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jclalor

RW TO FF

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I only half pay attention to this as I'm not a RW flyer and I don't compete. But I think it's FS - not FF - for Formation Skydiving. And for all I know someone wanted to get rid of "work" as part of the name. I still call it RW though. Thing is, eventually there will be fewer people who will know what I mean. I think the change was initiated by USPA for reasons only they fully understand or care about. After all, it doesn't matter what it's called when it comes to turning points. So who really cares?

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RW to FS:

I don't recall the real story either, but I thought it was from the international, FAI level, to have names for disciplines that were rational to the outside world and public, and not just a historical artifact of skydiver speak. At least, the names have been adopted at the FAI level.

Doesn't mean we can't informally use the skydiver speak.

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RW to FS:

I don't recall the real story either, but I thought it was from the international, FAI level, to have names for disciplines that were rational to the outside world and public, and not just a historical artifact of skydiver speak. At least, the names have been adopted at the FAI level.

Doesn't mean we can't informally use the skydiver speak.




A rose by any other name ,,,

would funnel just as badly. :)
Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

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I remember that change and didn't really like it. After RW became FS (for formation skydiving, right, or did they change it again?) I wrote to USPA fearing what was next. I closed with, "Fine, while you're in the designated horizontal practice pad area I'll still be dirt diving!

NickD :)

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> When did it change and why?

When was a couple decades ago.

Why is a mystery to me too (sort of).

RW, relative work, used to mean people
flying in freefall relative to one another.

There was nothing in there about formations,
hookups, body positions, points or anything else.

Viewed from a couple miles away everybody
is falling like a brick, but when you're up close
doing it it feels like you're really flying around.

That's what it still means to me.

Formation skydiving is a really restricted form
where people are doing hookups as fast or as
big as they can for people on the ground called
judges.

In freeflying the emphasis switched to body position.

Sit flying makes sense to me because we are built
to see from an upright position and the visual aspect
is a big part of it for me.

Head down, other than to try it a few times, makes
no sense to me, you can't see where you're going,
and you're going there really fast! :-) :-)


What I really think is more complicated than that,
with a lot of hedging and allowing for other viewpoints
and motives and situations and history, but to me, the words
"relative work" still mean flying around relative to other people.

Skr

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RW, relative work, used to mean people
flying in freefall relative to one another.

Viewed from a couple miles away everybody
is falling like a brick, but when you're up close
doing it it feels like you're really flying around.

That's what it still means to me.

In freeflying the emphasis switched to body position.

Sit flying makes sense to me because we are built
to see from an upright position and the visual aspect
is a big part of it for me.

Head down, other than to try it a few times, makes
no sense to me, you can't see where you're going,
and you're going there really fast! :-) :-)

Quote

:)
***What I really think is more complicated than that,
with a lot of hedging and allowing for other viewpoints
and motives and situations and history, but to me, the words
"relative work" still mean flying around relative to other people.

Skr




The wing suiters seen to be doing that now. Not just the formations and "proximity" flying but the flocking, I think they csll it. It looks like these guys can fly around each other like dogfighters. I haven't heard of anyone doing an Immelman yet but I wouldn't bet against it in the near future.
Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

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Group Swoop Definitions
FREEFLY

when:
Freeflying or Vertical RW (vRW)
– An emerging skydiving discipline
(first practiced by Olav Zipser, 1986)
that focuses on the ability to control levels
and proximity while flying vertical positions

- - - -
Why:
Today, vertical RW embraces a variety
of body positions to fly relative with others
at any fall-rate.
Freeflyers do their vertical relative work
in a variety of modes including head-down,
standing, sitting, back-flying, and belly-flying.

Pretty, graceful body form is not the most
important aspect in vertical RW; rather,
as in all forms of RW, precise control of levels
and proximity is the main objective.

The intent is to be able to fly in any position
relative to another skydiver within a space
constrained only by time.

Compared to “flat” or planar RW, vRW is spherical
or three-dimensional.

Larger formations resemble a swarm of bees
more than a dinner plate.
To illustrate, RW dives can be
stamped out on a flat piece of paper,
while vRW dives cannot.

