so tell me what you think of my swoop

[Hooknswoop 19]

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Re: Andy Anderson...this was shot at the Lebanon ME swoop meet last year.

http://www.freekfly.com/video/

Looks like he was on the rear risers in a high speed stall. Anyone else?

Hook

[mountainman 0]

Wow. I missed this thread. LOL

Glad a lot of you guys got a kick out of it ! I like to film people and Kelly knows how to swoop it.
There will be plenty more video of swooping at Richmond this year. It was pretty cool to be standing there watching someone coming at me so fast. I had to resist the urge to move. Good thing I didn't because he went LEFT and not right. LOL

Oh well. Fun stuff anyway.

http://www.brandonandlaura.com

[SkymonkeyONE 3]

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Looks like he was on the rear risers in a high speed stall. Anyone else?

Hook

Actually, to me it looks like he piled in because he was fixated on making the entrance gate even though he was technically WAY too steep to get it around the corner had he done so. In the end, his dig was not sufficient, resulted in a high-speed stall, and he pounded. A perfect video example of the same "too-steep-but-MUST-make-the-entrance-gate," all or nothing, rear riser stall goes to Andy Farrington at the 2002 Fantasy of Flight. He hit so hard after his stall that his shoe flew off and nearly hit the video guy! Lucky for both Andy's, they walked away. Anyway, Andy Anderson reads these forums, so maybe he will give his interpretation of that incident.

Chuck

[ianmdrennan 2]

Hook,

While I'm sure Andy is the most aware of what was going on (and I'd be interested to hear what he says about the incident), my thoughts, after watching the actual video multiple times including set up, lead towards target fixation.

Not sure if you can see it clearly in the web vid but he hangs on the fronts till just above the tree line and then appears to get on the rears right before impact. It's almost as though he just wasn't aware of how low he was and was still going throught the "normal" routine.

Thoughts?
Ian

Performance Designs Factory Team

[Hooknswoop 19]

I didn't really try to figure why he got in a high speed stall, just was trying to figure if he was or not. So I think SkymonkeyOne, iamdrennan, and I all think he was in a high speed stall. Any's input would be helpful too.

Hook

[freeflyguy 0]

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all or nothing, rear riser stall goes to Andy Farrington at the 2002 Fantasy of Flight.

You saw that video? Cool. I didn't know he showed it around that much.

In Andy F's, you can actually see the canopy "break" or enter the stall. It was flying then it just kind of all of the sudden increased it's angle of attack and dumped him down. Sort of, hard to describe. Good thing it was in water. Pretty wild seeing a shoe "bounce" 50 feet, off water.

This the other Andy vid her, you don't see the canopy do that, so much. regardless. Scary, and he was way too deep.

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bzzzz

[freeflyguy 0]

Oh yeah.

Prior to that majoer pounding into the water, he had never bashed hard. In thousands of jumps.

Just goes to show, it will happen eventually. More than likely.

Course now, he has good crashes all the time. Not really, but he did lose his cherry.

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bzzzz

[eames 0]

I was there competing... I landed shortly after Andy. If I remember correctly he said that he simply couldn't get a hold on his risers and failed to react. If you look closely at his hands, this is what appears to happen to me. There's no indication of a stall--his canopy only fluttered after he touched the ground.

Jason

[Hooknswoop 19]

It is hard to tell in the video. I couldn't see for sure if he got on his rear risers or not. It kinda looked like he got on his rears, but again, I can't tell for usre. Thanks for clearing it up.

