one of these, much less flown one, and I haven't heard anybody talk about them much. How do they stack up against stuff like crossfire 2's, samuri's and Cobalts/CoCos? Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Go check out para-gear. The fusion is the entry level 9 cell (sabre 2 class, I'm assuming), the Nitron is the HP nine cell, and the Synergy is the 7 cell. edited to make the link work. Blues Ted Like a giddy school girl.

I disagree with this. A week ago, my stiletto opened into line twist. I kicked an entire revolution into the twist, realized my mistake, and kicked back out, the whole time with no more than a gentle turn from the canopy. On the other hand, I know two very experienced jumpers who've chop spinning mals on cobalts. I've also have seen people get hammered pretty hard by cobalts. The cobalt is not immune to spinning line twist, or hard openings. Don't believe the hype. Flight wise, I think the stiletto is more responsive, but the cobalt has more bottom end lift. Blues Ted Like a giddy school girl.

I know this is a joke, but still, I wouldn't think so, since you're not 'foreign', whatever that means. On the other hand, if you were a UK citizen, w/ a residence in the US, you could jump it. Do you know if this is specifically stated somewhere? It doesn't seem to say that, but I have nocited recently that different parts of the FARs addressing similar things seem to contradict each other. Blues Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Everybody loves the SIM: Sec. 105.49 Foreign parachutists and equipment (a) No person may conduct a parachute operation, and no pilot in command of an aircraft may allow a parachute operation to be conducted from that aircraft with an unapproved foreign parachute system unless- (1) The parachute system is worn by a foreign parachutist who is the owner of that system. (2) The parachute system is of a single-harness dual parachute type. (3) The parachute system meets the civil aviation authority requirements of the foreign parachutist's country. (4) All foreign non-approved parachutes deployed by a foreign parachutist during a parachute operation conducted under this section shall be packed as follows- (i) The main parachute must be packed by the foreign parachutist making the next parachute jump with that parachute, a certificated parachute rigger, or any other person acceptable to the Administrator. (ii) The reserve parachute must be packed in accordance with the foreign parachutist's civil aviation authority requirements, by a certificated parachute rigger, or any other person acceptable to the Administrator. There you go. Blues, Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Bill, Nice system, simple and effective. One silly question though. If you had a total and reserve deployment on your back, and the reserve PC got up under your left arm, it looks, especially in the bottom picture, like the reserve PC connection on the cam could rotate around and be pulling directly against the skyhook lanyard, impeding the action of the cam and causing a hesitation/reserve PC in tow. Am I seeing the picture wrong? It seems like this could be solve by extending the cam further on the 'closed' (right) end and placing the attachment point for the PC there. This might lead to the skyhook detaching prematurely, but that would be better than it not detaching when it should. Blues, Ted Like a giddy school girl.

Really? Shouldn't the leg straps keep you from being able to shift that much in the harness? I've had my odyssey for about 250 jumps, about 50 of which were under a very hard opening jedei, and never came away with any rib or torso injuries. Tons of neck pain, but no rib stuff. Mine was cut for me though. edit: I just thought of this: dumping on your side w/ a hard opening canopy could put pressure on your floating ribs. So if you have a hard opening canopy and consistantly dump unstable , get something else. blues. Ted Like a giddy school girl.