Skydiving a flik 242

[No_Mind]

Hey all,

Just looking at a flik 242 to use as a skydiving main, to get as much time under it as possible in preperation for BASE! It won't fit in my current container so I'm looking at selling the whole rig and buying a better suited set up.

I just wondered on the suitability of a container designed for say a 260 skydiving canopy... I am not sure on the fitment of the canopy with Vtech as I understand it bulks it up a lot!

Will there be any scope to freepack the 242 or will it be best to pack it in a bag? I have been reading that a freepacked main in a skydiving rig can only be deployed sub terminal by a CRW guy but wondered about a BASE canopy as they are often deployed at terminal speeds.

Your help and advice on this matter will be most appreciated!

Take Care

No_Mind

[kiki32]

Id dbag it if taking it terminal. F111 packs up surprisingly small. I fit my Flik220 vtech in my Javelin sized for a 150 freepacked. So I imagine that a rig sized for a 170 or 190 might work.

[jonmurrell]

I've got more skydives than base jumps on my vented troll 265...

I use a small bite for direct control on the slider and then just freepack it slider up into the container. It's good way to practice packing and the only difference is the # of reduction folds.

Large hole mesh, 32" PC and the openings don't suck even a terminal. F-111 packs small too, even with vents.

[kiki32]

Just be careful. My buddy recently fractured his vertebra skydiving with a base canopy. Used small hole mesh slider, along with a dbag... took it to terminal and got a hell of a spanker.

[No_Mind]

Thanks for the warning buddy, I have emailed Apex to see what they recommend for configuration and dbag pack size to select the optimal container. It will be nice to have plenty of jumps on the canopy I intend to base, but if it is going to cause me too faster openings ill reconsider.

Wouldn't a sail slider be more effective at slowing the inflation down?

[mknutson]

Get a CREW person to pack the thing for you. Worked for me and my Flik 266 with large hole mesh slider. No issues....

[kiki32]

a crw packjob is only going to work at subterminal airspeeds. just pointing that out. ;)

[mknutson]

True.

[guido]

Put on a regular slider and dbag if taking it to terminal. I also used to jam the end cells into the center to slow down the openings.

If you are doing just hops n pops, freepacking with a mesh slider is fine.

[JDATC]

What?

put the slider on it, pack it and jump it. Terminal is Terminal.

If your rig will fit it, it's a normal base pack job with one extra fold. If you want, you can pro-pack it and just roll the nose and still not use the dbag.

How do I know this? I jump a flik lite 182 with HTS as a main in one of my rigs. I have for the last 2 seasons. I've jumped it in many many many freepacked and d-bagged combinations with an assortment of micro reefing techniques and mesh and sail sliders. The one I currently use is a propack without the dbag and a lot of rolling of the nose....

You wanna feel a hard opening? This was a typical base pack job, no reefing, mesh slider wingsuit opening with my V2.

YouTube- A *fast* opening (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvmlS0sDpFo)



It has spectra lines so you really feel it.

The best way I found to slow down an opening, is to roll the hell out of the nose. That takes the most bite off it. Once before my sail slider arrived I even tried to masking tape the mesh slider to turn it into a sail one... you can guess how well that worked out. beer logic!


_justin

[No_Mind]

I thought that when we exit the aircraft, it is already travelling 80 to 100mph so all we do is accelerate 25 or so mph belly to earth? On a hop and pop isnt the deployment airspeed near terminal so a faster opening is going to be imminent? Im probably wrong as once you get out of the slipstream it feels like you hit some dead(ish) air.

Holy crap JADTC that was one hell of an opening! Judging by your yelp it sounds like you really hurt yourself? Did you find the sail slider slowed the openings down nicely or do your prefer the mesh slider with loads of rolling the nose? Any ideas on the delay it takes to open? Im used to around 4 seconds, longer when jumping a safire 2. I appreciate the opening shock of the canopy is going to take some getting used to either way.

