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I weight 130 lbs when I wear a rig. I have heard people say it´s good to have a wingloading at about 0,75 lbs/sqft. I would need a 174 sqft canopy to get that wingloading.

Is there anything more than wingloading that you calculate with when you choose your canopy size?

What´s your opinion, which size would be the best for me?

When is it too big? What are the risks of jumping with a too big canopy?

The best advice I heard is this:

Add 100 to the weight of your naked body.

That's the size canopy you want.

Hi,

Tom posted something on this sublect in this forum, it's also on blinc, just search the archives....

OK, found the Link

Cya.

If I do the add-100-method, the best canopy for me should be 230, and have a wingloading at 0.57. I have seen manufacturers that recommend higher wingloading.

If I try the 0.75 wingloading method, I end up with a pretty small canopy, well more than 50 sqft smaller than the other method. I don´t even know if so small base canopies exist.

Using a formula can be good as a guideline I think, just like with skydiving canopies. But I thought that maybe those formulas are made to get the right characteristics of the canopy. What qualities of the canopy am I looking for? In which size-interval can I find those qualities?

Since the formulas end up with such different results, I thought maybe it´s extra good to think about what I´m really looking for.

heres what I've learned about canopies in general for us small people. I'm ~125 w/o gear, so im only a little bit more than you. Trusting wingloadings only for little people is dangerous, because a 170 loaded at .75 is going to be A LOT more responsive/zippy than a 230 loaded at .75 (by a heavy guy). Even though the wingloadings are the same, the bigger guy with the bigger canopy will have a safer canopy flight than you, WITH THE SAME WINGLOADING. You see now how little people (and I guess in a reverse way big people) can't totally trust wingloading. For your first BASE canopy you might want to think about a ~225^, because from what I've learned you don't want a canopy that will SURGE foward upon opening, and a 175 would surge a lot more than a ~225.

Please, if anything is incorrect in here someone correct me, I am not a BASE jumper, and only a beginning skydiver

Smaller lines,makes more agressive canopi,thats why i dont understand skydivers who should just buy a canopi for the first time(just after student status),they often ask for a 135 or 150sqft,i think its a mistake..
I totally agree in your opinion .

no matter what you has a healthy mind in finding out about gear,way to go

what's your experience level in canopy flight?
What's your experience level in BASE?

Assuming you have no BASE experience, I'd say to begin in the 220sf range. This wingloading is less than .75, but will suit you well for a beginner canopy. Depending on the type of BASE jumps you will be doing, you may want to downsize when you get more experience--but you can jump that bridge when you get to it...