Be a PILOT Not a PASSENGER

Do you
fly your canopy?

Or does
it fly you?

There are far too many people hurting themselves or others during landing or approach. Better flying skills must be developed to keep us all alive. IC1 is a good start but there are many more skills to be learned, ideally these should be trained. 

This excellent article by Chris Lynch suggests some safe ways to build canopy awareness and pilot ability. It has been rewritten and updated, this version was posted in April 2002; the original version was December 2000.
 

Building canopy awareness and increasing pilot ability
There has been a huge development in canopy performance in recent years. In skilled hands, this is a fun and exciting aspect of our sport. Sadly there are still too many landing incidents, injuries and fatalities under a fully open parachute proving that canopy piloting skills need improving at all levels. It would be easy to blame the canopy's performance but that is a lame attitude to take, just like blaming guns instead of the people who pull the triggers, it's time to work on the people pulling the toggles. 

The aim of this article is to encourage the training of canopy flying skills in a safe way by building canopy awareness and increasing pilot ability through practice and experimentation.

Before we start with the exercises, a few words about the end of a canopy flight. 

Landing priorities
1. Into a hazard free area
2. With the canopy above you, ie, NOT during a turn
3. Into wind

All three should assist in obtaining safe landings all the time but if the options are running out, stick to this order. When I first wrote them down I had 1 and 2 the other way round because way too many people have been hurt and worse, landing part way through a turn. They are of equal importance but setting them in the above order allows for small toggle input to maintain level flight throughout the landing flare or a carve for the more advanced canopy pilot.

Finding the stall point
The stall is that point when you are applying enough brakes to the canopy that it loses forward speed and starts to collapse, resulting in a sudden increase in descent rate. Therefore it is very important that this is never performed close to the ground. So it is vital that you know at what point your canopy stalls and how to make it recover. You don't have to fully collapse the canopy to find the stall point, just touching the stall is enough. Recovering is easy, smoothly raise the toggles a few inches.
I would recommend the hard deck for this exercise being the same as your hard deck for cutaway drills.

Having completed an AAD check, smoothly bring both toggles down whilst watching the canopy. As you go through full brakes into the stall, the canopy will soften in shape because the angle of attack is changing to nose high and tail low so the air literally falls out of the cells. To recover, smoothly let up on the toggles. Now repeat the exercise (after AAD check) this time looking straight ahead so you feel the stall, rather than see it. 

If you keep the toggles held down the stall will get more radical and your descent rate will continue to increase. 7-cell canopies tend to maintain their shape and fly backwards. 9-cell canopies tend to distort into a horseshoe shape, lose their heading and can be a lot more 'lively' during the recovery, sometimes resulting in line twists. It's possible that you may have to pump open an end cell or two but unlikely due to cross-port venting.

You can also experiment with the speed that you raise the toggles to make the recovery; the more severe the elevation of the toggles, the more dynamic the recovery - resulting in more dive before returning to normal flight.

Most (but not all) student canopies have a long enough control range so that the canopy will not stall even when pulling the toggles all the way down. For this reason it's very important to realise that the flare used on most student canopies, toggles all the way down, could stall a more 'tuned' canopy and so the flare will need to be adjusted accordingly.

Control in deep brakes
This skill has many uses like when you want to make a turn without losing too much height (a shuffle turn) or to keep you upright throughout the landing flare. 

Accidentally going over sideways during the landing is initially caused by flaring unevenly or reaching for the ground with a leg or not being square into the wind as you flare. These situations are made worse by the body's natural reaction of reaching down with the lower arm and raising the higher arm, for balance, tipping the canopy over even more resulting in one of those funny side-stepping landings. If the flare is too high the canopy has more time to respond to these incorrect inputs, which could cause injury and/or damage to equipment.

Canopy pilots need to train the correct response of levelling the canopy out and maintaining the flare. I can guarantee that, not reaching down when going over sideways feels a bit strange at first so don't wait till the ground is really close to try it for the first time. Try the following exercise to get used to controlling heading throughout the flare. This is a fairly mellow exercise and the skill is used close to the ground but, as always, it is best to practice above your hard deck until you are comfortable with it.

