Swoops from 300ft to 665ft

[NewClearSports 0]

Ok, I have a question for the hard core swoopers out there.

If you able to pull off anything close to a 665ft swoop with ideal conditions, what are your average swoop distances on everyday jumps going to be?

I think many of us have had an awsome swoop here and there when everything was just right and we ourselves were shocked to see how far we flew, but how do we become consistant? What should we expect our consistant distance to be compared to our longest swoop? 60%, 70%, 80% or higher?

Thanks

Mike

[morris 0]

puh, difficult question... I´d say that if you`r able to go for more than 500ft on the good ones, it´s gonna be more than 400ft on most landings (with the same conditions),something like 80%, but once again, difficult question...

[Cacophony 0]

On my work skydives which are 95% of them I would say 290 to 350 feet. That minus HMA and RDS of course.

[frost 1]

i think most of the times majority of swoopers doesn't go for the distance style swoop (talking about that competition pop up technique after gate entry). Most of the times it's a straight swoop right? And those will always be shorter then the distance competition style swoop. I'd guess average distances are anywhere from 200 to 350 feet for most people.

[johnny1488 1]

gotta love the pop up nonsense. Thats hardcore swooping at its best!!

Johnny
--"This ain't no book club, we're all gonna die!"
Mike Rome

[NewClearSports 0]

Ya, that makes alot of sence, the pop up style swoop is only really for maxing out distance in a competition. Most other swoops are level and low to the ground / water as well as the dragging tow, or carve ect.

Ok so a similar entry speed into the gates swooping level and low VS the pop up technique would have a difference of What ?? 100 / 150 / 200 ft ??

[Vectracide 0]

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gotta love the pop up nonsense. Thats hardcore swooping at its best!!

Yeah....silly Jay Moledski...what was he thinking. Such nonsense. No....its quite possibly balderdash even...

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Controlled and Deliberate.....

[johnny1488 1]

perhaps if we can strap on enough weight, we can go high enough to do another turn for even more hot swoop action.

I still say swooping is when you are on the deck.

Johnny
--"This ain't no book club, we're all gonna die!"
Mike Rome

[frost 1]

You know i thought the same for a long time and still kinda do - i will always admire a nice straight style swoop just a little more then a pop-up "distance" flight... but i do think that this technique has a right to exist and should not be looked down upon. May be looking at "competition" swooping as stock car racing is a good analogy... There is nothing "stock" about it. Distance is just another discipline in competitive swooping...

[johnny1488 1]

i still say instead of weight restrictions, they should keep swoopers inside the 5 foot gate, just like speed, and no more problems with weight advantages

Johnny
--"This ain't no book club, we're all gonna die!"
Mike Rome

[Vectracide 0]

Well, I'm not going to get into a big ass discussion about the definition of swooping....as it quite possibly is different for many people. The one thing that you have to remember is that we are pioneers of this sport and we will find what are limitations are thru experience and time. Embrace change as it will only make what we do that much more dynamic and progressive.

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Controlled and Deliberate.....

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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gotta love the pop up nonsense. Thats hardcore swooping at its best!!

Why don't you join the competive swooping circuit and show people how it's done. When you can out swoop the guys on the PST, then maybe we'll have an idea of why you think popping up is nonesense. From the times I have practiced distance runs, purposely popping it up doesn't always result in the ultra long distance runs. But when the canopy sling shots you up there by itself, watch out. Then again I have yet to go remotely as far as the likes of Moledski and Batch.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[Cacophony 0]

Zuiliani and Dellibac, as well as lots of other people at the 06 CPC championships made some monster distance runs (above 500') without ever popping up higher than the course markers (10').

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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Zuiliani and Dellibac, as well as lots of other people at the 06 CPC championships made some monster distance runs (above 500') without ever popping up higher than the course markers (10').

Did they stay within the 10 footers? Maybe by within an inch or two, but I just watched one of John's distance runs where he enters the gates at ground level and then a couple of hundred feet down the course he's already up there at about 10 feet. If that's not popping up I don't know what is. Sure he didn't pop up as much as Molderski or Batch did on their distance runs, but he did pop it up nonetheless.

Why are some (not all) people trying to hold back people with their flying techniques in competition? Isn't competition the time when we push the evolution of this sport? Just because one person thinks it's wrong doesn't mean it's wrong. When an Olympic javelin thrower tosses their spear, they toss it up so that it's achieves it's most efficient trajectory and thus maximum distance. They don't toss it horizontally across the ground. So why are some people trying to hold back competition swoopers in a distance event?

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[AggieDave 6]

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When an Olympic javelin...they toss it up so that it's achieves it's most efficient trajectory and thus maximum distance. They don't toss it horizontally across the ground. So why are some people trying to hold back competition swoopers in a distance event?

Wait, what if you don't jump a Javelin? Can you still do it with the Wings since Henry designed the Wings and helped design the Javelin? If you try it with a Racer will you die?

Ok, seriously though. Popping up is just achieving the most efficent flight for the canopy to go the longest distance. There's no magic trick to it, it doesn't automatically give you an extra 100' of distance, infact if you do it wrong it kills your distance (as everyone reading this knows).

You know what shouldn't be allowed is any kind of turning/diving approach. A good swooper gets good distance with a simple straight in approach.

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

[SkymonkeyONE 3]

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i still say instead of weight restrictions, they should keep swoopers inside the 5 foot gate, just like speed, and no more problems with weight advantages

I just might agree there.

[johnny1488 1]

This has all been discussed before. The canopy does not sling shot you up by itself. You input on the rears with that amount of weight its just like flaring to hard with your first zp canopy, you get a lot of lift. And with the amount of speed you have from all the extra weight, you pop up.

