Canopy piloting
Encyclopedia
Canopy Piloting encompasses several disciplines, all involving the flight of a skydiving parachute either at high altitude or close to the ground.
"Swooping" is one form of canopy piloting and is a growing activity in the skydiving world. Many think the reason for this is that it is one of the few skydiving related events that are, for the most part, spectator friendly.
Swooping entails the canopy pilot deploying their canopy
at 5000 ft, piloting their canopy to an "initiation" point over the swoop course, then turning into a rotating dive dramatically increasing the canopy's speed. The canopy pilot stops the canopy's rotation on the proper course heading, while at the correct altitude allowing their canopy to recover from the dive and level out with maximum speed before entering the course,
Maximum speeds regularly reaching in excess of 90 mph.
The Current world records are
G-1-f1 : Canopy Piloting, Distance : 181 m (593.8ft)
Date of : 01/06/2010
Parachutist(s): Nick Batsch (USA)
Canopy type: Daedalus JVX (sail)
Course/place: South Africa
G-1-f2 : Canopy Piloting, Speed : 2.093 sec
Date of : 01/07/2010
Parachutist(s): Greg Windmiller (USA)
Canopy type: PD Velocity
Course/place: South Africa
Pro Swooping Tour
Professional competition courses mark the entry gates with 5 ft tall wind blades, whereas some part of the pilots body must break the imaginary line across the top of the entry gate pair, often only 30 ft apart. These types of landings are inherently more dangerous than normal landings. For competitor safety this is usually done over a "swoop pond", a shallow artificial pond around 3ft deep that can be narrow and long, but for safety a trend towards building larger square or rectangular ponds is becoming more prevalent.
The goal of the canopy piloting competition is to negotiate a number of different courses which challenge different performance characteristics of canopy flight and pilot skill. Speed
, Distance
and Accuracy are just three of the basic courses used at most competitions. Quickly evolving out of these courses is the Freestyle discipline. Freestyle typically uses a large body of water for competitors to drag through, or touch with different body parts and positions while maintaining nearly constant contact with the water. Gaining popularity both with competitors and spectators alike, freestyle puts the canopy pilot in contact with the water at high speeds, increasing the risk of a violent impact, or a spectacular
display of skill over the pond, ultimately landing on solid ground on the other side.
To become a high performance canopy pilot, an interested and competent skydiver will typically have at least 1000 jumps to their credit, and start a 1-2 year training process to become skilled and experienced enough to compete at the 'standard' level. Professional levels take 2-4 years of dedicated training, where some competitors have 10,000+ jumps.
Ground launching and Speed-flying are another form of canopy piloting. These disciplines differ from swooping in that the canopy pilot flies his canopy in close proximity to the ground, either descending a mountainside or other gradient or, in certain conditions, hovering metres above the ground much like a paraglider pilot. These types of flight are appealing to those pilots wanting long canopy flights at relatively low cost or for those wanting to use their skydiving gear in a new and challenging way.
"Swooping" is one form of canopy piloting and is a growing activity in the skydiving world. Many think the reason for this is that it is one of the few skydiving related events that are, for the most part, spectator friendly.
Swooping entails the canopy pilot deploying their canopy
Canopy (aircraft)
An aircraft canopy is the transparent enclosure over the cockpit of some types of aircraft. The function of the canopy is to provide a weatherproof and reasonably quiet environment for the aircraft's occupants. The canopy will be as aerodynamically shaped as possible to minimize drag.-History:Very...
at 5000 ft, piloting their canopy to an "initiation" point over the swoop course, then turning into a rotating dive dramatically increasing the canopy's speed. The canopy pilot stops the canopy's rotation on the proper course heading, while at the correct altitude allowing their canopy to recover from the dive and level out with maximum speed before entering the course,
Maximum speeds regularly reaching in excess of 90 mph.
The Current world records are
G-1-f1 : Canopy Piloting, Distance : 181 m (593.8ft)
Date of : 01/06/2010
Parachutist(s): Nick Batsch (USA)
Canopy type: Daedalus JVX (sail)
Course/place: South Africa
G-1-f2 : Canopy Piloting, Speed : 2.093 sec
Date of : 01/07/2010
Parachutist(s): Greg Windmiller (USA)
Canopy type: PD Velocity
Course/place: South Africa
Pro Swooping Tour
Pro Swooping tour
The Pro Swooping Tour is a professional competition circuit for an extreme form of parachuting called "canopy piloting". The PST was formed in 2003 by producer Jim P. Slaton and his associate Lyle Presse. Slaton & Lyle presented the sport's competition format & rules to the International...
Professional competition courses mark the entry gates with 5 ft tall wind blades, whereas some part of the pilots body must break the imaginary line across the top of the entry gate pair, often only 30 ft apart. These types of landings are inherently more dangerous than normal landings. For competitor safety this is usually done over a "swoop pond", a shallow artificial pond around 3ft deep that can be narrow and long, but for safety a trend towards building larger square or rectangular ponds is becoming more prevalent.
The goal of the canopy piloting competition is to negotiate a number of different courses which challenge different performance characteristics of canopy flight and pilot skill. Speed
Speed
In kinematics, the speed of an object is the magnitude of its velocity ; it is thus a scalar quantity. The average speed of an object in an interval of time is the distance traveled by the object divided by the duration of the interval; the instantaneous speed is the limit of the average speed as...
, Distance
Distance
Distance is a numerical description of how far apart objects are. In physics or everyday discussion, distance may refer to a physical length, or an estimation based on other criteria . In mathematics, a distance function or metric is a generalization of the concept of physical distance...
and Accuracy are just three of the basic courses used at most competitions. Quickly evolving out of these courses is the Freestyle discipline. Freestyle typically uses a large body of water for competitors to drag through, or touch with different body parts and positions while maintaining nearly constant contact with the water. Gaining popularity both with competitors and spectators alike, freestyle puts the canopy pilot in contact with the water at high speeds, increasing the risk of a violent impact, or a spectacular
Spectacular
Spectacular may refer to:* "Spectacular" , a 2004 song by Graham Coxon* "Spectacular ", the 2010 debut single by Kiely Williams.* Spectacular!, a 2009 television movie produced by Nickelodeon...
display of skill over the pond, ultimately landing on solid ground on the other side.
To become a high performance canopy pilot, an interested and competent skydiver will typically have at least 1000 jumps to their credit, and start a 1-2 year training process to become skilled and experienced enough to compete at the 'standard' level. Professional levels take 2-4 years of dedicated training, where some competitors have 10,000+ jumps.
Ground launching and Speed-flying are another form of canopy piloting. These disciplines differ from swooping in that the canopy pilot flies his canopy in close proximity to the ground, either descending a mountainside or other gradient or, in certain conditions, hovering metres above the ground much like a paraglider pilot. These types of flight are appealing to those pilots wanting long canopy flights at relatively low cost or for those wanting to use their skydiving gear in a new and challenging way.