What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
Aside from the reinforcement at the bridal and line attachment points and the addition of a mesh slider and tail pocket, what's the difference between a regular skydiving reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy? And if BASE canopies were indeed better in some sense, why don't they use BASE canopies as skydiving reserves? Basejumper.com - archive
BASE Technical
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
BASE canopies are overbuilt in the sense that they have a lot more reinforcement than they need (think of the FOX that has been made for over a decade, and now has a slimmer sister - FOX Lite). That adds to bulk which is exactly what the pack volume wars between reserve manufacturers are trying to lower. Also, to use as a reserve, the canopy has to be TSO drop tested, which requires a heavy financial investment. so in short they are too bulky, and have no TSO (at least in US) approval
here's some reading on the volume : http://www.apexbase.com/...t.php?education_id=5
just to add numbers, straight from PIA study of 2008 :
Flik 220 has an area of 220sq ft and a volume of 600cu inches with dacron lines. A Raven II has an area of 211sq ft and a volume of 467cu inches with Dacron
I guess the other way to say it is that BASE canopies are purpose built, just like reserves - but both are built for a difference purpose
Re: [vid666] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
but in terms of opening performance and flight characteristics are they the same?
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
I don't have the experience to answer that question. Perhaps Todd or Marty or Adam can chime in ? in the 90s PD was making a Dragon BASE canopy for Vertigo that was based on the PDR. My understanding is that no one liked the canopy (I have one jump on one, and it opened mushy and flared like shit). I do believe the ACE/BlackJack both while still built by PD are a different design and seem to work much better in BASE environment.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
Openings will vary for both. How they were packed, slider, deployment speed, and a combination of any of them. I think maybe constraining the tail for a 'nose first' inflation is the biggest difference. As far as flight characteristics go, they all have their own. You're more than likely to have a higher load on the reserve, so the 'characteristics' will come at you quicker.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
Also worth noting that when people say a base canopy is more reliable, they also are talking about the general simpleness of the system. A reserve system is more complicated than a base system, and complexity=more shit that can go wrong. As for the canopies themselves, I would have to agree with vid666. They are built like tanks (normal ones not the light versions). Also base canopies are designed more for very slow (deep brake) flight, where I would doubt that is as important on a reserve.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
ecolisurprise wrote:
but in terms of opening performance and flight characteristics are they the same?
The openings of a reserve when slider down are much worse. A BASE canopy is tuned for slider down inflation with features (in general) like larger crossports, more crossports, larger nose overhang and steeper angle of attack.
I'd recommend you read this thread: PD Reserves for BASE Canopies?
Pay particular attention to this post by John LeBlanc:
In reply to:
Someone recently passed this onto me for a reply, if anybody is still interested.
The PD reserves for base is a thing of the past, but it helped the base jumping gear get where it is today.
Initially, the PD seven cell main was being used, then some folks went to the reserve due to the heavier reinforcing. People often had their rigger install a pilotchute attachment, often of questionable structural design.
The slow rear riser response was one reason for the creation of the Dragon, which was a canopy we used to build for Vertigo. It was PD seven cell trimmed differently, like a Lightning. Over the years, base jumpers kept finding lower objects acceptable, and the slow cell inflation (slider down) of the PD seven cell based canopies were not adequate for this environment. Therefore production of the Dragon was stopped.
Since then, other designs more specific to base have been developed by various companies that have quicker cell inflation with the slider down. If you are only doing very high objects, it may make little difference. However, if you are looking to purchase gear for base, don't bother with converted skydiving gear. It makes more sense to get something base specific, and something that is the best blend of being up to date, but also well proven in the field.
John LeBlanc
If you are not familiar with John LeBlanc, go here for more details on his background.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
ecolisurprise wrote:
And if BASE canopies were indeed better in some sense, why don't they use BASE canopies as skydiving reserves?
"Better" is highly subjective. BASE canopies have better slider down inflation characteristics and superior opening heading, for example, but neither of these characteristics are of primary importance in a skydiving reserve. Skydiving reserves have less pack volume, but pack volume isn't a very big issue for many BASE jumps.
Re: [TomAiello] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
Thanks Tom and all who replied, very informative. This question had been bugging me for a while.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
It's actually really crazy the amount of hearsay that is passed on in a sport where there shouldn't be any. I have heard that BASE canopies are essentially reserves numerous times, from many people, each saying it as though it were fact. It's good to hear someone like LeBlanc say something definitive about it.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
When someone says that base canopies are "reserves" what they are probably meaning is we only carry one, it is treated and packed as our last resort to prevent death, not that they are physically like and could be interchanged as skydiving reserves. Remember the line when someone asks how can you jump so low without a reserve the sly reply is we we don't jump with mains we jump with reserves.
Re: [Anvilbrother] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
i have heard people say that as well, but in this case i don't think that's what they meant. they really meant that a reserve is just as good as a base canopy provided that it has the necessary reinforcements.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
Could be the case, but we all can agree a base canopy is much closer to a skydiving reserve than most sport canopies. So although it's not the same thing you can generalize it as such to a whuffo or someone not in base at the dz. Or tell them its like Chevy and GMC practically the same, just rebranded and that your Blackjack and a PDr are just like that and see how far that rumor goes for fun
System Dynamics
There is No FREE Lunch in Physics or in Life. Football players and marathon runners do not
look alike, each train for different strengths.
