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Saw this on the Bridge day page. Was glancing through since I might be able to make next years event. What's the thought here? A lost toggle causes instability? Sure you can't flare on that side of the canopy but you could still fly it to a landing area and PLF rather than 1 toggle 1 riser flare.

"With one lost toggle, your canopy will only lose stability in 1/2 of the tail, while dropping both toggles will make the entire tail of the canopy unstable. Try to steer and flare using the riser to compensate for the missing toggle."

Sorry if I'm missing something, maybe its just my name playing itself out.

"With one lost toggle, your canopy will only lose stability in 1/2 of the tail, while dropping both toggles will make the entire tail of the canopy unstable. Try to steer and flare using the riser to compensate for the missing toggle."

I think this is pretty spot on. You should hold on to the existing toggle and steer/flare with just your rear risers. I've seen someone successfully flare with a toggle on one side and a rear riser on the other side, but that may make it a bit more complicated and not as symmetric. I'd much rather make and attempt to do some type of flare rather than come crashing in at full flight for a PLF.

I'm pretty sure the (assuming) generally accepted theory here is to *NOT DROP* the other toggle, but you're still flaring with the risers on landing (just with a toggle in one hand). When I've ended up with one toggle or seen other people with one toggle, that's how they did it and I did it, with stand-up success. You can steer with the toggle, but I wouldn't really recommend 1 toggle one riser flaring unless you're a badass .

The waterlanding option? Or maybe learn to fly the canopy. Granted that I have only landed rear risers with and without the brakes being stowed and once with a rear riser, brake stowed on the left and unstowed brakeline on the right. None were a problem for me and I aint no badass. I just fly the canopy. I have legal excuses for these landings :-)[/:)]
The objective of the landing maneuver is to fly parallel to the ground in the range that one's legs can take over the transition of the speed/weight efficiently.
A flare is not an action, it is an adjustment of the angle of flight. Learn to fly the canopy on risers if one wants to be a canopy pilot rather than just a payload.
To sum it up, if one has the knowledge and ability to fly the canopy and do a riser landing then it wont be a prob, If not, Take the water. Coming in on final in sketchy terrain is not the best time to learn
how to land on risers or riser/toggle.
take care,
space

Practice both methods out of a plane. Put your line release toggles on your sky rig and go jump and after you open, release one and fly around until it's time to land and then land how ever you feel is better. I dropped a toggle once and used a toggle and riser to land. Only because that's how I practiced. If I had a really steep approach or very small LZ, I'd probably use both risers.

Ok, no one has addressed the "Instability" I get that you can land, steer and fly on rears. I saw a guy land on one toggle and one rear at the perrine and he didn't eat shit.

I guess the word instability tripped me up. Its just that guy saying you can't fly as efficiently with rears.

He may be addressing the instability initially present during opening if one toggle blows but the other is stowed. That puts you in a spin until you release the brake on the other toggle which is still stowed. Until you manually stabilize the canopy, you are effectively unstable. Also, without that extra tail section, you are more susceptible to instability in crosswinds/turbulence.

You can't.

If you've released the control lines, when you pull the rear it only gets the C and D lines. The control line is free, so the tail flips up and destroys the airfoil. This is an incredibly inefficient way to fly the wing (by reshaping it into "not a wing" to lose lift on one side).

This is different from pulling rears on a skydiving canopy, where the rear riser still controls the tail lines because the control line is still through the keeper ring.

What Tom said. It's all about maintain the airfoil as much as possible. So if you drop a toggle you should still hold onto the remaining toggle even if you don't intend to use it for landing. Rear risers obviously aren't as efficient as toggles but rear risers without the tail held in place is even worse.

Ah, alright... wasn't even thinking about that. The way you put it actually makes sense, not having that control line is giving up the rear of the canopy.

Thanks Tom

Sure you can. You can still flare that 1/2 of the canopy with the riser. It's a good skill to have and it's easy to practice.

You also wrote:

There you have it.

A golden opportunity to practice it two hundred times before you begin B.A.S.E.

What you say totally makes sense from an aerodynamics perspective, but it simply isn't completely true from my experience (especially with my flik308). I have dropped toggles, one and both, on purpose and on accident, and I have had no problems getting great turn performance out of my risers after a dropped toggle(s). The biggest thing though was that the canopy will not sink well without the rear brake lines being tensioned. But it still leveled out beautifully during landing, and it turned on rears great without toggles too. But I wouldn't try and pull both rears to slow it down since the stall point will be much more sensitive due to the possibility of folding behind the Ds during slower speed flight.

