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While deep in a porn induced trance, between images of a busty brunette and 2 gifted brothers, I wondered what is the smallest canopy you could deploy to land into water?

Considering jumps from 30m are rountinely done by those cliff divers, if a skydiver were wetsuit equipped(no burst colon) and suitably trained, what size drogue-like canopy would be large enough to slow them down to the veolicity achieved during a 100ft freefall? Given that their orientation must be feet to earth. It would be pretty funny watching someone in board shorts jump with a big boc pouch on their shorts. and no harness, just a handle to hold onto with one hand while the other holds the nose shut. Given that a mesh pc-like design is virtually fail proof(riggers chime in here about pc failure please, im using the fact that most base jumping is growing in popularity. ) maybe you would only need the one.

I need sleep

peace

goodnite udder...

Why don't you try jumping prgressively smaller rounds to find out? Maybe you'll get to a point you won't need one anymore!? Have someone let us know how it turns out... troll.

Long ago Carl Boenish and Phil Smith (and some others) are using 16-foot cargo parachutes from cliffs and bridges and landing into water. They were hand held, sometimes even using two, one in each hand.

Before rollovers and tards (in BASE jumping) these are the first real un-packed jumps done in significant numbers . . .

NickD
BASE 194

Moderators, pleas move this thread to the BASE Forum.

I would vote for moving it to the bonfire, or the trash.

I think it's an interesting question.

Don't be so quick to trash something because it is of no interest to YOU.

I know somebody who (back in his BASE days) jumped a decellerator chute (think drag racer) into water.
It was a very interesting story!

Fine. Move it to the Mental Health forum.

Andy,

I know that was tongue in cheek, but skydivers knocking BASE jumpers = wuffos knocking skydivers . . .

It was an attitude we dealt with in the early days of BASE that resulted in lost friends, lost DZ jobs, and it's what really drove BASE jumping underground. Some thought (or still think) we went "black ops" to conceal our actions from the authorities, but it was really to protect ourselves from small minds in the skydiving community.

What I've never understood (and still don't) is what's so sacred about flying machines (planes, balloons, helicopters). If I come home from downtown and someone asks where I've been I'll say I was out jumping. If I come home from the drop zone and someone asks where I've been I'll say I was out jumping.

NickD
BASE 194

I was wondering where the hell this thread came from all of a sudden.

Strange, as I was reading it I was thinking: "what is this bunch of wuffos??..."

May I ask what good moving the thread to here did?

Gee, it's like we mentioned the "BASE" word and got kicked off the drop zone.

The OP asked about small rounds, a question any jumper would eventually wonder about.

NickD
BASE 194

I think (I don't know) that the moderator who moved it probably thought "no one but a BASE jumper is going to have any experience or insight into the issue of jumping a small round into water."

I certainly think that the average reader of this forum is more likely to have jumped a round (of whatever size) into water than the average reader of the General Skydiving forum, where the post started.

in some bridge jumps dwain done, he seemed to be wearing what resembled wetsuit shorts
were these to prevent a burst colon
or were they actually bicycle style shorts for a nice firm feeling?

 
>>I think (I don't know) that the moderator who moved it probably thought "no one but a BASE jumper is going to have any experience or insight into the issue of jumping a small round into water."<<

That was my point.

I know skydivers could be having a ball jumping small rounds into large bodies of water from airplanes on an everyday basis. They just don’t realize it. Hell, I'd visit that destination DZ called "Water World" – to rent their double round (and legal to jump) ultra light water gear . . .

Skydivers and BASE jumpers should be learning from each other, not be further separated. We are all parachute jumpers.

I still don't get it . . . ?

NickD
BASE 194

Sure, but it just doesn't come across that way. Regardless of what the moderator thought, the tone of some replies imply that no skydiver could learn anything from it, it's trash, let the BASE jumpers deal with it. Moving the thread without explaining the motive shows agreement with those posters.

Bah, I'm probably making a mountain out of a mole hill. It's late (that's my excuse)

The moderator of a forum is not in control of the individual replies posted to it.

It's a shorty wetsuit, and it's to keep warm in the cold water, since he was doing intentional water jumps.

Of course, I understand that but

The smallest round to land into water without injury can be surprisingly small.

What is the typical speed of a 26' round? About 15ft/s? The speed after 33' jump is about 45ft/s, or 3x higher. To make the parachute descend at 45ft/s, its area should be 9x smaller, or its diameter should be 1/3 of 26', or about 9'.

 
>>It's a shorty wetsuit, and it's to keep warm in the cold water,<<

And a bit of welcome floatation too . . .

Hey Tom, why not pick up the Green Hotline and get this thread restored to GSD where we both know it belongs. I'm just preaching to the choir in the BZ.

Would reversing a decision be a DZ.com no no?

If not, I want a review of the play (sorry, I was watching football last night).