[kiki32]

That is the sound of someone pooping their wingsuit! :eek:

[JDATC]

I thought that when we exit the aircraft, it is already travelling 80 to 100mph so all we do is accelerate 25 or so mph belly to earth? On a hop and pop isnt the deployment airspeed near terminal so a faster opening is going to be imminent? Im probably wrong as once you get out of the slipstream it feels like you hit some dead(ish) air.

Holy crap JADTC that was one hell of an opening! Judging by your yelp it sounds like you really hurt yourself? Did you find the sail slider slowed the openings down nicely or do your prefer the mesh slider with loads of rolling the nose? Any ideas on the delay it takes to open? Im used to around 4 seconds, longer when jumping a safire 2. I appreciate the opening shock of the canopy is going to take some getting used to either way.

Actually, that one didn't do any permanent damage. Later on one did give me whiplash and I learned that there is a price to pay for a fast opening and a camera helmet.

My flik 182 still opens quite fast even with a sail slider, in fact, it slowed the opening down only a tiny bit compared to a mesh slider. WHat helped the most was rolling the nose. Obscene amounts of wraps of the slider with a rubber band on the right center C line attachment point (i.e. direct control) helped only a little.

A BASE canopy is designed to open fast, so it is hard to over-ride that tendency as far as I know.

Open canopy, never counted. I doubt I've ever had my flik 182 take longer than 3 till fully inflated. Slider is always down sub 3 seconds with full inflation.

Some cessnas are slow, so as long as you don't take a huge delay, yeah sub terminal... Think of it as If the plane is doing 60 mph, as you leave the plane you are doing 60mph forward and 0 downward that moment... it's the same speed achieved as about a 3 second delay.... only the velocity vector is different.


_justin

[No_Mind]

Justin, thanks for your experiences mate, they have helped a lot!

I didn't think of the velocity vector like that, it makes perfect sense though! So as you slow down horizontally you speed up vertically which gives you a sense of never really having any sub terminal speeds to deal with. I must say my last hop and pop was a rear float exit and I pulled sub terminal but out of the aircrafts slipstream... I could tell I wasn't travelling at terminal speeds.

[Uberchris]

That is the sound of someone pooping their wingsuit! :eek:


POOPING A WINGSUIT???????????????
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3264/3226149571_0cd6817462.jpg

GRANNNNNNNNNNY EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CastleKingSide]

Hi guys, sorry for unburrowing this post but I have some questions about it. I wish to get a BASE canopy and use it as my main but I am a little afraid of this fast openings you are talking about. When I watch those terminal jumps on youtube, it doesn't seem like those jumpers are suffering from the opening, why would it be any different when skydiving? And does vents makes it even worse? I've seen a video of a guy jumping a vented canopy (4 cells I think ) in a 10 sec delay in lauterbrunnen and it looks like no harm was done, are vents suitable for terminal jumps? One last question, I am currently jumping a PD210 in a very comfortable wing load, is it ok to go for 245 or 266 flik/fox? I wish my canopy to be as big as possible but I don't want a student container to fit it in. I know my questions should be taken to a mentor, but I'm still just skydiving for a while and there are no BASE jumpers in my DZ.

Thanks

[CastleKingSide]

UP!
5 months old but still no aswer!

[freedrew]

hey,

i've skydived a flik 266 with 4 vents (terminal opening) and it worked great. you may be able to stuff a 244 in your existing container -- you just have to try it.

i used a borrowed container, sail slider (bought from apex), and used the d-bag/bridle/pilot chute from the skydiving container. i packed it like a skydiving canopy (when cacooning it i only went about 1/3rd the way down, otherwise it starts to mess with the lines)

you could also email/call apex with your question -- they should be very knowledgeable about their gear in different configurations

[M8tricks]

