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Being a rather large guy for the sport, and having a whopping 7 jumps now, I am curious to know what the elders have to say about the effect a higher wing loading has on canopy openings...

In particular, I am jumping a FLiK 322 with vents and covers. My exit weight is about 290. (I haven't weighed with gear, but I'm 265 without.)

Ganja

I my self am a big boy. 6'3" 260lbs with out gear. I have not found any real difference in actuall inflation times, But I can say that I try not t take any longer than a 2 slider off or else I get spanked HARD. It takes more energy to stop someone my size than it does to stop someone smaller I'm guessing
Are the openings the same "softness" that they always were while I was jumping smaller canopys (265 and up) and is the fact that is seems to hurt more just an effect of getting older or has the "hardness" of the opening increased due to the larger size? I don't know
I susspect, but have not yet proven, that because the canopy is so much larger, it must weight more, and there for, requires more force to extract it from the container and could possible extend the amount of time untill it reaches line stretch. As I said before, I have not yet proven this theory. Because if this I am staying on the side of caution and have not yet jumped from 300 feet or less with smaller then 46" pc while others have used 42".
I would not say that the larger canopys have any more or less forward speed on opening than their smaller counter parts. I have left any thing out please let me know

i actualy think DW commented this on this site through Ddog once.. let me see if i can find it

i dindt find it but perhaps this tread can help.. its about canopy sizes

http://www.dropzone.com/..._reply;so=ASC;mh=25;

My general experience has been that higher wingloadings actually yield openings that are crisper and more predictable.

I haven't got any experience with your particular canopy and wingloading, though, so take this with a grain of salt.

In general, I've found that smaller canopies give "better" (i.e. inflation is faster and more symmetric) openings, and that higher wingloadings give "better" (same definitions) openings. So, if you have a big canopy (say, a 280 or so) loaded under about .6, you start to see really squirrely openings.

With your wingloading? I wouldn't worry about it. I'd bet it will be fine, and if it's not, you'll find out as you work your way up (err, down, um, whatever) to more difficult objects.