would you call this a swoop?

[woodpecker 0]

Just got back from a windy day jumping and had the most interesting landing I've ever experienced. Now, I'm not one of those 200 jump wonders, flying a pocket rocket and hooking, I'm 1.1 WL and at 500ft just minor input to put her down safely.

Now for todays landing: Windy as hell, finally turned into my approach and realized I wasnt going to make it completely to the LZ, so I went to my out. Started coming in a and either my depth perception decided to go to shit or the brain just wasnt clicking, but I went to my first stage (in a 2 stage flare) and my right foot (toe) grabbed the ground.

This put me on my knees, but since I was still only on the first half of my flare, I just slid on my knees for about 5 feet, then finished my flare. This lifted me back up onto my feet and I slid another 5 feet.

Is this what swoopers experience and although it was a fuck up on my part....was it actually a swoop (kind of) ????? Do I now owe beer.

v/r

Billy

SONIC WOODY #146

There is a fine line between cockiness and confidence -- which side of the line are you on?

[odendan 0]

Beer you owe regardless.



The core component of "swooping", and please everyone flame me if I am wrong, is flying your canopy to the end. When you start the flare the goal is to be at the point where you are ready to run out the rest of the landing but flying the canopy to the point where you are ready to have that almighty sexy tip toe touch down. What you did right is continue to fly the canopy to (what I can tell from your post) the end.

It still amazes me (in a painful kind of way) how many people with relatively a good amount of experience dont grasp that concept of finishing the flare. The experience of swooping is controlling the canopy and milking it for all it has through the "swoop" to as close as you can get to the tip toe landing. Gliding across the ground like you did, is what it is about. whether you swoop 20 ft or 400, it is all about working that flare, planing out the canopy, and finishing the flare (to the point of even rolling your wrists to get that extrat inch of flare) and flying the wing till it collapses on its own.

If you liked what you felt on that "screw up", then why not keep working it. Sounds like you are getting the landing down to me, and if you want to start swooping the key is to learning the basics of what to do with the plane out and the part of cruising across the ground. Once you have that down, then seek advice on how to pick up more speed to make those longer.

I have seen better swoops from sub 100 jump kids on 210s coming straight in then from 500+ jump folks that refuse to finish their flares.

Go with the concept and learn how to milk your canopy dude!

Pardon the potentially hard to follow lack of grammar, I might have had a few beers before posting this.

whips n' chains n' hand-grenades with a little ugly on the side.

[AggieDave 6]

A swoop is level flight across the ground. When flaring a modern ZP canopy you will plane out the canopy into level flight across the ground while the canopy looses speed and you start to get under the nose of the canopy towards the end of your flare.

So in all actuality every single good landing basically has a swoop.

The simple trick is getting to where you can get that level flight for longer then a couple of feet.

Simple meaning that no one can do it perfect yet and we still don't know what the limitations are, since it hasn't been done yet.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[dlee 0]

if you even think you might... you owe beer.

just tell them you were working on your superman, bring a few beers, drink a few more and it is all good!!