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I'm looking into buying my first skydiving rig sometime in the next couple months. I know if I plan on B.A.S.E. jumping in the future I should get an F111 7 cell canopy, but I was just wondering how many square feet should the canopy be? I planned on purchasing a new fury 220, but I've notice I get blown backwards a lot jumping 200+ square feet student canopies. Flight Concepts next smallest size from the Maverick 200 is the Firelite 175. Would this be a good choice for practicing accuracy while gaining a little wind penetration?

Note: I weigh 145lbs. without gear.

If you are going to buy a new canopy, why not purchase your canopy for base right away?

When I started skydiving i was 135 lbs and bought a cruiselite beta 175 sq.ft. that worked perfect for me.

I'll have to consider that. You don't think it would be impractical in that it may limit the winds you should jump in? The DZ I jump at is across the street from a bunch of wind turbines if that give you any idea of the typical weather conditions where I jump.

spot three miles further out.

You must not have been one of the lucky ones on the loads last weekend that were spotting a few miles out on the wrong side of the river

depending on how many skydives you have, i would go with a pilot or spectre. Base canopies are getting glide with top zp and as long as your not highly loaded on the skydiving canopy, it will be a close replication without losing the skydiving performance and penetration. 170-190 depending on your experience and it sounds like it is windy there so maybe err on the smaller side.

Hell, don't even get on the plane, get off the turbines!

realistically, everything is a compromise.

odds are, even if you find "the perfect main" for you now, you'll find something you had not considered. this new feature will make you want to buy something else.

expect and plan on buying more than one parachute. thus, newbie skydivers are best advised to buy used. feel free to sell it and buy something else.

 Skydiving = skydiving canopy. Base jumping = base jumping canopy.

if this is your first rig for skydiving, it might be a bit of time before you begin base jumping. Buy something that will be fun for skydiving. You can still practice accuracy with a 9 cell canopy or a 7 cell canopy. Accuracy is accuracy no matter what's above your head.
When you're ready to base jump there'll be lots of time to find a base rig. plus you can keep your eyes open for the smoking hot deal while you wait.

Just buy a good used skydiving rig with a popular skydiving main in the correct size. Use Brian Germain's suggested wingloading or close to it for the amount of jumps you have.

It won't hurt your canopy skills flying a boring canopy but in my opinion, you don't need a base like canopy to learn how to fly. Faster canopies will give you quicker reflexes anyway. Get or borrow a big 7 cell when it's time and put some training jumps on it. Don't be shy, wring out whatever you end up flying.

Skydive often. If you simply don't have any fun skydiving, then move to another area with better skydiving going on.


Good luck

Having watched a well-known skydiver with 10,000+ jumps over shoot a generous 50' long BASE landing area I disagree.

While knowing about winds and how to fly a consistent pattern carries over, contemporary skydiving canopy behavior in brakes is nothing like a classic accuracy or BASE canopy's. Modern skydiving canopies flatten out with brake application until just short of the stall point. Classic accuracy friendly designs get steeper and can be brought straight down in a stable sink.

This disregards the effects of size. You can get a gentle tip-toe landing coming in from 3/4 brakes under an appropriately sized main for accuracy (about .7 pounds/square foot in wing loading). Doing that with a size that an experienced skydiver would like is unlikely to be pleasant.

Getting a handle on that before you need to BASE jumping into a tight landing area is a fine idea and will happen a lot sooner if you can crank out 5 or 10 jumps in a weekend which you're unlikely to do BASE jumping. Doing it at the drop zone also means you'll be sinking it in to a soft pea gravel pit; so if you get a little over enthusiastic you're less likely to hurt yourself.

That said, skydiving parachutes are a lot more exciting to fly. You want to enjoy everything skydiving has to offer, including the ride down and can deal with BASE later.

I do agree with him. The 10,000 jump person failed to do any practice on a proper canopy. It takes very little practice for someone with that much experience. The key is to actually do it a few times.

I'm 175lbs and I bought a 245 sq ft Raven II for my first skydiving rig. Put a super long closing loop on my Javelin container, used elbow grease, pig grease, and a bit of The Force to get it in and jumped it for my first 200-300 jumps. I was broke and my mentors said I needed 200 skydives before they'd take me out so i started shooting video with the Raven. I pulled low a lot

This was a high wind dz and I managed okay. You quickly learn how to pull in a brake line when the winds are 20+

I'm fucking amazing so you might not have the same results.

My recommendation would be a seven cell canopy close to the size you intend to base, fuck all those candy ass skydivers that want to down size all the time. You get down when you get down.

Yeah right!!! Until you do it a few times, you won’t be able to make it. So gain some more experience and try out seven cell canopy.

huh?