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THE CANOPY PILOT’S HANDBOOK By Bryan Burke SKYDIVE ARIZONA 4900 N. Taylor Road edited by Johanna Faust INTRODUCTION The following materials are presented to the skydiving public in the hopes of bringing up our level of performance and understanding. Anyone is free to copy this material. However, you are on your honor not to plagiarize or edit my work. If you choose to copy this material for instructional purposes, fine. All I ask is that I am credited as author and Skydive Arizona is also given credit, since these materials were developed partly on their time and with their instructional programs in mind. In addition, please do not change the text. If you feel the need to add to, subtract from, or contradict something, please do it in the form of foot notes. I look forward to hearing from anyone with comments, criticisms, or suggestions - but when it comes to adding or subtracting from the text, I reserve the right to do it myself. At this time the Canopy Pilot’s Handbook consists of five chapters. I plan to add a sixth chapter, on precision landings for modern parachutes, by the fall of 1997. There is an additional section at the end directed to people who may wish to teach canopy flying courses at their own drop zone. It offers a few suggestions. I would like to hear from people who host such courses; perhaps we can come up with some common denominators that will lead to better teaching. Most of the material presented here came from long observation, experience, and thought. There aren’t many sources of information out there, and some of those are incomplete or even inaccurate. But there are some good ones. Works that particularly influenced me are: The Parachute Manual (v.II) by Dan Poynter. This fascinating volume (and v.I for the really hard-core enthusiast!) has a place in the library of any skydiving professional, especially riggers. For typical skydivers the $49.95 price tag is a bit high, since two thirds of the book is devoted to specifics of rigging that aren’t much use to the layman. The last third of the book, however, has interesting discussions on design, deployment, packing, malfunctions, etc. Some of the material is a bit obsolete since the latest revision that I know of was in 1991. Most research libraries have this book in their collection, so try the nearest university library or your local rigger if you want to look at the book before you lay out fifty bucks. It can be ordered through any of the big mail order parachute suppliers or direct from Para Publishing, PO Box 4232, Santa Barbara, CA 93140-4232, USA. The Aerodynamics and Piloting of High Performance Ram-Air Parachutes by Jerry Sobieski. This is a very interesting treatise on how modern parachutes fly. Although it is written in the style of a college thesis even someone like me, who flunked calculus, can understand it. The first forty pages are a detailed technical analysis of how parachutes fly; the remaining thirty are about how to fly them. The author’s e-mail address, last I knew, is jerrys@umiacs.umd.edu. The treatise can be found on the skydiving archive at http://www.afn.org/skydive. Quite a few other interesting things are there too; just browse through the safety and training section for information specific to canopy flying. The owner’s manuals that accompany new canopies usually have at least one or two useful nuggets of information. Performance Designs also has published two sets of lecture notes written by John LeBlanc. John is a very interesting man to talk to and gives seminars on canopy flying at many boogies and other skydiving events. You may want to contact PD and get these two notes. They are also available on the skydiving archive mentioned in the previous paragraph. Talk to canopy manufacturers if you get the chance. Most of them have thought deeply about parachute performance. Unfortunately they tend to be a bit cagey when you get down to specifics of design, since they consider some of this information proprietary, and possibly potential liability. Still, most have some very interesting views on the subject. Most of them are also very busy people, so be sensitive to the possibility that they might not have a lot of time for idle chatter. Most of all, keep your eyes open. In your skydiving career you will see far more landings than you will ever make. All of them are learning opportunities. Blue skies, soft landings Bryan Burke
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