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Generally how long does a canopy last? meaning how many jumps before it is considered time to replace it?

The biggest determiner of canopy life is how you treat it.

The canopy I own that has lasted the longest is an old FOX (my personal opinion is that the FOX was the most overbuilt BASE canopy ever produced). It's got about 650 jumps on it now, and I still use it.

I'd say an average canopy will last somewhere between 350 and 500 jumps.

Do you think that the type of jumps you mostly do has any effect on the wear of the canopy ? For example if you do 100 slider downs vs. 100 slider ups do you consider the canopy to have have equal amount of wear ?

For non-native english speakers : is "overbuilt " meaning to build it too strong compared to what's needed ?
If so, on what parts of the canopy did you see overbuilding ?

Slider ups wear your lines. particularly, if you use metal links with no stops. every time the slider comes down and hits those, it leaves a ding on the rings of the slider. as the in-surface of the rings become more abrasive it eats your lines on every jump.
slider downs (depending on the delay) put more stress on the canopy fabric.

all of the above is nothing compare to how much damage you can do to your canopy by cooking it under the direct sun.

 
If you do not use slider bumps of some description you need a punch somewhere that hurts!

That's if it comes down at all and doesn't stay stuck up there...

Yes.





Mostly reinforcing tapes and stitch lines. Compare a FOX and a Mojo and you see more tapes, thicker tapes, and more stitching on the FOX. Look specifically at the bridle attachment point and the nose openings and you'll see what I mean. In general, this is also true with other canopies when compared to the FOX. I know that CR actually added reinforcement to some areas of the Ace/BJ (when compared to the Mojo) because they were seeing damage to the canopies that they had not anticipated, which competing canopies (i.e. FOX) were not sustaining (primarily when the nose of the canopy was used as an "arrestor hook" [the term Adam Filipino used when describing this to me] in an object strike situation).

I think that different parts of the canopy get worn out.

I've never seen a slider-down-only canopy need a reline from wear, for example.

I translate that into "heavier", but...
...this week-end, I tried for the first time a fox and compared to my vtec-troll, exactly the same size, it sounded exactly the same weight, so ???

Second point : when hesitating between a fox and a troll, everyone told me that at deployment time, the fox is getting a little bit 'lower' and not advancing (which is nice when offheading), compared to the troll which was said to open by consuming less vertical distance, but starting to fly earlier (which is BAD when offheading).
I translated that into : the fox is a lorry that can't turn, and with a slow on-target speed.

When jumping (once, ok) with this fox, I found exactly the opposite when in flight (I had no time to check all that on opening time) : the fox was VERY reactive, very fast on target, and had a fast flight.
At the ITW, we also compared the glide ratio between my troll and my friend's fox, and my troll's beating its without a doubt.

All these tests are showing contradictory results, so I'm a little bit lost...

Sorry for asking but, could you explain this? I know its probably not related to the main thread but Id like to learn.

Thanks!
Gabe

Heavier does not mean "slower."

It may mean "more pack volume" but that's not necessarily always true.

The only thing I've noticed that it means, in this case, is "likely to last longer."

When the canopy experiences an object strike, it tends to slide down the object. In many instances, the nose of the canopy catches on something on the side of the object (a rock outcropping, a tree, a protruding transmitter, etc), and the jumper ends up hanging from the canopy, which is caught by it's nose. The nose takes a significant amount of stress in these situations, and the last generation of CR canopy (the Mojo) was generally more prone to failure (i.e. the canopy tore and the jumper continued falling) in this situation than was it's main competitor (the FOX).

If you're ever in this situation, you're already in bad shape, so I don't know how much I'd worry about it. I do take some comfort from the fact that gear manufacturers do think about these things, and try to engineer their gear such that it will help save us even in situations it is clearly not intended for.

