Re: [Faber] BASE acceptance
In reply to:
There were no damage on me or the gear,becours the opening.
I does belive that i lost my toggel,becours the opening/bad placement of the toggle.
I didnt feel the opening that hard(maybe im just too used to slider off).but the video did count 4sek.I dont know if the fackt of its old(350jumps) and non vent could say anything in this..
Fact is fact i didnt fly it as well as Tom did(on the risers)
You are correct that an older canopy will open softer on deep slider-down delays (however, jumping ratty gear to decrease the pounding can be scary too). You are also correct that going deep slider down can blow toggles (I use a custom pin setup with the toggles in part to alleviate this problem). I've actually broken three brake lines taking deep slider down delays - this is a very unpleasant experience, as the opening initiates a pretty violent spinning malfunction.
As to landing with risers, practice makes perfect! Pack your BASE rig in a skydiving container (if possible) and jump it at a DZ, landing rear risers. Many of us believe that it is possible to get a better landing using one riser and one toggle, versus throwing away the second toggle altogether and landing both rear risers - again, this requires practice. In any case, it is possible to land rear risers with BASE canopies very well - but hard to do the first time!
Some comments on Tom's feedback:
1. Multi: I agree that it is hard to know if there is a stastically valid impact on openings with the multi. However, it is pretty much uncontested that the multi has never been known to cause problems. Consequently, many jumpers feel that the potential benefit (still unproven, but hypothetically there) is worth the risk - which is, practically speaking, zero. It's cheap insurance, and I'd never buy a new canopy without a Multi. The "complexity" Tom is worried about is not very complex at all - if you can't pack up your Multi correct, you shouldn't be jumping!
2. Venting: it is worth noting that Tom is very, very, very much in the minority that venting is not for beginning jumpers. All the reasons that venting matters (better openings, better riser input, better correction from off-headings, faster pressurization on opening, ability to back away from objects with double riser input without canopy collapse, and finally faster re-inflation of canopy of nose is dragging down a cliff face after a 180 cliff strike) apply to beginners just as much (if not more so) as more advanced jumpers. The only "downside" of venting, as Tom says, is probably a slightly less powerful flare stroke. This is both not terribly important on 95% of BASE jumps (we rarely land from full flight), and pretty much solved with new valving technology offered by all the gear manufacturers. So why are vents not good for beginners? See below for more discussion.
3. Brake settings: Tom argues that somehow vented canopies require brake setting adjustment out of the factory more than non-vented canopies. I think this is bunk. ANY canopy, shipped from the factory, MUST have its brake settings customized for the jumper. Gear manufacturers guess at brake settings based on the weight you provide them, but it's a guess! You'd be beyond reckless to take a new rig out and jump non-custom brake settings on a tech object first go: venting or otherwise is irrelevant.
True, some manufacturers have a rep for setting "factory" brakes really shallow. ALL gear manufacturers INSIST that jumpers must customize their brakes. Again, venting or not is irrelevant. If you jump gear without custom brakes, you are rolling the dice on objects where an off-heading could result in object strike.
Remember, we set our brakes custom so that, when we open, the canopy is (ideally) stalling, falling straight down. Why? So that, if we get a 180, we can turn away from the object (without releasing brakes) using rear risers, rather than having lots of forward speed on opening (brakes too shallow) and, on a 180, flying into the object even before we can do anything to turn away.
Brake settings too deep result in either a stall, a generally snively/crappy opening, or even backwards flight. Yes, it is true that a vented canopy has the ability to "fly backwards" much more than an unvented one, but if you set brakes too deep on both and jump, the results are going to be equally bad. Unvented, the canopy will pressurize very poorly, respond to toggle/riser input VERY slowly immediately after opening, and generally behave like crap until it gets some forward drive to pressurize (remember, it NEEDS forward drive to pressurize - air enters the cells only through the nose inlets). Vented, the canopy will still pressurize, and will be reasonably responsive - but will stall backwards at a slow rate. Not good if you ass is scraping a wall after jumping an underhung object, but in my book still much better than having an unpressurized, unsteerable nonvented canopy over my head!
So why is it that a vented canopy needs custom brakes more than an unveted one? I don't get that argument at all. If anything, I'd argue the reverse - a vented canopy still pressurizes with brakes too deep, while an unvented one just turns into a big jellyfish over your head.
Bottom-skin venting is a technolgy that is qualitatively better than its predecessor technology in BASE. There is no reason for any jumper to be jumping non-vented canopies today (other than economics: unvented canopies are really cheap on the aftermarket, which tells you what "the market" thinks of their worth relative to their vented brothers). There are many experienced jumpers who have sold off all of their unvented canopies and now jump only vented canopies - they are safer, they are better. Too, there are precious few of us who will freefall sub-200 foot stuff with unvented canopies any more (Aussies being the exception, as usual).
As to beginners, I recently taught a new jumper and I did so with a vented Fox. I'd never think of pitching a student off with unvented gear on his/her early jumps - more than anyone, a student needs the extra pressurization, faster responsiveness, and generally more tolerant behavior of a vented canopy if things get bad (at least this is the case if the objects being jumped have object strike potential - otherwise, the argument becomes essentially academic as venting is all about object strike prevention and response everywhere but in super-low freefall situations).
In fact, I'd argue 180 degress from Tom: an experienced jumper (like Tom or I), if he is really "on his shit," can fly an unvented canopy almost as well as a vented one. We know how to massage them if things get bad, we know their riser input characteristics, we're likely to have our brakes set properly on them in the first place, and we're generally better able to respond to a bad off-heading since (unfortunately) we've had more than a few in our BASE career so we aren't so surprised.
A student? She'll be staring at a cliff face, yanking on a rear riser with an unveted canopy, and nothing's happening. . . .
Recommending unvented canopies to new BASE jumpers is like recommending a car without seatbelts to new drivers.
(standard caveats apply: Tom has more jumps than I, and knows more about gear than I do - I'm just a smelly old Dog!)
Peace,
D-d0g
ddog@wrinko.com
www.wrinko.com
- William Butler Yeats