These canopies are pressurized enough during full flight that pulling the Cs and Ds will still effect the trailing edge even without brakes being tensioned. Just my $0.02 worth of experience. Not sure if its actually worth both pennies.

every thing should be symmetrical. so if you fuck up on one side you should fuck the other side 2 . had a toggle fire on my old fox so immediately droped the toggel on the other side 2. but remember that steering on rear risers requires a lot more input once the toggels are gone. other than that, steering and landing on rears should be a basic skill that every basejumper has.

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Gauleyguide .. agree This also .
I had no problem flying, Steering and landing 280 canopy using Rear Riser for direction & ( LIGHT ) Riser flair to plain-out and land .
Easy to land BASE or skydive canopy with Rear Risers if you have practiced it a couple times & know that it only takes small amount compared to an actual Toggle flair .
Only one thing that I was actually worried was that the Toggles were following free & there was a small possibility of a snagging on a tree if the Toggle was to catch limb on the approach .
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" No Toggles " you ask ????
what happened was after a long day of skydiving I went to local cliff to pop off a relaxing evening BASE jump to top-off a perfect day . Great sunset, nice exit and canopy heading . I grabbed and popped my Toggle . Then Like a idiot I dropped both of them & FAST and instinctively grabbed at my 'No Slider ' to stow it, like It was just another DZ jump .
1/100th of a second after I dropped them Toggles It hit me but it was to late, So I just went for the Rear Risers and landed a nice fast plain-out on the Rail-Track like usual . But in the past I have done a couple practice No-Toggle landing at the DZ skydiving so I knew what it took to plain-out using the C-D line group with Rear Risers .
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The only thing you forgot to do after stowing your slider was loosen your chest strap

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HAHAHAHaaaaaaLOL .. Ya, I am 'positive' Chest Strap was next on the list .
It was just done spontaneously without thought, just pure muscle memory that is burned-in your brain jump after jump on every opening you skydive .
POP, went the Toggles and soon as my hand twitched up & went to grab the ' NON-existent ' Slider to pull the draw-string . You think to yourself, ..."did I just fucking do that ? "
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If I dropped my Toggles in there . I would surly poke an Eye-out .
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What I said is 100% in-arguably true. Dropping both toggles will most definitely affect the airfoil thus making the wing less efficient at doing it's job.
Of course this doesn't mean that you cannot still fly, turn, and even land perfectly fine. As you noticed.

anyone arguing that dropping both toggles (especially in a slider down situation) will have little to no effect on the canopy flight is on crack. They probably are the same person who thinks that planes don't get any benefit from flaps.

Loose your toggles, and you loose all the airfoil rear of your D-lines. It's just a flapping mess.

proof attached

dude already landed and the canopy looks to be falling down. Not saying you are wrong about the flapping but in full flight it keeps its shape pretty well.
I forgot to stow my breaks once on a rollover at the bridge and the canopy looked normal flew to the landing and stood it up on my rears.

" dude already landed and the canopy looks to be falling down. Not saying you are wrong about the flapping but in full flight it keeps its shape pretty well.
I forgot to stow my breaks once on a rollover at the bridge and the canopy looked normal flew to the landing and stood it up on my rears ".
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Totally agree the pic. of canopy, is no longer in flight & flying your canopy is ALWAYS desirable with Toggles in the hands .
But a canopy that is under load & flying with air pressurizing threw Nose or both Nose & Vent system and pilot weight loading 4-Risers and A-B & C-D line groups Fly's & steers & lands a pilot .
Also . Every person that even considers him/herself a well rounded canopy pilot should also know how to do it all from opening to landing without Toggles because that is really basic stuff .

but No Toggles in the hand ?? . I really don't see much of an substantial argument here either for anyone saying a Canopy cant do everything except ' Brake-Flair ' . And look at the brightside of this also . Forced to work it with Rear-Risers only and No Toggles . You Cant Femur Hook-Turn Auger-In to the Dirt, like a 1st year jumper loaded down with GoPro's .
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My only statement was in support of the fact that dropped toggles effect the way the airfoil operates.

Obviously you can still turn, flare, stall, etc. But you are not running at 100%.

that's all.

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total onboard with what your saying . Especially on. ' How Airfoil Operates'
( IMHO ) . ( Slider-Down jumps ) . Anybody that is starting/taking up BASE, if they have not learned to fly 'no toggles' & go threw the motions from opening to landing they should, even on the DZ it would not hurt for learning canopy skills .
BASE, Not just for Fly knowledge without Toggles to fly and safely land . They would help gain a basic understanding of the line-sets from the Risers on-up to canopy and understanding of relationship how input from Risers affect the canopy . I really think it's a must do thing for basic learning .
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