Cool!.. thx Tom

I think that this is a common misconception (starting to fly earlier is bad).
The earlier a canopy starts to fly, these things happen earlier. (which is good).
The sinkrate goes to the minimum.
The manuverabilty increases to the maximum.
The fwd speed is less (assuming you have dialed in your DBS).
IMHO, The canopy that can fly the slowest with the lowest sinkrate wins. The Troll that I jumped could fly very slow.
Hope this helps.
take care,
space

All that goes without saying and for any canopy skydiving or base. I should have been clearer but I'm concerned with the opening forces the canopy goes through. For example, the effects on line trim and porosity of the material.

I'm a rigger but I am unfamiliar with the construction of base canopies and the punishment they go through. Since I have just started base and will eventually buy gear I thought this would be good knowledge for me to have.

I wouldn't have thought that people still do that (no slider bumpers) but in retrospect, car battery packing weights, packing PCs with pullup cords......

Although I agree that direct sunlight damages the nylon (as does fluorescent lighting), It is not as catastrophic as not rinsing out salt water. I've also seen damged slder grommets that shaved off the stitching on the cascades.
take care,
space

The manufacturers are really good people to ask about this.

From what I understand after talking to a few, the opening forces will not change linetrim nearly as much as heat generated by friction with the slider grommets. I believe that openings will increase the porosity of the fabric.

Jumping a wet canopy will increase the porosity of the fabric a LOT.

Getting a canopy wet will increase wear, especially if you landed in the water and pulled the canopy out by anything other than the tail.

UV is slated as the major bad guy for ripstop nylon.

Heat degrades the fabric too, as does various chemicals, including those found in sweat. Packing a dirty canopy (or a canopy with dirt, vegetation, dead animals in it) will help work the dirt into the fabric and increase porosity by wearing the fabric.

I understand that 'seam impaction' is a wear effect of opening forces and one that you can inspect for.

Packing is a major contibutor to wear on your canopy, but you can greatly minimise it by making sure the canopy has no dirt or foreign particles in or on it when you pack, packing in a clean, dry area, packing on a soft surface that will not damage the fabric and staying out of the UV radiation.

Lower brakelines wear at the brake settings, especially the DBS if used often, but this can be minimised also by placing the line (and not the piece fingertrapped into it) between the loop and the ring and making sure it is pre-tensioned good and stays that way through your packjob.

Tailpocket velcro is also a normal wear item, but I found it minimised by keeping dirt and foreign particles out of the velcro and possibly also by peeling back the velcro at an acute angle when opening it.

I put 220 on a Blackjack and I have not replaced the lower brakelines or tailpocket velcro yet, as they are still in reasonable shape.

This is way past the point that most jumpers would usually replace those items, but I have always pre-tensioned my brakelines when packing and kept everything spotless.

It helps that I do mostly short delay slider-off jumps at night.

I hope some of that was what you were looking for.
cya
sam

Thanks and thanks to everyones responses.

Some of that I knew some I didn't know. All that information answers how a canopy should be treated in terms of what is bad for it. However the questions still begs about how many jumps under "normal" conditions does a canopy last?

Well don't I have egg on my face. The very first reply had the answer. I guess after reading the whole thread I didn't remember reading that part. Thanks

Frankly, most of what I'm reading in this thread is shit that you should know when you're GETTING INTO BASE, not when you've been in it for awhile. That's not to say that one should be expected to know all there is to know about the sport when you leave your first fixed object, or that discussions of differing opinions and new techniques, etc. are not valuable, but we are in a sport where we generally have a SINGLE CHANCE in terms of gear. Knowing your gear, how to maintain it, how it works, how it wears, and particularly how to inspect it is IMHO as important as basic body position, packing, and object strike avoidance, for example.

The goal here is for us to stay alive, unbroken, un-arrested, and having fun with our mates!

This is a good example of what BASE is becoming--too many people wanting the reward without the work/commitment. Kudos to those that have the patience, smarts, and intellegence to are honest with themselves about their abilities and knowledge, and who approach BASE with the respect it deserves! My beanie's off to you all!

Now go out and kill them fuckers!
pope

PS: this post is not aimed at anyone in particular--if it applies to you, then it's aimed at you.