The PD Blog

"Italian Style" in Fano, Italy

It's the second time that PD has a Demo Tour Stop in Fano, Italy. First time was in 2007, and this year was as good as before.
Fano is the home DZ of It's like a big family entertaining themselves with many different activities. Have a look to their website.

Italians are very friendly, and always happy to have the opportunity to try new canopies. Sometimes they are a little bit too "hungry" and you have to slow down their enthusiasm because they are not affraid afraid (thanks Kolla for the right spelling!) of trying a demo they might not be ready yet to handle the safiest way. It makes your day a bit more "spicy" than usual !

Livio, our dealer from Sinapsi, was help a lot, translating and explaining why you should or shouldn't jump this or that canopy; and sometimes, he just let his arms down, looked at me with a "don't be that much suprised" look, and say: "Italian Style !".
But we all had a very good time. And the weather was with us. Shining sun, caressing wind, quenching beer.

Beside his canopy course, Livio was also coaching a RW 4way, Team NEXT.
Even if he was very busy on the ground, Livio managed to put himself on a few lift to do some hop'n'pop, and practiced his downwind landings for the next I.S.T. competition.

The pictures can be found HERE

As always, I had all my demos ready to fly.
Here is a list of which canopies I have for you.

Dedric
European Rep.

Reserve Wing Loading

We received a comment on one of our posts, with a question about Reserve wing loading.  We think this is a very good topic that really deserves it's own post, so we handed the keyboard to Nick Grillet (one of our tour reps) to answer.

Wing loading can be a tricky topic, as many factors come into play when determining the appropriate loading for your canopy (both for main & reserve).   
Meteorological conditions, experience levels, dropzone elevation and surroundings are examples of things that factor in.  PD's R&D department thoroughly tests each reserve size under a wide range of wing loadings to make sure that the canopy performs to satisfaction (and then the rigors of TSO testing are a topic for a whole new blog, if not several!). Based on those tests, we publish a chart with wing loading recommendation for each of our models & sizes. 

As for wing loading in general, it is fairly well known in the skydiving community that the higher the wing loading the more aggressive the canopy flies & turns and more altitude is lost during each turn. Each jumper needs to consider his or her own experience and pick the appropriate size canopy based on that. Keep in mind that if you find yourself under your Reserve, you likely just had an emergency or are currently dealing with one - which might not be the best moment for deep thoughts about equipment selection!
You should also anticipate having to land your reserve away from the main landing area, possibly in a tight situation. Your goal should be to select a reserve that you feel reasonably comfortable with landing in any kinds or direction of winds  as you never know what the situation might bring. 
I'm sure you have heard this before, but erring on the conservative side, may make ALL the difference in whether you walk away safely or not. 
You can demo your PD reserve here and jump it as a main to see for yourself how it flies. Any other information on wing loading compared to experience level can be found on our website, just click on the canopy you jump and view the chart. Pay particular attention to our maximum recommended exit weight for each canopy size and be honest when you evaluate your experience level.
I have tried my best to keep this short but the topic is worthy of long talks, so by all means let us know if any other questions come up.

Stay safe!

PD Reserve in action!

Roy Muller, one of our sponsored instructors sent us these photos he took of a PD Reserve in action.  Looks pretty nice doesn't it, delivering the gentleman under it to a tip-toe landing, somewhere in California.  Well done, sir!

 

If you haven't flown your PD Reserve yet, we HIGHLY recommend that try out a demo.  Having some knowledge of how your reserve flies & lands is going to come in very handy when you are faced with a malfunction or have to deploy your reserve for any reason - especially if your situation requires you to land in a less than familiar area.   
Just fill out this handy little form here and take one for a spin.  And if you are curious about the new PD Optimum, we offer demos of that one too!