On heading openings

Really started to notice today that if you look at the horizon when your canopy is inflating and not at the canopy itself, you will have a much better chance of opening on heading. I used to turn left ALL the time, but since I've started this (thanks to advice from here), it's been sweet all the way. My canopy did turn to the left a bit today, but because I was looking out and not up, it came back around. Thanks to the people who gave me advice about this before

i've noticed that too
but still i cant help (and not sure i want to stop) looking up and making sure that everything goes where it should up there...

Well, the way I think of it is I generally almost never ever touch anything until the slider drops to my head anyways, so why look up if you're not goin to touch anything? You should let the canopy fly itself however it wants until the slider drops (if the slider takes a while to drop, you'll notice because there's something really wrong and you'd look up). Generally, however, you should just try staring at the horizon, feet and knees together and let the canopy open itself. You will see a tremendous difference as far as on-heading openings go!!! Sometimes it feels like it's going off heading, but then just corrects itself and goes straight on. Ever since I started lookin at the horizon instead of up, it's been great. I've had a cutaway while just lookin at the horizon and I knew I had a major problem before I looked up anyways ... no need to look up, you'll know when you have to!

Very true, Billvon ... very good point!:)

Even if you're not looking, you'll be able to feel in your harness if something isn't quite right with your canopy. Some are obvious (spinning on your back) and some aren't so obvious (like what closed end cells feel like). Eitherway, after some jumps on your canopy, you'll know what a good opening feels like.

The other thing I've found that helps is to just sort of completely relax myself right after I pitch. If I just let the canopy do it's thing & keep my body relaxed & symmetric, I seem to get much better headings.

It seems like my worst line twists were when I immediately reached for risers. And adding "corrective" inputs while the canopy is hunting for a heading always seems to do more harm than good.

Just my $0.02.

>Eitherway, after some jumps on your canopy, you'll >know what a good opening feels like.

i only have about 15 jumps with my new canopy so i guess i'm still in the "have to make sure" stage,
and having closed end cells most of the times doesn't help...

but i'm sure it wont be long before i just "feel" if everything is ok.
O