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BMFin

Swooping without front risers

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I saw this video a while ago where someone flew his setup so that as he got to his initiation altitude he placed his hands on the rears and initiated a 270 by harness input only. It turns out he never uses his fronts for turning and this way he has hes hands ready on the rears in good time.

I never heard of this technique. Obviously a lot of people use harness input of the latter revolutions, but I never really thought about not using fronts at all. Anyone else doing this?

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I've seen the harness only approaches and even a guy who used rear risers to start his turn (no he didn't swoop very well with his "special" technique).

You can swoop with it, but you won't swoop as well. Part of the power that comes from the roll out comes from having gotten out from under the canopy. Hard to do that as aggressively or well with harness only.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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AggieDave

Hard to do that as aggressively or well with harness only.



I beg to differ. I used to do all my turns on harness only. 630s from 1000ft on a Velo at 2.7. You definitely need to be more precise with your setup but it seemed to dive pretty damn hard for me (might be less beneficial on smaller turns or lighter loadings). I think that the true benefit of front risers is your ability to moderate your descent throughout your turn. And even then I think this only becomes important for gate accuracy. If you are a weekend swooper that isn't worried about gates then all harness is fine.

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ChrisHoward

***Hard to do that as aggressively or well with harness only.



I beg to differ. I used to do all my turns on harness only. 630s from 1000ft on a Velo at 2.7...If you are a weekend swooper that isn't worried about gates then all harness is fine.

I agree that you *can* do it, just that it isn't the most beneficial way to get the most out of your turn. I would argue that someone who is just a "weekend swooper" a Velo at 2.7 with a 630 degree turn isn't appropriate at a DZ (with out being on your own swooper pass and away from any other traffic).
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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May I ask what exactly makes this technique obsolete? The way I understand is that a lot of world class swoopers make the last rotations with harness anyways, so I cant see what makes the recovery somehow less efficient. The only difference here is that the turn doesnt start with double fronts for example.

EDIT: And I also understand the previous poster saying it requires more precision with the setup. You cannot loose altitude with double fronts before the sweet spot for initiation point for your rotation so therefore you would need to be carefull to be on the right spot relative to the gates once you start the turn at your initiation altitude. This makes sense IMO

So theoretically I can understand how this technique is perhaps a bit harder to hit the gates perfect. Adjusting the rotation speed with harness only isnt as responsive and accurate as risers are. However, I still have difficulties to understand how this affects the recovery.

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Top pilots use all the tools at their disposal to generate the right amount of speed and power from their canopy for the approach and swoop needed. Many use what I would call the "double front crunch" technique. They start by dumping from half-brakes to full flight to double fronts to start the canopy into a dive, crunching to a double front with turn using some front riser and some harness, easing out of the turn on the fronts and using the harness to control the rate of turn, to ease multiple rotations and heading control.

You could also generate some speed to approach by changing your body position to a position that presents less drag, but it is better used with some harness and some riser input. That's the point. It takes total piloting control to really make a canopy perform to the level it is capable of. Anyone can super-load a canopy and get a swoop from even a straight in approach. It takes a canopy pilot to spend many jumps perfecting a single aspect of their canopy and to add it to their total control approach.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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Sorry, but I still miss your point.

Im still trying to figure out what exactly makes the recovery or the turn somehow less efficient when controlling the turn with harness opposed to riser.

I understand that if one would do a 270 with harness only the canopy might not have as much time building speed as it would if one would first build some speed with double fronts to before starting the turn.

However, if someone does a 630 turn with harness I would assume the canopy has more than enough time to reach max speeds anyways so this point would be moot when doing larger rotations.

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I'm sorry I haven't explained my thoughts well enough, I'll try to give you a better explanation.

The point is that you can hold a diving turn with only harness input for a large degree turn, but you still won't achieve the same amount of speed and power potential for the canopy in the same amount of turn by using harness and riser input. By using the front risers you're able to get further out from under the canopy to produce a harder dive and more power through the recovery/roll out from your body coming back under the canopy.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."
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Dave,

I'm actually going to disagree with you there. Here are my thoughts:

For rotations 450 and under it's best to use double fronts to start the approach. It ensures a higher likelyhood of hitting your max speed while still rotating by giving you a higher initial speed prior to introducing rotation since you need every bit of the 450 to hit peak speeds.