Hook

[skygod7777 0]

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It kinda looked like he got on his rears, but again, I can't tell for usre.

well, i agree with eames. it does kinda look like he was trying to find them, but missed, but maybe he got them like right before he hit, who knows.

later

[garyharbird 0]

Well I just read the forum and watched Kelly’s video
I saw an attempted 540 and then the 90 degree turn and I think that maybe Kelly should have done a 270 or 360, as he says early in the posts he only has 15 jumps on this canopy, that’s not many jumps to be performing a maneuver as the one he did.
With only 15 jumps under this canopy he can't really know it too well, I don’t know what size fx you were jumping before Kelly, but I have recently purchased 2 velocity 84s and there is no way I will be trying to pull 540s and 720s, Just keep it simple and for the first 50 jumps I will be concentrating on learning the canopies, I went from and icarus fx 104 which I jumped for my last 1000 jumps and feel that I mastered well.
Also you have to remember whose watching you, there are jumpers and students with less jumps and less experience out there who look up too us, and we need to set a good example.
Also I saw you where not wearing any sort of head protection and with the high performance canopies that we are jumping, the need for some sort of head protection is a must.
As an AFF I and Tandem I, I believe that we should be setting a good example to the low time jumpers, they see us jumping with out helmets and cranking 540s and 720s and think that they can do it.
Then we see people learning to swoop and think this is the norm, and we end up reading about them in the incident report.
I'm not saying that 540s and 720s should be band but if you are gonna do them make sure you have built up to them and know your canopy.
I bet that chuck blue was not pulling 540s and 720s with only 15 jumps under his new velocities.
So just keep it simple and safe.
Set good examples to other jumpers, and hopefully we can make this a safer sport.
Too many people get killed each year attempting maneuvers they are not skilled enough to be doing.
Blues skies
Safe landings
Gary Harbird

[SkySlut 0]

I was at that meet and standing about 50-75 feet away. I was on the front risers the whole time. You could actually see the imprints of his elbows in the sand. Target fixation mixed with being too low. I thought he was dead. I was amazed when he got right up, ordered a Mt. Dew and a grilled cheese from the the restaruant and jumped the next day. That is one tough motherfucker!!!

[ManBird 0]

You'd get more speed/distance with less snappy front riser turns. A smooth 180 would do you much better than a snappy 720 (- 90). Smoother, longer inputs would also give you more control, and are easier to so that you'd not need a correction... plus you'd have a better chance of "getting out" if need be. That correction also brought you into your "lane" tilted a bit. Not like a carve title, but like a "not done yet" tilt, though you didn't need to dig at all, either, which is good.

You also started on the toggles way too early. You weren't descending at all when you started on the toggles about 30 - 40 ft into the swoop. You could have rode the risers for quite awhile more, then flared. This is evidenced by the fact that you hit the ground running. Basically, you brought the canopy down while it was still going.

I'd say that the best part of this swoop is that you demonstrated that you were heads up enough to regain control, and that the turn was initiated high enough to do so. The bad part is that it appears that you basically just grabbed a front riser and went to town with it without a real plan in mind.

While I'm not flying a VX, I do still swoop, and all the same rules apply.

Have fun and be safe with that thing.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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[eames 0]

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You also started on the toggles way too early. You weren't descending at all when you started on the toggles about 30 - 40 ft into the swoop. You could have rode the risers for quite awhile more, then flared. This is evidenced by the fact that you hit the ground running. Basically, you brought the canopy down while it was still going.

The idea behind using rears is not necessarily to ride them as far as possible (until you start to descend or even nearly stall) then abruptly switch to toggles. I've seen too many swoopers (even pros) push the limit of how far they can go with rears, stall the canopy, and ruin the rest of the swoop they could have had with toggles. It's much more effective to switch to toggles while you still have a little speed--while you can still switch smoothly.

You also said that he hit the ground running because he switched too early. The point at which you switch from rears has very little to do with how fast you touch down. However, abusing your toggles (flaring too far too quickly, especially after using rears) may cause a fast touch-down.

Jason

[ManBird 0]

I agree. I'm not implying nor do I think you should ride your rear risers all the way through or too far, but I don't think you should jump to toggles right away, either (after riding rear risers). In the video, you'll notice that he's in risers for only a moment after planing out before bringing the toggles down to chest level fairly quickly. Granted, that might not necessarily do a lot on the VX (depending on the length of the brake lines), but he could have gone further and maintained speed in rear risers before starting to sink and needing to (smoothly) switch to toggles.

Here's a better summary of what I thought: Overall, the toggle usage in the video appeared more staged than smooth.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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