Skydiving Smoke Question.....

What is the best color of skydiving smoke to get. Someone suggested white but I was thinking that something like Red would be better. White with white cloud backrough won't show up that well.

Maybe the different colors run out of smoke sooner who knows. And I think Paragear has the best stuff, right?

A brilliant green with a nice frost on it.

You need to be careful with white smoke. I've never used a white (military) M-18 (I think) smoke grenade, but I've repeatedly heard that they burn very, very hot.

A skydiving white smoke grenade needs to produce a very dense smoke to be effective. I got a couple of law enforcement smoke grenades that produce a very dense white smoke, but they burn *way* too long for a typical skydiving use. Instead of burning around 30 secs, like a typical skydiving smoke, they burned over 2 minutes, which can easily mean that it would still be burning when you landed. Doesn't sound like any big deal, but the smoke is dense enough that it can obscure vision (very bad if you are near an active runway) or cause respiratory problems for people who happen to be nearby or downwind.

Personally I like red smoke, but yellow and green can work pretty well also.

ParaGear is a decent choice if you are just going to buy one or two smokes and need them quickly, but for buying quantity, I get them directly from Superior Smoke Signal. Keep in mind that they are a hazardous material and will be shipped accordingly.

I highly recommend that you avoid re-inventing techniques for using smoke for skydiving. Talk with at least 2 people who have used it because there are a few crucial considerations when using it.

For example, you must have the pilot's permission to have smoke grenades on the plane. Smoke grenades are a hazard to everyone one the plane and you need to have a very high degree of awareness of that. You *must* not take any chances of an accidental firing on the plane. If it happens, get out of the plane immediately and prepare for some very well-justified hostility from the pilot, DZO, and other jumpers.

There are several ways of mounting it and sometimes it makes sense to use two or more mounts on the same jump.

One last point, smoke grenades are not 100% reliable. It is a good idea to have a backup smoke grenade in case the first one fails.

There is a lot more to using smoke than I have described, so make sure that you get qualified assistance before using it. That being said, used properly, smoke can be a very nice thing for demo jumps.

Thank you for taking the time to type all this out. There is a lot of things I'll consider and need to plan before the jump. Thanks

hey there.
i jump alot of smoke and have researched it all.

red smoke is good,you can get boating signal flare 5 minute smoke,2500000cft in 5 min,waterproof and just plain sick.

i have footage.

email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

later.

nick