Is swooping pushing the envelope?

[Littlelad 0]

I voted "pushing it", however I understand why people do it and one day I might want to push the envelope a bit further myself. As long as people are as "safe" as possible and mitigate the risks then fair enough

[davelepka 4]

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Therefore you can't make a blanket statement that pushing the envelope is a good thing. It depends upon who is doing the pushing and whether or not they are properly prepared to do so.

Right, so asking if pushing 'THE' envelope is good is a poor word choice. The question should be if swoopers pushing 'THEIR' envelope is a good thing.

Pushing THE envelope implies that you're on the very edge of what's known to be possible in all of swooping, and probably should be reserved for the very best swoopers in the world.

Swoopers pushing THEIR envelope means using their current limitations as the scale, with a push being some incrementally beyond the top end of those limits. In that respect, it's hard to fault as it's the basis of learning and advancement in all of society. At some point your have to exceed your limitations in order to move beyond the status quo.

So on an individual level, it's hard to fault anyone pushing their limits, save for a situation with a definite end. Take pull altitudes, you cannot simply continue to push those lower and lower, because there is a definite end to the progression, and at some point it just becomes too close.

Swooping, on the other hand, doesn't have a definite end, so how can you fault swoopers for pushing THE limits, provided it's not too far outside THEIR limits? It's like suggesting that the current scores for 4-way competition are high enough, and that jumpers should stop trying turn points faster.

[Lindenwood 0]

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People dieing attempting dumb things is not bad? Please explain.

For someone like me to try it. It would be called suicide. For those that actually have the skills? It's their choice to make. They know the risks just as well as we do.

Right. Therefore you can't make a blanket statement that pushing the envelope is a good thing. It depends upon who is doing the pushing and whether or not they are properly prepared to do so.

Is it a good idea for a 16-year old teenage male to push the envelope by driving 100 mph with his new learner's permit?

I guess it depends on how you define "pushing the envelope."

I understand it as carefully, incrementally and with a great deal of calculation, doing things at the edge of your current abilities. Or the capabilities of the equipment you are using. It is shaving the error margin thinner one slice at a time.

For me it is 90 carving turns to final. A little more input each time to build a little more speed, most of which is bleeding off before I land.

Trying to crank out a 270 to a swoop wouldn't be "pushing" the envelope for me, it would be blasting a big hole in it.

This! If we imagine the "envelop" as a bubble filled with all a perskn's capabilities, pushing it would indeed be incrimentally expanding it. Your example of a 16yo driving 100mph (well, most people on the road, in fac...) would be leaping all the way outbof the envelop.

For me, maybe a downwind landing in a 5-10mph breeze would be as far into the envelop as I could safely lean (by "safel" I mean without broken bones, but perhaps not without a few scrapes and dents in my legs and pride :P ). Trying to do Anything at all to gain speed for the final approach would indeed be, as you say, "dumb."

for someone who has successfully performed their last 100 swoops with 360-degree turns, adding another 90 degrees would be pushing their envelop, but I would also think they'd have the experience to know their limits and calculate the risks, which would not make it "dumb."

Weeeee!

[rehmwa 2]

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I voted that it is pushing the envelop, but I do NOT think that is necessarily a bad thing. Humans finding ways to do anything we never thought we could is rarely a bad thing, in my opinion.

People dieing attempting dumb things is not bad? Please explain.

I'd like to pick the goofy extreme semantic interpretation of the comment and argue against it for $500 please, Alex.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[rehmwa 2]

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I guess it depends on how you define "pushing the envelope."

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I understand it as carefully, incrementally and with a great deal of calculation, doing things at the edge of your current abilities. Or the capabilities of the equipment you are using. It is shaving the error margin thinner one slice at a time.

Oh Yeah? I want to define it as requiring all newbies to get a double digit square foot canopy on the 2nd jump off of AFF status and whipping out 720's at 900 feet while the local gun club shoots at the swooper if he actually makes it to final - pre-training being only a couple pictures of someone landing and a good talking to from the guy that survived it twice one time. Now that I've defined pushing the envelope in swooping, I'm a position of opposition to it and will argue against it. though I will lobby for the event for the olympics, or at least Japanese reality TV

YMMV

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[PiLFy 0]

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Right. Therefore you can't make a blanket statement that pushing the envelope is a good thing. It depends upon who is doing the pushing and whether or not they are properly prepared to do so.

I never said that. I doubt anyone in this thread would advocate a Newbie trying swooping. Your post looked like a blanket statement. So long as you don't have a problem w/qualified jumpers choosing for themselves. We're agreed.