Think of a motorcycle versus a car as your daily
transportation, each have their specific pros and
cons: size, cost, weight, speed, fuel, parking,
insurance, comfort, risk.
ALL parachutes are designed and manufactured
with some trade-offs: size, weight, pack volume,
wing loading, reliability, deployment velocity,
usable life-span, etc.
Personally I think people say "BASE wings are
just SKY reserves" because many people do not
know much other than they are square and 7 cell.
As Paul, Tom A., John LeBlanc, and Apex's website
pointed out: there are many differences, but hard
to explain them to a SKY jumper who only flies 9
cells and has limited, if any, experience packing
and flying Reserve, CRW, and BASE canopies.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
Pay attention to what things are designed for. A reserve is designed for a coupla jumps. BASE canopies are designed for hundreds. The job of a reserve is to save your life. The job of a BASE canopy is to get ya back up to the exit point well packed (without a tib/fib). A tib/fib is acceptable in the skydiving reserve arena.
But not in BASE. I hope this makes sense.
Take care,
space
Re: [base283] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
Space wrote: A tib/fib is acceptable in the skydiving reserve arena.
Great point, and I had started to include some
mention of that notion in my reply then figured
my post was long enough.
There are 2 schools of thought on the reserve:
1) get it as small as possible because mostly
you just carry it and almost never ever use it.
2) get one that is really sized for your body
because landing off after a malfunction under
the smallest wing you have ever jumped sucks.
Going back to the original vein of the thread...
Compare the expected wing loadings in 1 or 2
above to the recommended wing loading of
around .75 for BASE jumping, big difference.
Re: [TomAiello] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
In reply to:
The openings of a reserve when slider down are much worse. A BASE canopy is tuned for slider down inflation with features (in general) like larger crossports, more crossports, larger nose overhang and steeper angle of attack.
Why aren't these changes incorporated into skydiving reserves? It seems to me that those features would suit a skydiving reserve with the slider up as well. Faster inflation time isn't a bad thing.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
Depends on how fast one is going. A fast/hard opening can kill you. Take care,
space
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
Also, I don't think those features would add too much to the pack volume which, as it seems from this thread, would be the only reason not to have a BASE canopy as a reserve. Am I wrong?
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
ecolisurprise wrote:
In reply to:
The openings of a reserve when slider down are much worse. A BASE canopy is tuned for slider down inflation with features (in general) like larger crossports, more crossports, larger nose overhang and steeper angle of attack.
Why aren't these changes incorporated into skydiving reserves? It seems to me that those features would suit a skydiving reserve with the slider up as well. Faster inflation time isn't a bad thing.
Since I'm not a skydiving reserve designer, I can only speculate. But I can think of a couple possible reasons.
One of the primary competitive criteria of a skydiving reserve is price. Most skydivers don't really care about the reserve canopy, because they don't use it very often, so they often just go for the cheapest one. More features means more cost means a higher price, and less sales.
Slider up inflation mechanics and slider down inflation mechanics are pretty different. All the slider down inflation tweaks on a BASE canopy will make less difference than simply changing the slider size and/or material. Take a slow opening skydiving reserve and switch out the F-111 slider for a large hole mesh slider and you'd have made a larger change to the slider up inflation than all the (much more expensive) changes to the canopy itself.
Imagine how much a reserve would cost if it had all the features of a top end BASE canopy. How many of those reserves would be sold when it had to compete against cheaper (but still functional) reserves from other manufacturers?
Re: [base283] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
Right, but we take BASE canopies to terminal all the time, and with a MESH slider even. Don't know of a BASE fatality where this has ever been the cause of death.
In reply to:
Depends on how fast one is going. A fast/hard opening can kill you.
Re: [TomAiello] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
interesting. didn't see it from the fiscal point of view.
In reply to:
One of the primary competitive criteria of a skydiving reserve is price. Most skydivers don't really care about the reserve canopy, because they don't use it very often, so they often just go for the cheapest one. More features means more cost means a higher price, and less sales.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
ecolisurprise wrote:
Right, but we take BASE canopies to terminal all the time, and with a MESH slider even. Don't know of a BASE fatality where this has ever been the cause of death.
I know of several serious accidents where a hard slider down opening injured a jumper, or damaged the gear to a point that it didn't fly properly and thereby injured the jumper, or knocked a jumper unconscious (one of those I can think of resulted in injury, another in a water landing that woke the jumper up).
Fast inflation is a positive to a point. But if it was always a positive, we'd be jumping slider down at terminal.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
ecolisurprise wrote:
Right, but we take BASE canopies to terminal all the time, and with a MESH slider even. Don't know of a BASE fatality where this has ever been the cause of death.