Video presentation is from the side or a 3-D
spherical point-of-view.

From Pat Works' The Art of vRW, the way of freefly;
(C) 1998 Pat works; ISBN 0-930438-04-3
Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

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A friend of mine once told me that she
thought I'd never been domesticated.

In hindsight I'm not sure she meant it
as a compliment :-) :-)

I also see that that when I read your
words long ago I took the word "vertical"
as referring to spine vertical body position,
because I never had the idea that relative
work was two dimensional.

The words don't quite make sense with that
interpretation, but I resolved that by seeing
them as a poetic exhortation for people to get
out there and innovate and imaginate and break
free.

And I entirely agreed with that.


To be sure, the hookups were flat, at least
the ones worth logging were.

But the ride up was 3 dimensional, the exit-
dive-swoop was 3 dimensional, the breakup was
3 dimensional, the relative work with the planet
was 3 dimensional, the canopy flight was 3 dimensional,
and, in the Oreo Cookie metaphor where the top layer
is the exit and the bottom layer is the break, the
filling, the long tall fall, was often filled with
3 dimensional activity.


I remember in the mid 60s at Elsinore asking Clarice
to fall straight down while I flew around above her,
sticking my hand in and out of her burble, trying
to figure out the size and shape of it.

And I remember us trying to stand on each other's
back, like a surf board.

And 10 years later I remember pictures of Exitus
doing an Enterprise dive where you build a saucer
section out of 10 or so people, and have someone
stand on it, and a 3-way wedge fly in and be the
warp necelles.

We did stuff like that at Pope Valley, too.

And considering all the chile dogs and beer and
other stuff that people ate, some of those ships
were probably venting plasma on the way down too
:-) :-)


And Pope Valley in the 70s was where I really
got focused on building dives out of moves
instead of hookups.

One of my favorites was hopping pairs.

Just like people were flying wedges and stairsteps
and stuff around we tried flying hopping pairs around
relative to each other.

A hopping pair is two people side by side continuously
going over and under each other.

So it's like flying pieces around, except the pieces
all have an internal state of motion going on, too.


Another was the waterfall where you have 3 or 4 people
stacked up at 45 degrees, each person maybe 3 or 4 ft
over and down from the one above, and then you have a
person start at the top and burble hop down the waterfall,
and take up a position on the bottom, and then the top
person goes, and so on.

There was a whole bunch of stuff like that.


You know, relative work started out as freedom and expression
and exploration, and over the years kind of devolved into
competition and compulsory moves and records.

I didn't see it coming, and I was distressed by it,
and sort of went my own way, diverging from the mainstream,
so I was happy to see freeflying burst forth, but before
long the same symptoms started appearing, and I knew when
I saw the words "compulsory move" in the same sentence
as "freefly" that the game was over.


But you've heard all this before. Still, someone might
reasonably ask whether anybody has done anything new in
the last 100,000 years.

And I think we can say "Yes. We did. We flew."

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Wow!
Well said, brother. The sky-father, Skratch again affirms that 'flight for the joy of flying' is both a path and a goal that our soul poet and mind song-singers all blither towards. Join us. Look over the sunrise.
Insist. Continue to listen, learn, and see.
Nice place to be. Great spot to lurk in.
Come with notions of flight towards joy which transcend today to become a potential tomorrow!

Skr is waiting. I too lurk here.. .
Where are you now in expanding our envelope of winged potentials?
Amaze yourself. Amaze us. Those who fly highest see furtherest. Envision our tomorrow, today.
And share that dream!

The brotherhood of freefall will be with you.
Shoulder to shoulder. ‘Hand to hand. Level-to-level.
Dimension-to Mind Warp.
Sky-mat to sky-mat.
All of us, Kids, & critters alike will map a today that envisages that tomorrow where Joy transcends comprehension.
And perfecting flight engenders competitions that spread glories all over.
That perfection of levels and proximity engender fulfillment.
And the skies are won with wings we earned ourselves.
So that our joy abides
And grows
Forever.
Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

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