parachute size for acro

I broke my back after i came down on my rescue parachute in Doussard landing field in Annecy.
I hit the ground with a very fast decent rate, compressing and braking a vertebrae. When i was in hospital, a friend told me that it's better to use a L or XL parachute for a softer landing. I have a sky drive(rogallo) but the annular parachute(my second rescue) in the accident is a M size, the size a paragliding shop would suggest for my weight range. I think its important for other pilots to consider from my accident that maybe a larger sized parachute is a better option than a parachute sized to your weight range. Sure thermals and wind drift are another problem on a larger rescue parachute, but what do other people out there think?

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mikesm08's picture

hey Zebur! was cool to meet ya in Oludeniz man! im lying on my back at the mo. in a rented apartment in Annecy, pretty boring! but i will go home to South Africa in a month, then when i have made full recovery i will fly for the month of november in the south african spring conditions to get my hard worked helico back before returning to France :-)
thanx Thomas for that, i will swap my M for a L independence joker rescue, maybe not XL for deployment time.
i wonder what would happen if i had thrown my sky-drive whilst coming down fast on my annular? think the steerable would have caused more trouble? i keep wondering if i wouldn't be in this position if i had just thrown the next rescue too...the wing went partially in the lines of the annular rescue after i tried pulling it in, anyone out there thrown rogallo whilst coming down on an annular already? maybe just an unfortunate and unique situation, as my second rescue deployed ITSELF under G-force stain , otherwise if i was in trouble after messing up a maneuver - i naturally would have thrown the steerable as my first rescue...

ZMercan's picture

Very sorry to hear this man !

Hope you`ll have a speedy recovery and see you back in the air soon.

cravattnix's picture

Mike,

I don't know which of your two rescues you actually threw, but the Sky Drive is known for a quite high descent rate compared to other Rogallo type rescues. One of the great advantages of Rogallos is the very short deployment time. The bigger ones also have a much lower descent rate.

Parachute rescues generally come down faster and need more time/height to deploy. The larger the parachute in relation to the pilot, the more time and height it takes to fully deply. This and the higher weight are the drawbacks of using larger rescues, but in Austria and Germany it is often recommended to use rescue parachutes with a weight limit of roughly 30 % above the pilots take of weight.

There will always remain a risk in this sport, even with the most secure setup.

I hope you will recover soon, best wishes and I hope you can return to flying one day.

Thomas

mikesm08's picture

My Ava sport acro 2008 harness is for sale in the justacro Market section if anyone is interested ...