NickD
BASE 194

I have done numerous round parachute jumps into water from aircraft. I have never jumped a round parachute on any of the base dives I did. Have to agree with Nick. Short sightedness often leads to never seeing beyond the horizon.

dude, you have NO idea how much time i have spent dreming about this exact thing. long before i started ROPE or BASE jumping, i had designs for super small 'round' canopies for cliff jumping. i mean, i have cliff jumped 85', and im not a cliff diver. i figured that the water impact was about 45mph. thats pretty fast.

a problem with round canopies that small is they orbit pretty fast when loaded high. making the decent faster, and not straight in. (a nonfeet first water impact would suck)

i think that it could be done with a well vented round that is about 10' diameter.

I REALLY want to try this.

you got me started on thinking about this again. bitch!

edited to add:
OK, i would not want to do this without a harness. that would be stupid. i mean, maybe after testing iwould. but the idea of handheld HARNESS is moronic.

Get your hands on the Carl Boenish train jump footage (I've got it, if you want to watch it the next time you're in Twin), and look for Randy Harrison jumping a little tiny high performance round. The thing looks like a beanie waaaay up at the top of the lines, and it's tiny.

I think if what you want is super small, and you can perfect the system (good luck), a spinning round would work best. Spinning rounds have much greater drag per area of parachute and are much more stable. Unfortunately, Department of Defense (i.e. very well funded) researchers have been unable to make a spinning round larger than about 8 feet that will deploy reliably (but maybe that's large enough for this application).

You could test this kind of thing by doing canopy transfers off the bridge here, where you wouldn't have to chop your big main canopy until after you had the little round fully inflated and functioning.

spinning round? i have not heard of this, does it spin as in around its verticle axis? the other 2 axis' stable?

I believe it a 16 foot round from what I recall and it was Rick Harrison, not Randy. The round had it's apex pulled down to increase the inflation speed, but the thing spilled air so badly that it oscillated terribly. They also carried 8 foot round parachutes in their left hands to use as last case scenario reserve parachutes.

Im no aerodymanitologiser, but how do you get those numbers? I would have no idea where to start to caluculate the drag of a round parachute. but, did you just find out the arithmic relative size with the area of the two rounds and speeds?

Steve Morrell (BASE 174) used to use a small triangular single skin parachute that is used for people who fall out of racing boats. He did freefalls from 90 feet with the parachute in hand. It had to be over water though because the thing was too unstable and landed too hard.

Yes. It spins like a top. You have to put a swivel at the bottom of the lines.

More information (and lots of numbers for Yuri_BASE) can be found in the Knacke book. (edit to add: I've got a copy of that, too, if you want to look through it sometime.)

Yes, the speed is proportional to the square root of wingloading, so that a 9x wingloading = 3x speed. 9x smaller area = 3x smaller size, when scaled proportionally.

Maybe we can ask Maggot to drill an asshole in his manequin, I will install a pressure sensor and an accelerometer to determine if the round is big enough not to exceed the enema threshold?

NASA is currently hiring parachute designers etc for their next generation manned spacecraft, ie an Apollo-like craft with a parachute recovery system.

I thought it must have been done before. Would a very large hole through the apex be suffiecient to stop ocillation, with two rectangular cut-out extending to the edge on opposite sides to help slow spinning?

And there isnt any real need for a harness. Perhaps a wrist strap...

I thought it was pretty funny this got moved to the BASE forum. Maybe everyone else has given up thinking of stupid shit.

Another idea: you stand on the edge of a bigwall (wearing BASE rig) and launch one of those powerkites used in kite surfing (with tailwind, of course) on a very long line. Kind of giant swing. You'll swing very far from the wall, the kite will tow you forward while most of your weight is supported by lift. Or maybe launch with skis on. Shane?

Thanks Yuri.
Rick Harrison sent me a video a while back from the early 80's of a jump off a moving train using hand held rounds. Main in one hand and reserve in the other. I need to double check his letter about the sizes, but the reserve was about a 10' round and the main wasn't much bigger.

There was a kite surfer out in Hawaii years back that got lofted about 200' by a thermal. landed with some bruises. It's on the web somewhere.

I've got an 18 meter kite at the ready if someone else wants to try it... I'll just shoot the video for the first one.

_justin

This one? 39 second flight

dude, before i even skydived i had a plan to bring my inflateble 17meter kite out to powell on our yearly trips, and fly it with short lines off the talles cliff i could find. now i understand how bad an idea that is, for reasons of physics, aerodynamics, and now i understand it would be illegal. i would not do that. so, i turned to paragliding. its safer

Dude, that's a 52 inch parainnovator pilot chute in the right hand and an 8 foot round in the left.

Some somewhat related interesting food for thought here: http://www.atairaerospace.com/parachutes/heli-chute/

460 IS CORRECT. The train jump was in 1983 from a 300' high railroad bridge. Phil Smith jumped first and me 7 cars later. We used a 52" parainovator big mesh pilot chutes in the right hand and an 8 foot inverted center reserve in the left hand. The reserve was on short lines and we just connected the reserve by a locking carribeaner to our left large 3 ring. We held the skirt of the reserve and the 52 very tightly so as not to get drug off the train before we were ready and over the river since the train was doing at least 45mph. The canopies were both 16' diameter, inverted pulled down center parachutes in a free bag system. The mains were in Velcro Base Rigs that Carl Boensih and Smitty had. Boenish and Smitty owned the 16 footers. They were so light that it took almost no pressure to pull down a line to slip the canopy. On my jump, it was a white, very thin profile canopy and as I nearly approached the huge bridge column, I slipped it away from the concrete and nearly dumped all the air out of the canopy. I hit the water with a strong oscillation, knocked the wind out, but I was fine. The Engineer saw us jump in the rear view mirror and asked our on top photographers when they stopped 80 miles up the road if we made it OK and they said yes. Park Service hit us with Powerless Flight, but my Motion to Dismiss got both of us off. Boensih was filming from the cliff, PM Magazine filming from a helicoptor and Kevin Vennel, a friend who also jumped the train once, was on top with me filming my exit. The Good Old Days!!! Glad we lived through them.
Rick Harrison
BASE 38
Cliffleaper@aol.com

Rick,

I remember making quite a few jumps with rounds. Rich Stein had the same model as mine that he dyed black in his bath tub. I did a little antenna in LA with it. Phil had that Piglet made of F-111, and it rocked! I would always be low man and would burn that one down and Phil always took pictures. He was into the photography thing.

I saw George Roso jump a Para Commander from a 600 foot cliff over hard land. It was like going back in time, even in 1986.

In certain circumstances I liked the rounds better. They were good when you got open so low that there was no way to hit anything. When Phil and Andy jumped the Astrodome and Superdome, Phil said that they drop tested a square, which opened fast but flew into the stands. The rounds landed in the outfield. That is some funny video.

I guess if rounds were a good idea, they would still be around. Kind of strange how things seem like good ideas until someone shows why they are not. It freaked my rigger out when he figured out I had been jumping my reserve in a BASE rig.

As for size, Phil's definition of a valid BASE jump over water was whatever the world record high dive was. It was about 190 feet or something, and us, not being trained divers, could easily get whacked. I imagine you could make a pretty small one for water. How small, I do not know.

I had a lot of fun with rounds where it was warranted. I have this great picture of John Hoover open way above me with a square and my Preserve about half inflated a hundred feet or so off the water.

Mark

this would be pretty easy, all we need to do is find out how fast we hit the water at a 'safe' cliff jump feet first impact, im guessing is about 80 feet per second (with enema protection). and then we need to skydive with progressivly larger drouge chutes, to measure the speed at whatever weight, then try it off potato. how deep is that water at deepest point spring season?

i mean, ill try it.

I will be hitting you up for whatever you find out. Imagine a dropzone at the sea, so much less training. Signifcantly cheaper equipment. No canopy collisions, or hook turn deaths. Inadvertantly exiting over land may be hazardous... But for anovelty dropzone it would be pretty funny.

Would it be possible to have the canopy like a mesh pc? With loading tapes instead of lines?

edit to add: the heli-chute by atair looks to be pretty impressive. And it packs up rediculously small. Sweet. I wan't one badly.

Thanks for the correction

don't drown.

to udder, i imagine the pack volume for a round with mesh and tapes would be immense.

to BASE 104, I miss John Hoover. I was at his funeral. If you have a picture of you and him, I would greatly appreciate a scanned image of it.

thanks
Chris

If the water's deep enough, you don't need a parachute for 100'.
if you must, a 22" PC would do the trick. I'd suggest connecting it from the tops of your shoulders though. Back in the day, we'd regularly do 85-110'. Now that I'm a BASE jumper, I think that would flip my shit out too much though.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4844384.html

The Poynter Manual has a small drawing. It looks somehting like a child's pinwheel toy on a vertical axis.

Hey Mark. Nice to hear from you. I still have the old Patagonia red long sleeve pullover I traded you in 85 at Ardmore OK when we did the tower for PM Mag. Copy me on any scanned shot of Hoov and Chris if you have it to Cliffleaper@aol.com. Tactically, rounds are safer close to a wall since they will not deflate if you hit one, but they land hard and can't travel to a good landing area if you need to. Now days, its as much about comfort and not getting hurt as opposed to just living through the jump.
Rick H.

That tower was my last BASE jump. I was getting stupid and jumped a Sabre 150. I had a 180 and flew threw the wires...missing them.

I was all like, "What am I doing? I have a kid!"

Last time I climbed El Cap I had to go down a line in the dark to free a hung up rope. I was rapping down with my headlight lighting up this little spot.

I was like, "What the F am I doing up here? I have a kid!!"

That jacket was Phil Smith's. I don't remember whether he gave it to me or if I outright stole it from him.

I'll dig up some Hoover stuff and start a thread. We tortured our livers and packed a lot in the dark.

Nick,

I apologize.
I am the guilty bastard who suggested that a moderate move this discussion to the BASE Forum.
... something about me tiring of reading vague, speculative, ill-informed, overly academic ramblings by people who did not have a clue what they were talking about.

Just go ask the horse!!!

Maybe now it is time for moderators to move this thread back ... so average skydivers can hear from BASE jumpers who have jumped small rounds into water.

No worries, Rob. The mods here get it right most of the time.

Have a Merry Christmas . . . !

NickD
BASE 194