Flour bombing contest rules?

[pchapman 261]

Anyone got ideas for carrying out a flour bombing contest?
I'm helping organize one. The flour will likely be in baggies, and distances can be measured from a target on the ground. It would be for jumpers of all experience levels and canopy types.
The question is how to enforce some sort of minimum drop altitude, so the flour isn't just dropped on a short final approach. Some possibilities:
-- State a minimum altitude, that should be enough to allow a drop plus sufficient time to still set up for landing. (500', or even more to really give the fast canopy fliers time) The altitude limit would be hard to enforce, but a judge would still watch jumpers for any obvious violations.
To be fancy, one judging station could be 500' abeam the drop target, so that, assuming the drops are close to overhead the target, the jumper should be at about 45 degrees or more above the horizon when dropping.
Another possibility is to time the time-of-fall of the flour bomb to check for too-low drops, but that requires calibration tests and starts getting complicated.
-- 'The bomb can't be dropped on final approach' - the jumper must make at least a 90 degree turn before landing. It's a nice thought but could lead to low hooks.
-- Have the landing area offset certain distance away from the drop target (outside of typical swoop distance!)

While the density of a small flour bomb should be reasonable, we'd still keep the drop area clear of spectators.

Peter Chapman
Toronto, Ontario

[quade 3]

Rule #1 - Don't get yourself dead.
Rule #2 - Don't get anybody else dead.
Rule #3 - If jumper lands less than 30 seconds after dropping bomb, then that run is disqualified.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[weid14 0]

rule 3 would be tough for a HP canopy. shoot, you'd have to drop from like 2000 feet

[Sonic 0]

But it does mean the less experienced people have a chance of winning

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It's like something out of that twilighty show about that zone

[weid14 0]

they have a better chance anyway, besides, how many people would have experience with it to begin with? to make it fair, the lower loaded canopies would have to go down wind

[quade 3]

Nobody says you have to swoop.

Most canopies have a nominal decent rate of about 1,000 feet per minute. I picked 30 seconds because that means they're all probably over 500 feet and nobody should be thinking about flour drops closer than 30 seconds to landing anyway -- I don't care what canopy they're flying.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[bodypilot90 0]

extra points if you hit a judge

[Levin 0]

Ramon and I held a flour bom drop contest labor day at skydive houston.

for the flour bombs i used white paper lunch sacks with a pound of flour each. with the flour in the sack i cut the paper bag a few inches above the flour. the open part of the bag i folded over a few times smaking a small flap and taped it down on the bag so that the bag looked like a brick. this way there would be no fins or flaps that might steer the bag away from the target (like it really made a difference). i'll also say it was very unnerving driving to the dz with a box of 30 small white bricks in my trunk (didn't think of that one before i made them).

for the contest jumpers would do a hop n pop with the flour tucked in their suit or pants. below 1000' we had a set flight path. contestants dropped the flour bomb from 500' over the pea pit in the main landing area then flew a right hand pattern until landing. the judge stood out next to the peas. you could see the white flour bags fall so well that there really wasn't any worries about being hit. but still most people stayed back by the edge of the landing area. 500' seems like the best altitude to drop the bomb. below 500' it gets much easier to hit the target. the danger from dropping too high is that you can miss by a greater margin the higher up you drop it.

i wouldn't recommend putting a really strict emphasis on the 500' rule. if you do some people may worry too much about not being at the exact altitude instead of being set up properly. 400'-600' it's all the same. and if someone gets too low usually there will be a group shouting too low! too low! or heads up!! if they dropped from to high.

levin
vSCR#17

[VivaHeadDown 0]

It shouldn't bee hard to calibrate the height/time thing. Decide on the desired drop altitude. Set up a couple practice jumps before hand and have a guy on the ground time the bag's fall. Get an average time and use it to verify the height. It's all approximate, but it's about fun so only use the time rule as proof when someone challenges a bust for being too low.

[Galen 0]

There was a pumpkin drop contest at my DZ over Halloween (the small soft ball sized pumpkins). The target was set up on a field on the DZ property but not in the landing area. The target was on the other side of the buildings and parking lot. The rule was that the pumpkin had to be dropped from 1,500 feet or higher. If anyone was to drop it lower they probably wouldn't make it back. Seemed to work OK. Except my pumpkin accuracy sucks.

Respect the Dolphin