For turns 630 and onwards, since the duration of rotation is longer, double fronts are no longer needed as you're ensured to reach max speed with rotation to spare.

Personally I'm entirely out of my fronts about 70% through my turn as I can no longer hold them down (insert girly man jokes here). In fact I release them slightly earlier than I can hold them down to ensure the smoothest release possible vs them blasting out of my hands and wasting energy that I've already built in sudden wing deformations.

Blues,
Ian
Performance Designs Factory Team
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Hey, you're the guy on the team, I'm just the guy at a computer who chowed in the same pond you swooped over once.

Now, what if we backed the rotation out to a "normal" dz swooper approach...

EDIT: Ok, you answered my question in your edit.:D

Edit (2): What a pleasant discussion in Swooping. I've enjoyed it and learned something for it. There wasn't even any name calling or normal idiocy that tends to happen in the threads. Thank you.

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

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BTW. Heres the videoclip that made me think about this. I didnt want to link this in the opening post, since I wanted to talk about this on a more general level and not talk about this specific swoop. Also I wouldnt want to start judging someones swoops here on public since the guy never asked for it, and Im pretty sure he wouldnt care too much on what I think.

Basically it seems like a nice and smooth 450 IMO and I have nothing negative to say about it so heres the link.

http://youtu.be/SEK2NmVhVXo?t=1m33s

What I gather from this video (and discussion) is that he is flying his setup rather fast in full flight, which might make it a bit harder to fly for the sweet spot for your initiation point at the right altitude. The double fornt approach with flying the setup on brakes definetly gives you more time to find your spot more composedly.

On the other hand he wont have to worry about making the transition from fronts to rears since hes already there. IMO the switch from fronts to rears take practice to master 100%. When doing it during the rotations or right at the end of the rotations you have quite a lot of G-loading and getting the best possible grip on a riser that isnt really ment to be grabbed (doesnt have any loops or handles) can be difficult unless you have done it enough.

This brings me towards 2 next questions:

-Should we consider teaching this type of approach instead for the newer canopy pilots who yet dont master the "switch"?

-Should we start developing some newer designs for rear risers that are constructed in a manner that allows better grip?

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Agree with all that's been said, double fronts allows you to reach a higher airspeed within a smaller rotation, that's the main advantage.

With 630+ it's unnecessary and you can reach canopy terminal with rotation to spare.

However, harness only rotations are only an effective means of turning a very highly loaded wing, for new guys flying appropriate learning wings at normal wingloadings, the imput is not effective enough on its own and must be combined with other inputs to create the turn, hence back to double fronts.

I love the big harness only rotations, having your arms fully up gives a great view of the approaching ground and is almost effortless compared to aggressive double front riser turns where you are balled up and basically holding a pull up for 10 seconds

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piisfish

BMFin, if you go to Empuriabrava, ask for Nigel Holland. He is the jumper in the video. He would be able to explain



Yeah, I also thought that it is most likely Nigel Holland since the Youtube account belongs to a user called Nigel Holland. :P

Since Im not exclusively wishing to hear one persons opinion I rather discuss this topic here, where we may also hear many different perspectives.

At the moment Im especially interested to discuss these two topics:

-Should we consider teaching this type of approach instead for the newer canopy pilots who yet dont master the "switch"?

-Should we start developing some newer designs for rear risers that are constructed in a manner that allows better grip?

I guess Matt002 pretty much answered my first question. The progression canopies arent responsive enough in terms of harness input, so I guess thats that.

But how about the second question?

The way I see it, is that the canopy mfg industry is doing a lot of R&D for the canopies from a swoopers perspective. They can effectively market their brand by succeeding in CP-competitions. On the otherhand, I think that other gear mfg´s like container mfg´s wont care about swoopers since at the moment, it doesnt really make a difference which type of harness container system you fly for example. At the moment they dont consider swooping as a dicipline through which they could effectively market their product. Many container mfg´s have chosen freelying as their advertizing dicipline.

I brought the rear riser question to the table, because I think it is kind of strange that rear risers have still the same design as they had during the days where they were not really used for giving piloting input to the canopy. IMO its pretty strange that canopy pilots are supposed to give a substantial amount of piloting input to their canopy from a riser that offers such a poor usability.

To me it seems like canopy pilots take it as given that the gear is what it is, and wont really bother to think how to improve it.