The idea of this exercise is to recover from a purposely uneven practice flare. After completing an AAD check, flare the canopy unevenly so it turns and banks over, then bring it back to straight flight by levelling the toggles. Experiment with both directions, be smooth, start small, just a few degrees and increase with more practice.

To practice the 'shuffle turn' or 'elevation turn' (it has many names) complete the AAD check, flare the canopy and keep the toggles held down.

 Photo shows Milko above Langar by Tony Danbury

 After flying straight for a short while (7 to 10 seconds should be enough) practice changing your heading by slightly raising the opposite toggle to the direction you want to turn. After about 10 degrees of turn bring the toggle back down and level with the other to fly straight. Providing everything is still okay with regards to the AAD check, try the other direction. 

Rear riser control
Many experienced pilots use the rear risers to bring the slider down the lines and inflate end cells (if necessary) as well as guiding the canopy on to a desired heading just after opening. This technique has the advantage of leaving the toggles stowed so the canopy does not zoom around while the pilot collapses and stows the slider. It is also much easier to bring the slider down the risers over stowed toggles as opposed to released ones. If you plan on using this technique, you must release the brakes by a safe altitude before your cutaway hard deck, just in case.

You can use the rear risers to steer and flare a canopy if, for instance you suffered a broken control line, but only if both brakes have been released and only if you know what you are doing. It must be stated that this is a very important decision to make as the canopy will handle differently where there is no support for the tail if the control line is broken, as opposed to the handling when practising on a canopy with control lines intact. This is another aspect of canopy piloting that is worth training before you have to use it and it's good to think of it as training to assess whether your canopy is landable on rear risers in the event of a broken control line or whether you should cut away and pull your reserve. 

When practising this technique, complete an AAD check before starting, keep hold of the toggles and grasp hold of the rear risers at about the place where the toggles sit when stowed. Steering with the rear risers works just like the toggles; left to go left and right to go right but you will notice much more pressure because you are pulling down on a quarter of the canopy as opposed to a small section of the trailing edge. Flaring using the rear risers only takes a fraction of the movement compared to a toggle flare and too much will result in a very sudden stall, so go easy. 

Recovery from a dive or turn
Even if you plan never to do hook turns or swoop landings, it is a really good idea to know how long your canopy takes to recover from a turn or pull out of a dive: the 'natural' recovery. More important, is how to make it recover more quickly in the event that you've had to make an avoiding turn in your final approach or you've simply turned too low to the ground: the 'urgent' recovery. Do be aware that an urgent recovery still requires enough altitude to work.

This exercise will involve sharp turns, rapid loss of altitude and requires plenty of space as well as height so it is crucial that you do the checks; Airspace, Alti and DZ beforehand and continue to check Airspace and be aware of your height throughout the whole manoeuvre. 

Make a turn, let the toggle up and assess the time it takes for the canopy to return to normal flight. It will be difficult to measure exactly how much height you've lost; it's much more of a feeling. You may find verbally repeating the word 'dive' or counting, whilst the canopy is diving a useful method of measuring the time. Experiment with different amounts of rotation to increase your awareness of how the canopy handles, completing an AAD check before each go.

When you've done this enough to have a feeling for the canopy's natural recovery, now is the time to practice the urgent recovery. After again completing an AAD check, make a turn, let the toggle up and immediately flare with both toggles. As the canopy quickly recovers you should get a temporary feeling of being very heavy in your harness as your body continues to drop but your canopy is pulling out of the dive and generating lots of lift. At high diving speeds, it can take quite a bit of effort on the toggles to really discover how much 'urgent recovery' power your canopy has.

Swoop landings
This is not a 'how to' guide for swoop landings, just some observations. If anyone is intending on attempting a swoop landing, I would strongly recommend that you get some coaching, practice up high, get to know your canopy and be totally familiar with its natural recovery and how to make an urgent recovery from toggle and front riser turns. Remember that swoop landings are a very risky business, which may result in serious injury or death. A casual approach endangers the pilot and others around them. 

Only ever commit to a swoop landing if all the variables are in your favour. I can guarantee that every swooping pilot has hooked it too low at least once and in reality a lot more. Some of these pilots were lucky enough to urgently recover the canopy out of the dive just in time and learnt a life-saving lesson, ie, "When the ground is coming at you at this angle, save yourself". But this is a fine line and there are way too many unfortunates, some highly experienced, that have not been so lucky.

