BPA Skydive the Expo 2018: Laura Golly - Girls can't fly parachutes 

When I started jumping as a young man in my early 20s, we didn't have ZP canopies. Everything was made of F-111. I'm 67 now, so I'll be mentioning canopies that probably all of you have never heard of. My first 6 or 7 jumps were on military surplus stuff....static line jumps with belly mounted reserves. Jumps 8-24 were on a Para-Comander main. My first set of new gear was a GQ Security Unit main 7-cell of 200 sq. ft. Made my first square jump on that brand new rig, which had 3 collapsed end cells, and the slider jammed in a knotted mess of lines halfway down. First square jump, first cutaway, and first reserve ride on that jump. That was actually near the bottom size of main 7-cells available at the time. Harness/container was a Jump Shack SST Racer with a Piglet 2 round reserve. The biggest ram-air canopy in production at the time was a Jalbert 252. I sold the rig with the Unit, and ordered another new Racer container with a Firefly 7-cell main. It was THE smallest production 7-cell you could get at 168 sq.ft. I weighed 135 at the time. The Firefly was a hot canopy, and a few of my buddies jumped it, and it really surprised them....they didn't want to jump it again.... While waiting for the new rig to arrive, borrowed a friends' Jalbert 252....it was HUGE...and jives with what the young lady said about how you can't underload a canopy. On one particularly hot day while under this huge canopy, I actually picked up some lift in a thermal rising off of a newly plowed field next to our DZ. My altimeter stopped showing a descent for a minute or two. I crunched the numbers for the wing loading loading while using the 252....came out to .60......no wonder the landings were so soft....Blue Skies to all of you! I still miss it.

This should have way more views. Thank you for sharing this.

Who invented Wingload?

Why does nobody mention weight? Women, on average, are lighter than men and weight will be a massive factor in anything than flies. They are also on average smaller so their weight will be distributed differently under canopy to men. Why does everyone miss the obvious?

You are told to fail???

Those were definitely some... opinions.