Basejumper.com - archive

This will of course depend on several factors- mostly slider up or down, jumping environment, uv exposure etc, But as a rule, how many jumps would you (or have you) put on a lineset?

My jumping is mostly SD at night with the occassional big wall trip or KL thrown in. I reckon on around 150-200 (lower control lines may need replacing before then)

Inspect your gear on a regular basis, and replace when needed. It will vary too much to give a #. I did 400 jumps on my first set of gear without replacing the lines

I'd think what you jump influences your answer.

Jumping at the potato bridge with the boat present? You can survive a broken line.

Jumping low, rocky cliffs like at Moab? A broken line is not for me...

Till they snap. Or, all you do is Slider-up jumps for BASE.
How are you going to break lines anyway ? unless you don't set your Breaks properly and blow them or you have a Object Strike and tear shred or break them. Fuck, odds are you are most likely to Go-In or have a 180 and die before you seriously wear a good set of lines out on your BASE canopy anyway. BASE canopies are tougher than any human body that pilots . Break-line and the Loop, Ring, Toggles set-up is the thing to keep your eyes on the most. Besides the only lines on your entire line-set that are most critical for your canopy to fly is the In-board A & B's. That is the glue that holds the trim the most. If you POP them, you are in for a ride. Not like you are flying small skydive canopy that actually 'Needs Trim' to keep you alive .
There should be a Poll on, How many people have seen people land a BASE canopy with broken lines and blown Cells and watched them walk away ?
.
.

I guess 'until they snap' should be changed 'until they go out of trim'. Unless theres anyone jumping Vectran or HMA lines ;-)

One thing I have noticed on both of my canopies is at around 100 jumps, the inboard lines are stretching. If you flatpack, the tabs are all level on a new lineset but after 100-200 jumps, the centre cell pulls out signigicantly further (1-2") than the other cells. Although openings are still on heading, they are noticibly more abrupt.

Are these 100 jumps mostly slider up or down or 50/50?
Are the outboard lines shrinking?

I would say 70% SD to 30% SU. The centre line pairs are getting longer compared to the rest. I have not done a full line trim check so I don't know for sure if the inners are stretching or the others are shrinking - however I suspect it is more that the inners are stretching. Up to half of the SD jumps are static-line/PCA.

To me (it feels like) You got better quality Nylon now days in nonZP canopies but In my honest opinion the ' best qualities ' of Flair & glide ratio are the 1st 100 jumps on big nylon . So that is the point where it is in it's prime of life and after that the canopy skins start on the regression . But I do in know way think that the Line-set is starting to get worn-out and out of Trim at all . And I would never change-out a BASE canopy line-set unless it was damaged because the environment that it gets used is more severe and to me a BASE canopies life is gone and should be taken out of your primary Rig and moved to your B-Rig after 500 jumps on it.
So what I guess I am saying is that the BASE Canopy gets worn out before you need a line-set change because of bad Trim severely hampering it's flight characteristics . Excluding the Break-lines and there getting hammered bigtime by the bottom skin & canopy's Tail inflation . Breaklines get badly treated .
Man this is kind of a interesting subject because No One jumps pure Nylon anymore except BASE . Fuck even CRW are using little badass canopies and even Tandem is semi-elliptical and all ZP now. Jumpers get into skydive can begin and progress, never even flying or seeing strait Nylon and big Dacron . back when I started Skydiving it with big canopies, all nylon (no zp) like 7 & 9 cell and the high performance PD-150 <--'thats a joke' but back then. nonzp PD150 was a fast canopy . I think a lot of people started to look for changing out the line-set about 400-600 skydives with all Slider-up & all the jumps were all in the UV . Canopies were pretty porous and the best flair was gone because of Slider-burn & the sunlight by then . You gave the canopy a 2nd shot run and new life with a the Trim a new line-set. but the Nylon was destined for the trash or a good car cover by then . Even with a new line-set your landings started to get harder because your Flair-out was getting weaker with bad porosity.
.

I have changed the lower control lines once on my BJ 260. she probably has 500 ish jumps, 175 or so since the last lower change, but is due to get those fixed again soon. 85% of the jumps are SD. Just inspect your gear, if you have concerns of its condition, fix it. Gear can cause off headings, but so can gear fear!

That is a good amount of jumps on one BASE canopy. How is the Nylon porosity on the bj with 500 on it ? Still got a good Flair and setting you down nice ?
How many you think has been with no UV damage & in the dark ? or with UV packing in the outside ? most your packing is done indoors before going out .
.

I have about 600 jumps on my trusty old Troll with the original lineset, I would say about 1/4 SD and 3/4 SU. Off those 150'ish SD's maybe 100 are night jumps, SU's all (except odd one or two) are day jumps. I would say about half of the packjobs are done outside. The canopy still opens nice and lands decently. I can definitely notice that it has weaker flare and doesen't glide that well than my other Troll that I had some time ago which had about 200 jumps on it. But it still brings me back to solid ground nice and safe while waiting for my new Trango to arrive. :)

A quick look back and I misstated. its more like 385. but it still has a really decent flare. it has a zp topskin. and I front riser a good number of my landings (but i can still sink her in nice and soft. I have had the canopy for about 160 of those jumps. about 100 SD, 60 subterminal SU. very little packing outdoors (10 tops), some at night on soft grass, but shes been to moab. and I can't really know the prior history. And I love that canopy. I sold my first canopy with less jumps over selling the bj!