In reply to:
Depends on how fast one is going. A fast/hard opening can kill you.
don't' forget that we pack our canopy different for each delay. Even the small differences my make a huge difference when we are talking about reserves that may be deployed at a very low airspeed by skyhook in a low speed malfunction or have a premmie going head down at 160mph+. A reserve has to be versatile enough to give you survivable openings while being packed the same.
Think of the -MZ (ZP topskin MicroRaven reserves made in the late 90s early 2000s) - while the canopy achieved a really good glide and flare, the detriment was extremely hard openings, to a point of injuring a few people severely during high speed malfunctions.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
ecolisurprise wrote:
Also, I don't think those features would add too much to the pack volume which, as it seems from this thread, would be the only reason not to have a BASE canopy as a reserve. Am I wrong?
have you tried asking a skydiving rigger?
if you think BASE parachutes are better, why not ask the people not using the technology? maybe they can help clarify things better than the (apparently) unsatisfactory answers so far?
(I can have trouble explaining what I do, so I'd rather not guess at the thinking behind someone else's actions!
)
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
I do know of jumpers being knock unconscious in BASE, I greyed out once. Check out this search http://www.dropzone.com/...tring=aorta;#1790249 Rigging for the opening is very specific. A reserve is packed for a worst case scenario. A BASE pack is packed for velocity at deployment, or should be. Incapacitation during deployment sux. Even if you dont die from the opening shock.
Take care,
space
Re: [wwarped] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
wwarped wrote:
ecolisurprise wrote:
Also, I don't think those features would add too much to the pack volume which, as it seems from this thread, would be the only reason not to have a BASE canopy as a reserve. Am I wrong?
have you tried asking a skydiving rigger?
if you think BASE parachutes are better, why not ask the people not using the technology? maybe they can help clarify things better than the (apparently) unsatisfactory answers so far?
(I can have trouble explaining what I do, so I'd rather not guess at the thinking behind someone else's actions!
)
I have asked a rigger about this issue, a very experienced one at that, and he in fact inspired this thread: he said the only difference between BASE canopies and reserves is the reinforcements.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
ecolisurprise wrote:
wwarped wrote:
have you tried asking a skydiving rigger?
if you think BASE parachutes are better, why not ask the people not using the technology? maybe they can help clarify things better than the (apparently) unsatisfactory answers so far?
I have asked a rigger about this issue, a very experienced one at that, and he in fact inspired this thread: he said the only difference between BASE canopies and reserves is the reinforcements.
well, show him the responses that disagree with HIS opinion and question him!
welcome to BASE. it looks like it is time for you to start sorting through differing opinions. (no one can do it for you...)
Re: [wwarped] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
yup. everyone's got an opinion, and BASE selects for vocal confident people, so the response you get is almost always didactic, absolute and unwavering as though it were the truth and everyone else is full of shit. it's hard to tell what's right and wrong.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
ecolisurprise wrote:
yup. everyone's got an opinion, and BASE selects for vocal confident people, so the response you get is almost always didactic, absolute and unwavering as though it were the truth and everyone else is full of shit. it's hard to tell what's right and wrong.
There are jumpers with more and less educated opinions, but no one is "right." There are no "right" answers. I think I wrote this in another thread recently, but, it bears repeating. The voice of God does not boom down from heaven and tell us how to BASE jump.
Each of us must consider the available evidence and make decisions that we are comfortable with, because each of us will bear the consequences of those decisions.
I'd recommend that you automatically doubt anyone who tells you that they know the answer and it is something specific. They're either lying to you or fooling themselves, and either one is likely to be bad for you.
Whatever my personal answer is, it may not be the right answer for you. And in another week, month or year, it may no longer be my answer anyway--if you stop changing your mind you've stopped learning.
_Your_ answer is the only one that matters for you. Make it as educated as you can, and be willing to change it if new evidence presents itself.
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
ecolisurprise wrote:
yup. everyone's got an opinion, and BASE selects for vocal confident people, so the response you get is almost always didactic, absolute and unwavering as though it were the truth and everyone else is full of shit. it's hard to tell what's right and wrong.
uhhh, can you define, "truth?"
when (if) you make a BASE jump, you put your body at risk. there is no established authority to determine what is "right" or not. it is up to you. it is YOUR body that will pay. it makes no sense to listen blindly to jumper X, IMHO. they have nothing at risk when YOU jump. you must decide things for yourself.
the only opinion that should matter to YOU is your own.
but why listen to my anonymous voice, I could be an idiot!
Re: [TomAiello] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
God sent his son Jesus to tell us how to BASE jump.
Re: [wwarped] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
In reply to:
welcome to BASE. it looks like it is time for you to start sorting through differing opinions. (no one can do it for you...)
Re: [ecolisurprise] What's the difference between a reserve and a non-vented BASE canopy?
ecolisurprise wrote:
I have asked a rigger about this issue, a very experienced one at that, and he in fact inspired this thread: he said the only difference between BASE canopies and reserves is the reinforcements.
How experienced is this rigger in the BASE community? A very experienced rigger in the skydiving community should know alot about skydiving canopies, it doesn't mean he would know anything about BASE canopies. Just because he's a 'rigger' doesn't mean he's God.