My wings are a thousand hooks -- Gill Rob Wilson
Skydiving is not all about freefall. Some people consider the "parachuting" aspect of skydiving as a boring necessity, but far from boring, flying canopies is a versatile, enjoyable and challenging activity. Anyway, like it or not, it is a necessity and basic flight is part of the survival kit of the skydiver.
From the beginner's point of view, the word "basic" looks quite revolting. There is nothing basic in flying a canopy. It's a whole lot of skills to learn in a situation far from anything we are used to: hanging in a harness, linked by a few tiny strings to a not so large amount of thin (but colorful) fabric. When it is sitting on the ground completely deflated, it doesn't look like anything able to fly. But it does very well indeed! Ram air canopies have incredible flight characteristics. And there are endless combinations of flight patterns, as long as you steer it properly.
The flight starts at the beginning of the opening sequence and ends after landing. Well, sometimes it can end a bit later. The first step is to keep a good body position during the opening, eventually shifting the weight in the harness to help the canopy to keep it's heading. When it's opened, after checking the canopy, the surronding and the location of the drop zone, you can grab the toggles and get ready for the real flight.
Before letting the fun begin, a flight pattern must be chosen. This is a 3-D game: choosing the spots on the ground and deciding of a proper altitude for each of them. A bit tricky, particularly when you are not familiar with the canopy or the drop zone. The winds can add to the difficulty. Better thinking about it on the ground before boarding the aircraft. Another element to take into account when choosing the flight pattern is the traffic. Most jumps in Asia are from small aircrafts, so it might look like a very secondary point. Not at all! You will jump from bigger aircrafts, so, better think about it as soon as possible.
Once you chose the pattern, then you can start playing. Play hard, but keep your awareness. Experiment at a safe altitude, and frequently check your position and check the traffic. Your canopy has many different controls: the toggles, of course, but also the rear risers, the front risers and your weight in the harness. This gives many different types of turns, many modes of flights and as many series of manoeuvers as you can think about. Play with all of this and you'll know where is the fun.
Time to set up the landing. The really crucial part of the flight. Closer to the ground means less room for errors. There the awareness must be at the maximum to anticipate bad surprises and react properly. Planning to stay away from hazards is not always enough. There must be a plan B. You can misjudge your approach, the wind conditions can change suddenly, another canopy can cross your path... Beware, identify the problems early and react appropriately. Again, improvisation is not the best ally; thinking about it on the ground can help.
Then the ground rushes. Can be quite fast! No obstacle, nobody in the path, it's time to focus on the landing. Not too early, not too late, the perfect timing for the flare is crucial. It can save from bruises, dirt and embarrassment. The smaller the canopy, the higher the speed. The higher the speed, the stronger the temptation to flare to early in a useless attempt to break the speed. If you resist this temptation, you'll land perfectly, just like a butterfly.
Now, this is the serious thing. The problem is to land consistently on the center of a small disk. When I say the center, I don't mean ten centimeters away, but on the center. Zero centimeters away. Looks challenging? It is! Not exactly fun, but really rewarding when you succeed.
To help the accuracy jumpers focus really on the accuracy and not on the impact, this discipline is usually better done over a large mat. No flare landings don't hurt... as long as you don't miss the mat. And it is usually interesting to watch these people making very acrobatic kind of contortions during the last second, to hit the dead center when the approach was not perfect. Interesting, and sometimes really fun to watch!
Even thought less and less people get interest in this disciplines, it is still one of the important stages, before learning other tricks. I don't mean that everybody has to train for several hundred jumps to hit the dead center, but every skydiver should understand the basics of accuracy. It helps for many things. For instance, understanding the basics of flight dynamics, evaluating the glide ration and relieving the stress during the approach. Moreover, on a bad spot, it is quite a good thing to be able to land safely in a tiny area surrounded by trees, houses, dences and others hazards.
Not for the faints. Don't try it without proper briefing and supervision!
To get the first taste of this exhilarating experience, think about walking on the top of your buddy's canopy. As you guess, yes you need to be quite accurate. Too low and it's the collision. too high and you just look stupid. There, a good understanding of all the controls is quite useful. In addition, basic understanding of aerodynamics will seriously reduce the risk of collapsing a canopy and getting wrapped in the mess.
Well, let's talk about this later.