Basejumper.com - archive

Okay, so I have noticed then when my vtec canopy gets near the stall point it seems to not fold up on itself but rather starts to fly in a more vertical direction, maintaining presurization trough the vents. Now it got me thinking...would it be a good idea to have a break setting just at the stall point (probably only good for slider off...with slider up you should have tracked soooooo far that off heading dosn't matter rigth )? In the event of an off heading opening you would be sinking and have very little forward speed, giving you more time to un-fuck yourself. One big question about this setup is: would the sink rate brought on by this setting eat up so much altitude that by the time you got un-fucked you would be too low???? I THINK this would work on vented canopies, but I don't know what effect valves would have. Also, I may be over looking somthing here. BR dosn't mention this in the manual...did they find some reason not to do this?

What does eveyone else think?

Yeah, that's pretty much what we mean when we talk about "customizing brake settings" on canopies. Forward speed on opening = death, generally speaking.

Yes, a canopy opening at or near stall will burn vertical altitude, as will a rear-riser turn to correct a 180. However, in most all cases we'd rather lose that altitude than impact an object, collapse the canopy due to impact, and pound/spiral down the object until smashing into the ground.

Folks who are jumping canopies (vented or otherwise) without dialed-in brake settings off of vertical or only moderately overhung "hard" objects (B, A, Es mostly) are simply rolling the dice and hoping for the best. No matter what one does, if one gets a 180 from an object like that and has too much forward speed, there is no response that will consistently avoid object strike.

Object strike kills BASE jumpers. It is the single-largest category of known BASE fatalities.

Tune in those brake settings!

Peace,

D-d0g

Thanks for the response. Now the follow up would be how deep can you go. Would you want to go to about the sall point, or is there a reason you would not want to go that deep. I also noticed that my Fox vtec only has one break setting, unlike say a friends Mojo's...what's the deal with that? Did BR find a not to go to deep. Also, I would imagine that these really deep brake settings would be a bitch slider due to the greater air speed. Don't know though.

You ought to find your own personal DBS by repeated test jumps. The old method of finding the stall point and backing off a tad hasn't worked very well for me with vented canopies. I've found that I actually have to go out to a good site (like that span in potato land) and do repeated test jumps to find the right setting. You can do this by putting in a whole bunch of settings, then testing up and down your brake lines until you find the right one (then remove the others--and adjust for the change in line length, and re-test).

BR no longer recommends customizing a deep brake setting for your canopy. I strongly disagree with their policy on DBS ([inside joke]we won't mention how I feel about DBS.[/inside joke])

You ought to have two brake settings, one for slider up, and one for slider down jumping. You can use the same method for setting both of them (i.e. repeated test jumping off a relatively safe object). Note that if you are getting super-techy you might want to have three settings (one for terminal, one for sub-terminal, one for slider down), or even more (extra settings for head-winds, tail-winds, etc). For most of us, two settings (one super deep, for slider down, and one shallower for slider up) ought to suffice.

I believe the Little Aussie posted a while back explaining why he thought you only needed one brake setting for all jumps on a vented canopy. While I don't necessarily agree with him, I do believe that he probably knows more about it than me (or pretty much anyone else, for that matter). Let me see if I can dig up his posting.

Hey Flyin'

We can test jump your v-tec this weekend out of the king air... I'll just put it in my MZS ha ha ha

Karl Bob

ROFLMFAO

Hey, if you can fit it in there you can take it off any object you wish. LOL

How far apart would you suggest making these settings? Why did you have problems with the old method of testing?

Here is the excellent discussion on the BB that I think was mentioned in the post above... (sorry I couldn't make it "clicky").


http://www.blincmagazine.com/..._id=1214&page=12

How's that? ~Tom Aiello

More on DBS...

Okay, so a new question on this comes up...

What really low objects? Lets say you static line a 168' object, you should be open by 90' or so. So now you have your breaks set to the stall point, and you are low to the ground with a canopy that is almost stalled. Do you take this risk to? If so, I would imagine that you would slowly let your breaks up right after opening and then flare with whatever you have left.

I ask this because I have used factory brake settings for this senario and was wondering what other peoples opinon on this is.

What is the object? If it's something like a nice span that is open behind you, then I'd set the brakes a bit shallow for faster "pitch to flight" time. If it's something I could hit, I'd still go with deep brakes--I'd rather hit the ground with a nearly stalled canopy than hit the object (I've done both, and I know which I prefer--in the first case, you usually end up hitting the ground pretty hard anyway).


Definitely. Pull the toggles all the way down, then ease them back up, flaring from wherever you have to. If you just dump the brakes, you can surge yourself into the ground.

Just hightlighting this for some folks I know

thanks,
Gardner

p.s. Is it true that you're next door to us? drop a line.