Basejumper.com - archive

Instictually I totally agree with Marta that I would want to go for my risers instead of my toggles on a 90 or more opening (the thought of missing it and losing a toggle on a slider off jump is not appealing). But Johnny is telling people to go for their toggles and he's beginning to make me think he's right for people with low wingloading (bigger canopies). My big canopy isn't going to react as fast as a smaller canopy with my risers.

Thoughts?

be prepared to take some poundings and / or injury if you are opening very low and something does not go to plan.....

180 offheading - flying at wall - very close to impact. No time to turn away. Hard input on both rear risers. Canopy stalls backwards. Let up on left rear riser (while still pulling down on right). Canopy barely turns - cells are barely pressurized and there are waves going through the canopy. Reach across with left hand and pull down on front right riser (while still pulling down on right rear riser). This forces air into the cells - canopy instantly response and spins on the spot. Immediately let up on riser input and release brakes to drive away from the wall.

My importance list for avoiding a wall strike:

1. 180’s happen to all of us eventually. Do every thing you can to minimize the occurrence but resign yourself to the fact that they will happen. (Note: see the definition of Murphy’s Law).

2. Avoid smacking the wall at ALL costs.
Get the canopy to open with absolute MINIMAL forward speed. Forget all that sh*t about needing forward speed to get the canopy to respond to riser input. There is zero point to having a responsive canopy if you don't have the time to turn it away. Also the faster the forward speed of your canopy on deployment the harder you will hit the wall and the more bones will snap.
SLOWER forward speed is BETTER in 99% of serious offheadings close to the wall. Anyone who tells you otherwise has not had to deal with a bona fida 180, half line twists on a go-n-throw from a vertical wall. Factory installed brake settings on Mojo's are dangerous, dangerous, dangerous - even for the fastest BASE jumper in the world. Yeah - they work great for rear riser input on a 135 offheading, but turn it into a 160-180 offheading and the wall comes at you like a freight train. (Note: Adam does strongly recommend customizing your brake settings as the factory settings are extremely conservative. This is more of an issue with Mojo's than with FOX's due to the steep angle of attack on the Mojo).

3. Turn the canopy away from the wall.
In dealing with point #2 you have installed customized brake settings on your canopy (but not so deep that you risk a stall). Now because the canopy is going so slow you suddenly have response issues to rear riser input. Basically the thing won't want to turn and will probably stall if you pull down too hard on a rear riser.
The answer to this is not: make the canopy fly faster forward (read point #2 again). The answer is do something else to make the canopy turn away. Some people say "toggles". Well toggles are great (and my personal preference) if you aren't really close to the wall and flying directly at it. There are situations (eg. go-n-throw from vertical wall, bona fida 180 with half a line twist) where you do not have time to use toggles (I am NOT talking about the extra time to grab the toggles, I am talking about the response lag between releasing the brakes, pulling down on the toggle and the canopy actually responding). Also you may be so close to the wall that as you are turning away the end cell will drag on the wall and swing you back in. (I have seen this type of wall strike many times - and subsequently dealt many times with the resulting helicopter rescue, police, media, blah blah blah). If you are about to smack a wall nose on, the only thing to do is to back the canopy away far enough so that when you turn it, the end cell won't clip the wall. Flying the canopy backwards is the only option here (unless you are so low that you will pound into a ledge or the ground as you turn - in that case you just have to sink the canopy straight down and PLF - good luck).
In order to turn the canopy away the combination of both front and rear riser (with the brakes set) works really well. The canopy response almost instantly and just spins on the spot. Front riser input alone is a BAD idea as it makes the canopy dive forward and turn in an arc.

Note: In my experiences with the Vtec (and limited experience with the Blackjack) you usually don't need the front riser input as the vents keep the cells pressurized in almost zero forward speed and the canopy response great to rear riser input alone.

When to go for toggles and when to go for risers?
Basically here is my personal rule for that: If I open and I am flying at a wall and my body starts tensing up for immanent impact then I go for risers, otherwise I tend to go for toggles.
“Oh sh*t, whimper" on opening = risers.
"Uh Oh, I'm looking at wall" = toggles.

4. You aren’t good enough with the technology you are using to always avoid object strike.
With the current technology on the market NOBODY is good enough to avoid a wall strike every time. I have dealt with bad 180's close to the wall (sometimes with serious line twists) on many occasions (actually the number of times I have had 180's is downright embarrassing). I have never had my canopy touch the wall yet (I've pushed of the wall with my feet twice), but I am NOT stupid enough to think that I am good enough to deal with it every time.
Object strike is the number one incident that injuries highly experienced BASE jumpers when they haven't made a gross error of judgment. By plugging out thousands of BASE jumps we are playing a numbers game (if you jump vertical walls slider down). Statistics say that eventually you will hit the wall (Slim hit the wall three times in 1270 BASE jumps. Jump #1270 was the one that really f####d him up (but he's healing well and should be jumping next year). He probably has done the most slider down canopy deployments of anyone in the world and he is ULTRA FAST in dealing with offheadings). As the technology we are using advances (such as bottom skin vents, big grab toggles, vented pilot chutes) the odds are increased in our favor. All we can hope is that the technology increases at a faster rate than the numbers game we are playing.

Hope this helps.

We saw a vid of a pilot tarding off a low B, he started to correct a 90 (potential strike) with risers, the canopy hadn't yet developed enough airspeed to start flying and the risers stalled that side putting the whole thing it into a parachutal stall.

My big canopy isn't going to react as fast as a smaller canopy with my risers.

Are you talking about "fast" in time

And my big boat won't eat up as much altitude as a smaller canopy would and it won't fly towards the object as fast.

The second part of that is very important, and in my experience, often overlooked. A canopy that is flying slower will generally turn slower. That doesn't mean you're more likely to hit the object. It just means that you will take more time to do the turn. In fact that "slower" (in time) turn is less likely to strike the object because it is "faster" (in distance used).