Glide Ratios?

[lurch 0]

Hey Doc... get this: and I might try it myself just to see.
At Elsinore I picked up a little rumor about the #2 and #1 freefall time rankholders. Helmut and Toby.
Rumor is, they both got their results by wearing weights.

I gave it some thought and realized its plausible, whether it works well in practice I'll have to find out, but makes sense.

I set my own best record at #3 just by the usual dive and planeout. Timed right and carefully metering out the speed so as not to just burn it in one big wingpush, that planeout got a sustained 25 mph for 76 seconds and I ran out of excess speed right at the end. Couldn't have held that 25 for any longer. My default unboosted fallrate is more like 28, 29.

But if I'd worn weights and arrived at the gates going abnormally fast, the load on my arms would be insane but I think I might just be able to stay up LONGER. If that rumor is right, Helmut's a genius. He used weights as a kinetic battery pack. No wonder they banned em. It would have started a really weird arms race and the only way to be competitive... wait a minute, aren't we already dancing to this tune?
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[Butters 0]

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Hey Doc... get this: and I might try it myself just to see.
At Elsinore I picked up a little rumor about the #2 and #1 freefall time rankholders. Helmut and Toby.
Rumor is, they both got their results by wearing weights.

I gave it some thought and realized its plausible, whether it works well in practice I'll have to find out, but makes sense.

I set my own best record at #3 just by the usual dive and planeout. Timed right and carefully metering out the speed so as not to just burn it in one big wingpush, that planeout got a sustained 25 mph for 76 seconds and I ran out of excess speed right at the end. Couldn't have held that 25 for any longer. My default unboosted fallrate is more like 28, 29.

But if I'd worn weights and arrived at the gates going abnormally fast, the load on my arms would be insane but I think I might just be able to stay up LONGER. If that rumor is right, Helmut's a genius. He used weights as a kinetic battery pack. No wonder they banned em. It would have started a really weird arms race and the only way to be competitive... wait a minute, aren't we already dancing to this tune?
-B

Couldn't this be minimized by shortening the distance between exit and competition window? Do you agree with what I posted earlier? That each area gives an advantage to a different build ... the advantage for distance is height and suit, the advantage for speed is weight and suit, and the advantage for time is the ratio of weight to height and suit. Of course these can be manipulated by specific build, suit, and skill along with distance from exit to competition window, distance of competition window, ability to add weight, etc...

PS: If you maintain a large enough distance between exit and competition window and a large enough competition window then adding weight should favor those that have the skills and strength to use the weight to their advantage ... which would be interesting.

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[lurch 0]

Absolutely. I think your breakdown is quite accurate although in real life we see people defy their category all the time since individual skill and performance outweigh the particular advantages for each.

Where it really shows is when both suit and pilot are as finely tuned as possible...ex: Helmut. Helmut is built -exactly- like me... same height and weight, vastly superior suit and skills. The man clearly possesses some ninja tricks I do not. At the bleeding edge of performance the only way I'm ever going to meet or beat his record will be to create the same conditions he used and do it with even MORE skill. A tall order.

"Couldn't this be minimized..."

Spot just did that. And although I think his ruleset was not as favorable to my preferred style as Gransee was, (not a complaint: I have no actual complaints at ALL, it was a BLAST!) the comp was immensely valuable in both rip-roaring fun AND another incredibly useful learning experience.

I got to compare the results and conditions and really SEE how the changes to the initial conditions play out in real life competition.

I thought about what the missing 2000 feet was going to do to the available energy conditions at the gate, and I knew no new records were going to be set this time. It was kind of like restrictor plate NASCAR.

Most of the missing energy is gained in the second 1000-foot interval. Whatever the angle of the dive, I've typically hit terminal or close to it by 11k, using the remaining 1k at Gransee to fine tune/try for a bit more speed/initiate the planeout.

At Elsinore in all cases I was still accelerating when I hit the gates (or pre-gate period, rather) and had to start planing out, and continued accelerating during the comp window, had to make judgement call when to taper off the dive and hope I'd maximized what room I had. In that regard Elsinore was more technically challenging than Gransee was since I didn't have the luxury of spending the last 500 feet screwing around fine tuning for even less drag. I wasn't going to be at anything like my best performance possible, just best possible *under limited conditions*.

Gransee captured just the attack. Elsinore captured half the windup AND the attack. I had to alter strategy considerably to account for this fact, accept the limits on ultimate performance and work on taking best advantage of the energy I COULD get, abbreviating the windup so my captured runs wouldn't be half-dive.

This ended up working to my advantage in Speed of all places because there WAS no planeout, just a very steep then not-so-steep attack to translate dive speed into ground speed. Errors in exact timing and efficiency of wing didn't cost as much or matter as much as they did with Distance. It still cut my top ground speed by 30KPH but in the end Elsinore's conditions weren't as DISadvantaeous as I'd expected. I still want to see more unlimited comps and time comps, but this style does work well on its own.