AFIK, new steps like belly straps etc, were not invented by gear mfg´s. They were invented by some pioneer swoopers them selves. Perhaps if a gear mfg made some R&D, invented some solution that was pantentable, they might have substantial revenues from selling their product and licensing other manufacturers using this advancement every swooper now wants. It could be however, that the major container mfg´s in the US consider swooping as too risky and are in fear of lawsuits incase someone goes in with their gear. I dont know.

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AggieDave



Edit (2): What a pleasant discussion in Swooping. I've enjoyed it and learned something for it. There wasn't even any name calling or normal idiocy that tends to happen in the threads. Thank you.



Informative and constructive thread without any need to bring out the popcorn. Kudos to the people!

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I would think rear riser loops would take some time to find without looking at them. I sure don't want to be looking into my risers during dive. :)

The result might even be some people bouncing due to trying to find the perfect grip and being late with their level off.

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Quote

Loops wouldnt work. Perhaps thats why no one has ever even suggested such a thing



For swooping, no. For CReW and other things, I have seen rear riser loops.

I think one reason you don't see any real push in that area is that it's not really needed. Most of your weight hangs off your front risers, and even with added airspeed, your rears never get 'too' heavy that you can't pull them down without a loop or a block of some sort.

Do people drop rear risers? Sure, sometimes, but if they plan right they're left holding a toggle that works just as good. Do people drop rear risers because they're too hard to hold onto? No, it's because they screw up and don't have a good grip on them.

It's just like toggles. Do people drop toggles? Sure, sometimes, but you don't see a push to find a way to lock a toggle onto your hand (from a design perspective). If the jumper uses care in the way they hold the toggle, it's possible to grip it securely without a problem.

Same thing goes for rear risers. Design your swoop or routine that such that you have enough time to securely grip your rears in such a way that you can count on that grip to flare your canopy at the bottom of your dive. If on a given jump you find that you cannot get said secure grip, you need to bail to your toggles, and use those to finish your landing.

If a guy tries to push through and complete a swoop on rears when he doesn't have a secure grip, that's his mistake, not that of the gear manufacturers.

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This is a pretty decent thread compared to the usual banter on here B|

We have to be careful we dont give away too many "secrets" to the wuffos... dont forget CP coaches need to make a living too :P only joking.

My understanding is - the faster the speed into the turn + consistent compounding of speed = the faster the speed at the end of the turn.

You really need to haul on the fronts, be talented and super consistent to do a proper power 270. The transition from FRisers to harness is harder the smaller the rotation.

630s and 720s require less initial input as you are more likely to reach a decent vertical decent rate before the end of your rotation.

RRiser initiated turns are useful if you are super low and / or are just mucking about. (showing off infront of whuffos / never bring this technique to any sort of comp).


Harness only turns feel amazing (*matt002) - and can be super powerful and efficient as the wing distortion above you head is minimal, however consistent accuracy is hard.

Whenever you throw gates 'into the mix' everything changes.

You want all the "tools" at your disposal to make up for your 'less than perfect setup' and to bring as much power as you can get down to the ground.

Instructions: Big dynamic pulse (kill cell pressure) use the "rocking" inertia and whail on those double fronts, as soon as the canopy reaches its max forward speed, initiate your desired turn either at a constant rate or rotation speed slow > to fast, transfer from offset double fronts to harness as smooth as possible minimizing wing distortion (usually between 70° & 90° depending on your turn), as you finish the turn and roll out towards the gates dont turn in your arc as you will loose precious power, place hands on rears (trust your rears) and bring as much power down to the ground.
Dont forget the obligatory "woo hoo" when you know you've pulled off a corker and there are witnesses :)

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I have never flown speedriding canopies, but from the videos I have seen I recall the rear risers have been constructed so that they are made much easier to operate. Perhaps someone could tell us more about those?

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BMFin

I have never flown speedriding canopies, but from the videos I have seen I recall the rear risers have been constructed so that they are made much easier to operate. Perhaps someone could tell us more about those?



I've never found the rear risers to be hard to operate on my skydiving canopies and I've not noticed them being made easier to operate on my speed wing (a Skate). Perhaps you're thinking about trim systems that most speed wings have? That is not something you change in the middle of the landing. I don't think many people use the rears for input on speed wings at all, unless doing some acro move.

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