All things being equal, someone who pops up will go further than someone who stays on the deck.

Im not saying they dont go far, and they are completely within the present rules of competition. But I would rather see what I believe to be a pure swoop of the ground. Call popping up a long jump or something else.

Before popping up "popped up" in competition, someone might think it was a botched swoop where someone was in the corner if they came up off the ground that high. Again this is why I think pond swooping events bring everyone back down to a level playing field. Constant contact with the surface brings everyones swoops back to earth.

Whatever, when I swoop, I like to be ripping accross the ground, thats what swooping is to me.

Johnny
--"This ain't no book club, we're all gonna die!"
Mike Rome

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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Whatever, when I swoop, I like to be ripping accross the ground, thats what swooping is to me

Remember that distance is only one discipline in a swoop comp. There are many other events which do require the swooper to stay close to the deck (or stay on the water if you're lucky enough to be swooping a pond).

One of the things we did last year which I thought was really fun and look forward to doing much more of it in the future was "freestyle - zone accuracy" where the swooper had to do a freestyle trick on the water before landing in a positive scoring zone. All the rules of zone acc applied (meaning you got a donut if you didn't land in a positive scoring zone), but it also proved to be a real crowd pleaser and it was fun for the swoopers as well.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[johnny1488 1]

I know there is a lot to swooping. Thats why I would like to see popping up called what it was when I first saw it, the long jump.

Johnny
--"This ain't no book club, we're all gonna die!"
Mike Rome

[frost 1]

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Why don't you join the competive swooping circuit and show people how it's done.

Why? To prove what?

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When you can out swoop the guys on the PST, then maybe we'll have an idea of why you think popping up is nonesense.

What about those who have no desire to compete? Are they not as experienced in various aspects of canopy flight not limited to swooping as the guys on PST?

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Dude you are 100% correct in saying that there are plenty of talented swoopers out there who do not compete and there's nothing saying that they need to start competing if they don't want to. But at the same time what are some people debating here? They are debating a technique used in a specific competitive swooping discipline. If someone doesn't want to pop it up on a distance run, then don't (it's not like popping it up doesn't have it's risks). But as long as the current rules permit it, don't criticize those who use the technique. Sounds pretty simple to me.

I've got work to do now. I'm off of DZ.COM for a while. Slam me, call me names, call me an idiot because I defend a technique which is perfectly allowed under the current set of rules. I don't care. Paying attention to my job for the next 8+ hours is more important than posting here.

Later ...

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[frost 1]

Chill bro. Nobody is slamming you or calling you names, that would be a waste of time. May be you took it the wrong way? I dont think it was debating or criticizing the technique or people that use it. If it was a criticism, then it was a criticism of the rules, allowing pilots to get out of the gates that high.

Also, when you say "why are people debating it?" you make a mistake. Why not debate and question the rules? Consider the weight advantage/disadvantage issue last year. Remember how there were various points of view on that issue? You didnt HAVE to use the weights, but people chose to use it to get better results. In the end, the rules were changed.

I think whats kinda started happening in this post is a discussion of possibly requiring the swooper to stay inside the gates, keeping the swoop what it should be (in some people's mind) - a level flight.

[Spizzzarko 0]

I feel that the swoop venue is about to make a radicle change in the near future. The "Classic" events of speed, distance, and accuracy as we know them will probably not be held in those formats for much longer. Like it or not, those events are pretty borring and I'm sure that spectator events are going to be the way of the future. I'm sure Lord Slaton had the freestyle accuracy, straight line team speed, and his other events last season as a test. Nobody really complained (except a few people here online who did not compete) and the events were fairly exciting to watch, so I bet you can expect quite a bit more of it in the future. I don't know if Lord Slaton has plans to change the CPC format, and I don't think the rules should be changed from this past year, but in my mind the classic distance, speed, and accuracy is getting lame.

Frost brings up an interesting point about keeping the competitors below the gates. This of course would reduce the dramatic distances that these dudes are currently getting by two means:
1. The pop up and sail technique would be severly limited.
2. The competitor would really have to be carefull with his or her slingshotting technique to prevent from climbing to much. This would result in forcing the competitor to bring less power into the course.

If we were to have this rule in place first of all how would you judge it? You would need to have a judge looking straight down the lane at the top of the gates. This adds personelle and costs to the event not to mention the subjectivity of a human judge. You could use electronic measures, but again it adds quite a bit of cost and complexity to the system. I'm sure very few DZ's are willing to front the added costs for this type of system in addition to the costs of running the entire event. I'm sure that Frank the DZO of Mile Hi would tell you that he didn't make much if any money compared to the amount of money that he has invested for all the events that he has hosted in the past.

Let's continue to follow this idea to it's logical end here. If we are limiting how high a competitor can climb in the distance rounds then what is to stop us from limiting modifications to canopies? Sure we can all get RDS's and Blue lines (Call Mel for Blue lines. You will NOT be dissapointed), but competing against highly modified canopies from the manufacturer is unfair because the general public can not attain such a canopy. This point has been debated here online many times before, but I still feel strongly that if you cannot purchase the modification from a manufacturer or alternate source then you should not be able to compete with it.

I'm all for evening out the playing field, but limiting technique (Climb and sail) instead of the wing (tripple layered bottom skin, no bridle attachment point, different line trims, and line attachment point materials sewn into the seams) is not how we should be moving forward in this sport if you ask me.

[Spizzzarko 0]

"What about those who have no desire to compete?"


Then they should have no desire to comment on how the events are ran.

[alterego84 0]

while we're at it lets just say that people going through a carved speed course can't use the straightest line through, becuase that's not the object of the course.

also, popping up is definitely a skill. got to watch some of the PST events this year and the people that popped up didn't always go the furthest.