I think more comps, with more variations on the rules will continue to develop a more detailed picture for all of us and in time a universal standard will evolve. For now, variety is our asset and experimentation the rule.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[kallend 1,623]

Just returned from the Galapagos Islands. Spent a lot of time watching seabirds soaring along the cliffs. Even the most ungainly make our best wingsuit flights look like guano.

I'd like to be able to soar like an albatross.

I think we can aspire to better glide ratios than 2:1

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[DSE 3]

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I think we can aspire to better glide ratios than 2:1

Count me in agreement. People learning to fly their bodies vs relying on a suit is step one in that process. It's unfortunate so many rely on fabric vs fundamentals.
Had a very experienced wingsuiter (well, lots of WS jumps) here on Saturday. We talked about his fall rate control, and he was of the thought that his head position was how he controlled up/down, and explained that's how his coach had taught him.

[murf62 0]

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and he was of the thought that his head position was how he controlled up/down, and explained that's how his coach had taught him.

If you shove your head up your own ass you fall faster, remove it and you're back to flying. I thought everyone knew this?

[kallend 1,623]

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I think we can aspire to better glide ratios than 2:1

Count me in agreement. People learning to fly their bodies vs relying on a suit is step one in that process. It's unfortunate so many rely on fabric vs fundamentals.
H.

I'm not sure that glide RATIO is controlled much by amount of fabric. A poorly flown suit of any size will have a poor GR.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[KrisFlyZ 0]

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I'm not sure that glide RATIO is controlled much by amount of fabric. A poorly flown suit of any size will have a poor GR.

A poorly flown suit with a lot of fabric can appear to have great glide ratio.

[DSE 3]

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and he was of the thought that his head position was how he controlled up/down, and explained that's how his coach had taught him.

If you shove your head up your own ass you fall faster, remove it and you're back to flying. I thought everyone knew this?

I dunno...I've been flying with my head up my ass for a long time, and my GR is pretty good.
When you comin' back to Elsinore?

[kallend 1,623]

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I'm not sure that glide RATIO is controlled much by amount of fabric. A poorly flown suit of any size will have a poor GR.

A poorly flown suit with a lot of fabric can appear to have great glide ratio.

GR is a measurable quantity and is equal to the Cl/Cd of the suit as flown by the pilot. Appearance has nothing to do with it.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Crazy3rdgen 0]

Why are you guys using ratios compared to angles? Im curious what kind of flight angle is possible in a wing suit.

[murf62 0]

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and he was of the thought that his head position was how he controlled up/down, and explained that's how his coach had taught him.

If you shove your head up your own ass you fall faster, remove it and you're back to flying. I thought everyone knew this?

I dunno...I've been flying with my head up my ass for a long time, and my GR is pretty good.
When you comin' back to Elsinore?

I was out in Perris in November and popped across & did a couple of jumps with Jarno but you weren't about. I'm hoping to get across in Apr/May so that it coincides with your artistics comp. Will let you know.

[KrisFlyZ 0]

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I'm not sure that glide RATIO is controlled much by amount of fabric. A poorly flown suit of any size will have a poor GR.

A poorly flown suit with a lot of fabric can appear to have great glide ratio.

GR is a measurable quantity and is equal o the Cl/Cd of the suit as flown by the pilot. Appearance has nothing to do with it.

Ha fun in la la land Prof. In the real world design is driven by what appears (competition results) to be better glide. Let us reduce the competition window to a 1000 feet after a 3000 foot dive and claim to fly 8:1. The birds will still shit on us, our cars and our wingsuits. Go grab a paraglider or a hangglider if you want to soar.

[kallend 1,623]

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Why are you guys using ratios compared to angles? Im curious what kind of flight angle is possible in a wing suit.

Trigonometry is your friend.

A glide ratio of N gives an angle of arctan(1/N) below horizontal.

example, GR = 2 gives angle of arctan(0.5) = 27 degrees

GR = 3 gives 18 degrees

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 1,623]

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I'm not sure that glide RATIO is controlled much by amount of fabric. A poorly flown suit of any size will have a poor GR.

A poorly flown suit with a lot of fabric can appear to have great glide ratio.

GR is a measurable quantity and is equal o the Cl/Cd of the suit as flown by the pilot. Appearance has nothing to do with it.

Ha fun in la la land Prof. In the real world design is driven by what appears (competition results) to be better glide. Let us reduce the competition window to a 1000 feet after a 3000 foot dive and claim to fly 8:1. The birds will still shit on us, our cars and our wingsuits. Go grab a paraglider or a hangglider if you want to soar.

You are confusing GR with a quantity artificially affected by maneuvering to comply with arbitrary competition rules.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.