A good height for a turn to make a swoop landing would be high enough for the canopy to fly out of the dive to its normal flight path all by itself and, if you always hook from this height, you may be okay. Canopies still descend during normal flight so for swoop landings a certain amount of brakes will be required, depending on the canopy, to maintain level flight and a flare at the end to create a safe landing.

Judging the height to dive a canopy into a swoop landing is not easy. It needs a lot of practice and requires much awareness of the canopy. Even the very experienced make mistakes, possibly because depth perception can be affected by many factors including changing light from different times of the day, dark goggles on the sunset load, misted-up visor, jumping over water, unfamiliar drop zone and fatigue. Maybe the mistake was down to a bad set-up and approach due to traffic or because the victim was too focused on someone on the ground taking video or photographs. Another reason for getting the height wrong would be an unfamiliar canopy and just not having the experience to deal with it. As you go smaller in size or up in performance canopies tend to dive longer and therefore need much more height to recover to normal flight. 

Another area to be aware of is just after the canopy has been relined. As the control lines on a canopy wear, they shorten from the friction caused by the slider on opening. This shortening causes the canopy to plane out sooner than normal and because it's a gradual process it's not easy to notice and may suck the pilot into making lower and lower turns. When the canopy returns from a reline and the trim is back to normal, it will take longer to recover than it did before the work was done so it's vital that the pilot familiarises themselves with their canopy again.

If you need to use a flare to pull out of a dive from a hook turn, then do it immediately but be aware that you are hooking too low and you are in danger of really hurting yourself so you must start your turns much higher.

Good height = Canopy recovers to normal flight path without input but will require some flare to plane out to level flight.
Slightly low = Needs a stab on the toggles to get the canopy to start its own recovery from dive.
Too low = Needs a flare to pull out of the dive. Too many people do this regularly, going from the turn straight into a flare, thinking they are doing okay but in fact they are endangering themselves.
Lower than Too low = If you're lucky, an urgent recovery may save you. The earlier it is started the better your chances so, if you need to, don't hesitate.
Way too low = Be Afraid, be very Afraid.

Toggles or front risers
It is generally believed that a toggle hook turn is more potentially dangerous than a carving front riser turn. Of course it is more down to your input on the controls - you can do a radical total commitment hook on a front riser (twisting the torso to whip the canopy around) or a carving turn on a toggle. It's really a case of knowing your canopy, which can only happen through education, practice and experimentation.

The most important thing to realise is that a front riser turn will lose more height and come around onto heading slower so should be started higher. On the odd occasion I've gone for the riser carving turn slightly lower than I should have or the canopy's just not coming around to my desired heading fast enough, in which case I release the riser and finish the turn with a touch of toggle.

When to start
As with any type of type of training programme, the sooner it's commenced the sooner improvements will be realised, regardless of experience level. The exercises can be worked on from very early in a skydiver's career; some already are but could be covered in more depth and repeated more often. The practice flares, for example, should be encouraged (as many as is safely possible) from jump number one. They can be coached via the student's radio very easily with instructors pointing out any necessary corrections to toggle movement speed and heading control as part of a normal talk down. Control in deep brakes can also be coached in a similar manner after a suitable briefing on the ground and so can an urgent dive recovery, a possible life-saver. Encouragement for the continued improvement of canopy awareness and pilot ability can only help everyone in our sport.

This is not a fully comprehensive guide on improving canopy pilot skills; there are other ways of getting more performance from both the canopy and pilot. There is always more to be discovered and enjoyed so ask experienced, skilled and safe canopy pilots for more testing ideas and get a full brief before trying any of them. Remember to do the three checks; Airspace, Alti and DZ, before starting any exercises and to respect all other canopy flyers.

The obsession with owning a oo small too soon
What I see as the major downside of going too small or fast too soon, is that now you're on a canopy so lively that experimenting is scary. This results in canopy flyers not training and learning techniques that create safe landings on the drop zone and improve their chances in testing conditions like display jumps, nil wind days, windy days or off DZ landings. 

Before you up performance, ask yourself: