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I know this is a skydiving question, but most of the guys at the DZ I jump at fly elliptical canopies and don't really do flat turns too often. So here's my story . . . I was flying my pattern and noticed I was a little low, 400-300 feet maybe? So I think, flat turn! I pulled my toggles to my crotch for a second, then let one up and got facing back into the wind. I thought I did a pretty good job but ended up getting a 'talk to'(strike one!) My instructor told me that I scared the shit out of him and that he thought my canopy was about to collapse. So I was just wondering how to properly do a flat turn, and how far should you pull down your breaks? I had practiced doing flat turns before, but I was always at a pretty safe altitude. I had even attempted to stall my canopy on multiple occasions and have never been able to do so. Any advice would be appreciated!

I forgot to add: I was flying a 290 sq. ft. 9 cell Skymaster at the time of this jump, and sometimes jump a Skymaster 230 when its available.

The only reason you didnt stall it is because of the low wingloading. Being too agressive on the toggles will kill you in base. I just gift wrapped myself in my canopy last weekend from doing something similar. I cleared the toggles too hard and only let one up to whip a quick 180 and ended up stalling it.

You need to play with the canopy up high to practice these things. If you have a digi altimeter it helps. Mess around with turning it quarter brakes, then half brakes. Be careful beyond that. Dont forget canopies require a certain amount of time to recover as well, so once you commit to anything past half brakes you're going to have to ride it out until the canopy recovers.

Well, not too sure about that. . .You may not ba able to stall your student canopies because they tend to leave some extra in the brake lines (so you won't stall it out on accident). Seems to me that a lower WL will have you stalling out sooner. . .

As for the flat turns . . .you don't need to stop your forward drive to start a flat turn (toggles to your crotch) Like the previous poster said bring the togs to half brakes then let one up (slowly).

Base canopies will allow you to make turns SUPER low but, if you try to do a flat turn the way you did (full brakes), at say 20-30ft there's a good chance you'll stall the wing and find yourself ass-rocketing into the dirt.

I made that mistake ONE time and I've seen other new jumpers do it too. Be carefull in your deeps. . .

at the dz, behave as your skydiving instructor advises. listen to them, and you won't get banished!



[hint] I'm sure there is an article on drills to do while flying your parachute...

Suggested articles:

Canopy skills drills:
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/safety/detail_page.cgi?ID=536

Clean up your turns:
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/safety/detail_page.cgi?ID=696

The stall:
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/safety/detail_page.cgi?ID=637

Opposite, with a lower WL the wing will tend to stall later.

here is A flat turn for you :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPsoq6MczSA

one thing to remeber with any turn made under canopy, is wind conditions. after any type of turn you have a recovage surge, in a higher wind you might be able to land right out of the turn with out letting up on your toggles....no wind, whole diffrent critter.
skydive your ass off in all types of winds. learn what you can do in all types of winds,

I always thought that a lower wingloading will stall sooner. That is why if a smaller person borrows a heavier person's canopy that has the brakes correctly set for the heavier person, the canopy might stall on opening on the lighter person. Of course I very well could be wrong about this.

Ok, at opening it might be different, have not yet thought about this. But in flight stall speed is in general lower with a lower weight, and we were talking about a flight situation.

That is a great helicopter. I used to do that under my falcon and any other F-111 canopy all the time. It works well under a Sabre also. I know a few people that can do pretty radical helicopters under their cross braced canopies but I won't bother trying with one. If the pond wasn't so full today, I'd put my base canopy in a student rig and go spin it up like that.

How do you do that? go into brakes until it starts to stall and then let go one brake?

jumpers "tune" their Deep Brake Settings (DPS) to minimize forward speed.

the higher the wingloading of the parachute, the faster the parachute will fly down the glideslope.

since a higher wingloaded parachute will fly forward faster, it will need to be slowed far more to have the minimal forward speed desired in DBS. the lighter wingloaded canopy will naturally fly slower, and thus need shallower DBS.

if the 2 jumpers swap canopies, the heavy jumper will have forward drive on opening. the lighter jumper will likely have a problem canopy. it could stall. it could fly backwards. it could collapse. at the very least, it probably will buck and heave.

I've been told its rear riser/toggle plus opposite front riser input, but I have not tried it myself.

nah, he's just burning off altitude with a tight toggle turn. Awesome altitude awareness though....he let off at just the right time in order to do a downwind, base and final approach, and still nail the bullseye

That's warp, which takes performance away but doesn't cause a turn. CRW jumpers do it to make it easier for the pin to catch the base.

I do pirouettes like in the video by flaring just past the stall point and then letting one toggle up just a bit to get that side of the canopy flying again.

Flat turns are for people that like flat chested woman. Hook that shit into the ground!

Careful with that. There was a woman in BC a couple years back who died because she was flying very near the stall point of her canopy, a few hundred feet up, and caught a small gust from the rear. This turned it into a stall, and suddenly she was in line twists diving toward the ground.

Michael