Steering Line Length

Adjusting your steering lines to the correct length will give you better control of your canopy. It may even feel like you’ve bought a new one ! 

While running canopy courses, I regularly find students with steering lines not set up optimally for them.

When you sit in your car, you adjust your seat and steering wheel position so you can comfortably reach your pedals, fully depress them, and all the controls are at a comfortable distance from you.

Steering line length is the same thing. You want full control range of your canopy, and you need to adjust them to fit your arm length and specific equipment (such as risers) you’re jumping.

At the top end of the toggle stroke, when your arms are up flying in full flight, there should be some slack in your control lines. This means that you should have to pull the toggles down several inches before you start deflecting the tail and creating an input in your canopy. If the lines are excessively long, you will have to move your hands down a considerable distance before you get a reaction from your canopy. If they are too short, then as soon as you pull on a toggle you will immediately get an input or even worse, at full extension of your control lines the tail is being deflected so you cannot achieve the maximum speed of your canopy which you need to set you up for a great landing.

At the bottom end of the toggle stroke, if the lines are too long you cannot stall your parachute. Some people might respond with, “I don’t want to stall my parachute”. It is understandable why someone doesn’t want to collapse their parachute on landing – and this should be avoided at all costs – but, if you can’t get close to the stall point at the end of your flare, you’re not achieving 100% flare power; therefore landing faster than you need to. On the other hand, excessively short steering lines mean the stall point is very high in the toggle stroke increasing your chances of an unintentional stall on landing! 

The ideal setting is to have your steering lines at such a length that the parachute will stall at full arm extension at the bottom of the toggle stroke.

In the middle of the toggle stroke, the sweet spot where you achieve level flight will be affected, so whenever changing your steering line length be sure to revisit this important point.

Now what about the seasoned or aspiring canopy pilot whose favourite input is the front riser? Basically, you need to pull on your front risers while your toggles are in your hands. This requires enough slack in the steering lines so that you can reach forward a few inches to the front riser loops and pull on the front risers – all without deflecting the tail whatsoever, (Depending on the canopy, front riser and brake input combined can seriously destabilise some canopies.) 

The required slack at the top end and stalling right at the bottom end of the toggle stroke are both achievable. 

Depending on the material the lines are made from, they can shrink throughout their lifetime. The friction of the slider grommets creates heat, which gradually shortens the lines. Steering lines are in a prime position during opening for the grommets to rub against.

Allowing twists to build up in your lines over time will shorten them. Excessive twists can even cause tension knot malfunctions. Running your fingers down the lines from canopy to toggle, spinning out any twists every dozen jumps or so is good kit maintenance. 

Be careful if you change riser length; you will need to adjust your steering lines accordingly to maintain the stall point correctly. 

If you get a new line-set and don’t specify the steering line length you require, you will get the steering line length made to a standard setting, which might not be ideal for you. If you don’t know what this is, you might have to do a jump, then give it back to your rigger for adjustments.

Rental gear is generally set up with excessively long steering lines, both to account for the shrinking of the lines throughout the lifetime of the line-set and to prevent any accidental stalls by jumpers with low experience. Although, sometimes rental gear can be on the opposite end of the scale where the lines are very short, such that even with the hands in full flight position the tail is being deflected.

If you’re not sure how to stall your parachute or struggling with your flare (this might be due to incorrect steering line length), our canopy courses are ideal for you. Stall exercises can be intimidating; the Flight-101 course covers this most important exercise. One of my favourite aspects of teaching that course is seeing the nervousness on the students before they go up to attempt the stall and the feeling that they’ve conquered something once they get back down!

Stalling is the first exercise I perform on jump one of ANY new wing that I jump for the first time.

Flight-1 courses

• Canopy course Curricula here:
• Find a Flight-1 course near you here:

Good Landing Video 

This video shows student Roxanne Paquet nailing her landing during a canopy course with Flight-1 instructor Simon Bouchard:

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