So, once everything is in position, I'm ready to pull up the tail.
If you're packing a canopy that's built here in the United States, most of the manufacturers...
either put a piece of tape on the tail here, letting you know that it's the centre...
Performance Designs has a warning label there.
There's a lot of different things that the manufacturers do, but we want to make sure that we have the centre of the tail.
I'm not going to pull this up really far up the lines.
I'm gonna keep it pretty low down there on the slider.
I'm gonna grab one side at a time, and I'm also going to put my knee... lift my knee up,
and just kind of pull that tail around my pack job, as opposed to letting it roll that pack job open.
There's seams on this tail, which make it really easy to line everything up.
I find the two seams down here - it's kind of tough to see because it's a yellow canopy that I'm packing.
But there's a stitch line right here on both sides, that I'm matching up with my fingers.
I just pinch it together, to keep it from going anywhere.
While I do that I keep as little of the tail on the lines themselves as possible.
The more I pull up - I see this a lot - the more you pull up here,
the better chance you're going to get damage around this area of the tail,
as you put more and more jumps on your canopy.
One of the things that I do, that I think helps my pack jobs a lot, is at this point right here
I'm pulling down and away from the slider. The tail itself is putting some tension on those grommets...
making sure that they're seated all the way down on those stops.
And it allows me to - putting tension on nylon material allows me to have something to work with.
So, I'm gonna grab a little bit at the top of the slider here, and down on that seam that I've never let go of.
And I'm gonna start folding it. About two-inch folds, and I do two or three of them.
And that's about it. I don't need to roll it any more than that.
The more I roll that canopy, the more distorted the inside of this pack job gets.
The better chance for off-heading openings, or funky openings.
Before I lay the canopy down on the ground, I do something that really helps me once I am on the ground.
and that's actually laying this - walking my shoulder up to the base of the canopy, where the lines and the canopy meet,
And setting it there. I'm actually gonna let go of the tail.
So right now the tail is probably starting to get loose and unwind,
I'm gonna take both my arms and I'm gonna take the material down and away.
Not pushing really hard, but I want to put some pressure on there to keep some air out of it.
It just helps me lay down the pack job.
And it saves the time from me bending over on the pack job, trying to get the air out of the canopy.
Once I do that, I just come back, find my tail, and just make sure that that roll is back in place,
and it hasn't come undone.
Now I'm gonna lay this down. People laugh, but I lay it down like I would lay down a kid going to bed.
If I slam it down, that child's gonna wake up, they're gonna start crying.
If I slam my canopy down, it's gonna squirt out everywhere and everything that we just did right up here:
the flaking of the canopy...was useless. Might as well not flake.
So as I do this, I'm holding the slider grommets and putting some tension away from my rig,
so that my lines are nice and taut.
I don't know if you can see it from there, but there's no slack in those lines. That looks good.
So, I'm laying the rest of the canopy on the forearm, and I'm just going to set it down nice and gentle.
By setting the canopy down like that, we know that our pack job is basically the same...
that it was when it was over our shoulder.
You slam it down and let it squirt out, who knows what it looks like in there.
I take the chance to kind of take a breather, a rest, and cock my pilot chute,
Kind of square up my bag a bit - make sure it's not inverted or anything else.
Get that flap so that it's facing down.
Ready for that parachute to be put into the bag.
I also cock my pilot chute there - I cock my pilot chute a number of different times throughout the pack job.
Basically it just gives me a chance to recuperate and get ready to put the canopy in the bag.
Something that helps me out a lot is putting my knees on the grommets, and pushing down on them
and I'm also pushing away from the rig a bit. Again, line tension is very important.
By anchoring my knees here, it allows me to put some tension on the top skin of this canopy,
which allows me to work with the nylon in the parachute.
The mindset that I take when I'm putting this canopy into the bag is more of getting the canopy to a shape...
that is easily controllable; that's approximately the same size as this bag.
If I can get that, then I slide the bag over that canopy.
If we think about trying to push the canopy into the bag, we're gonna wrestle and fight with that all day long.
Nylon material is slippery, so when you push on it this side, this side pokes out.
I'm sure we've pretty much experienced that at some point.
So I'm putting my knees here as an anchor, which allows me to push the canopy material taut,
and squeeze the air out of it. I'm not doing anything to my pack job while I'm doing that either.
I don't want to do really fast. I'm gonna work with one side of the canopy at a time.
I'm gonna use this double stitch line on this canopy as my reference line.
Not too worried about what's going on over here. I'll get to that.
I'm gonna focus right here. I basically cut this centre line and the end of the canopy in half,
and I try to get the top skin and the bottom of that together, so that I'm pinching it with my hand up here.
Then I fold it up underneath.
And this is my technique. It works really well for me.
I've tried a number of different things, giving me the best openings, the most consistent.
Notice my knees are still on that slider, keeping it in place. Hasn't moved.
The top skin is nice and taut - easy to work with.
I've never laid my entire body down on this parachute.
Unless you're packing something that's well over two-hundred square feet, I find that I can do this style,
and this technique on every single size.
I'm gonna replace my hand, or replace my knees with my hand.
I'm gonna make sure that I'm pushing down with my hand before I do it,
because I'm pulling away from the rig right now with this hand.
If I were just to hop off, my knees would take the tension off of the slider, and the topskin of the canopy here,
and it would pull everything in that direction, which would basically ruin my pack job.
So I want to make sure that when I'm having something nice and taut, that there's always
an anchor point down here.
Notice I'm not struggling. I can take all day to do this.
There happens to be a construction tape right here that I'm just gonna lay my shin across,
and I'm gonna let go my hand at the top part of the canopy. I'll get back to that and clean that up.
Right. Now I'm just focussed on this bottom half.
I get the canopy slider grommets - I can feel them all in my hand here -
and I'm going to make a little bit of a S-fold right there. Just like so.
Cleaning that up, making that nice and tight.
I'm gonna put my knee right back on top of that.
My lines still look good - there's still good tension on my lines - and I'm setting my knee on it.
I'm not pushing down so hard that I squirt the canopy material out either direction,
but I'm putting enough pressure on it that it's not going to move.
Now I told you that I'd get back to this top part of the parachute. I'm gonna do that.
I'm going to reach underneath so that I can lift the entire canopy up, right here,
and I'm going to bring it up and rest it on the top of my knee.
If it's a larger canopy it might even go up onto my thigh.
All I'm doing at this point is just rolling some of that material under.
Looks pretty good. Again, the mindset that I'm taking is to get the canopy
to the size approximately the same size as this bag.
I can see right now that I'm pretty good.