Hi guys, sorry for unburrowing this post but I have some questions about it. I wish to get a BASE canopy and use it as my main but I am a little afraid of this fast openings you are talking about. When I watch those terminal jumps on youtube, it doesn't seem like those jumpers are suffering from the opening, why would it be any different when skydiving? And does vents makes it even worse? I've seen a video of a guy jumping a vented canopy (4 cells I think ) in a 10 sec delay in lauterbrunnen and it looks like no harm was done, are vents suitable for terminal jumps? One last question, I am currently jumping a PD210 in a very comfortable wing load, is it ok to go for 245 or 266 flik/fox? I wish my canopy to be as big as possible but I don't want a student container to fit it in. I know my questions should be taken to a mentor, but I'm still just skydiving for a while and there are no BASE jumpers in my DZ.

Thanks

Sorry about the long post, I’m at work and I don’t have time to write a short answer.

There's a whole mess of things that happens during any canopy deployment - most of it is predictable and happens in a similar way each jump, snatch, snivel, inflation etc and it can be teased out to greater detail Most of the time this happens in a reliable order with each stage occurring in the same time frame so we get a nice safe opening. This consistency is what makes BASE possible to do repeatedly. Unfortunately, due to one of Murphy's laws, every now and then shit happens and the deployment happens either out of order, or at a different speed, or inconsistently across the entire canopy. Canopies can take longer to open, open faster, turn randomly, or just don’t open at all – there is not always an easily identifiable reason for these differences. This ‘shit happens‘ factor is what makes BASE dangerous in the long term.

Most of us who've done loads of skydives have had hard openings and there are a few different causes, dumping in a track, packing with the slider not fully up, dumping from head down etc. These can be avoided. But every now and then, for no apparent reason, the relative wind catches the canopy in a way that makes the bottom skin catch air faster than it should and suddenly you've gone from terminal to 30knots in a second or two. That can do some damage to you and your gear. It happens on all types of canopies, I've seen snivelly canopies like Safire 2s spank open with a thunderclap you can hear from the ground.

Watch two identically packed BASE canopies deployed in the same conditions, with the same jumper and you will almost definitely see different opening durations between jumps. All else being the same, two PCA jumps from the bridge can give 50 feet difference in deployment height. And that is with all else identical. Throw in packing inconsistencies, deployment inconsistencies, and atmospheric inconsistencies and what will come out of that bag will be different every time. A skydiving canopy is generally designed so that this variation is absorbed into a very wide safe range, that and you’re generally opening with hundreds of feet between you and anything else, those differences in opening durations heights are rarely noticeable. A BASE rig is designed with a much lower tolerance - because we want them to open reliably and fast. When a BASE deployment starts to drift outside safe levels it is much more likely to give you a reminder that they are designed to open quick.

Jumping a BASE canopy as a skydiving rig? For a few jumps, maybe even a few hundred jumps, a BASE canopy will open fine, you may never get a hard opening, you may even get a couple of freak snivelly openings, it happens. But then one day it'll open faster than you want and then it can cause you some serious damage. I've busted ribs and hurt my back from cracker openings on skydiving rigs – not fun.

And as for hard openings in BASE, they happen regularly in short and terminal jumps – you just don’t hear people complaining about it cause BASE jumpers are tough - I have had mates complain about a sore back for weeks after taking a 2 sec delay on a vented Flik though – can’t pick it. But I'd rather have a hard opening and walk away sore than snivel into the ground and never walk again.

Jump the BASE canopy every now and then, get current on it doing a few hop n pops from height if you have had some time away from it, but there’s no real great reason to make it your main. One day it’ll bit you and then every pitch after that you will cross your fingers and wish you had a nice snivelly canopy instead.

[CastleKingSide]

Thanks for the long reply, just full of informations I was hunting. At first my idea was using a BASE canopy as my main, but you are right I don't want to get hurt in a lightspeed deployment, all I want is experience under canopy and I can get lots of it from hop'n'pops and some small delays. I'll do normal jumps on skydiving gear.
Thanks a lot!