canopy size

[mf-nren]

Hey ya'll, I was just wondering what you think about choosing a canopy? i've heard several different ideas on wing loading from .8/1 to .75/1 or add 100 pounds to your naked weight to get the size. Is there any loss of performance with a very lightly loaded canopy?Or change in the opening characteristics?
Thanks Ren

[Tom Aiello]

The "textbook" answer is .75. I think that Ray's Rule (add 100 pounds to your naked weight, go up a size for bad landing areas, down a size for high wind) works better.

I've jumped loadings down to about .55. I started to see degradation in the openings below about .6 or so. Bottom skin inlets helped this a lot. Also, note that these were very large sized canopies, so lightly loading a smaller canopy would likely not have as much negative effect.

Hope this helps.

[soonere36]

thats good to know about smaller canopies for windy areas buecose i live in oklahoma wich is bad for sky diveing and base jumping cuz thare is a ton of wind but thare are a few sky dive drop zones