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skymedic

question for you RW guys..

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Heya, today I was working on belly stuff(yes I was flying on my actualy big ass belly) and just working on some easy stuff
my jump buddy and I were doing R hand compressed accordian to a L hand compressed accordian.....now heres the question for ya....everytime I turned the point I would drop lower than her....she is a lightweight but I seemed to acclerate while turning....what can I do to SLOW me down during the turn...not slow the turn down but slow the fall rate turn....I think part of it is I should turn more with my legs as opposed to upper body...but I just dont have enough jumps on my belly to do this very well.....
cheers and thanks for the info....
marc
I have no fear of falling but I hate hitting the ground -The Badlees

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Anne has it. Look at the center or other person and make the adjustments when they are small not after the turn. If you know that you are going to sink out start the turn with a little pop (6 inches) to give you a little cushion to work with and then you can settle down into the level or you already have a head start to fight the drop. Last on occation waiting too long to turn your head or going way too early can force your body into an odd position that will encourage spilling air.
God bless us and God Bless America
Albatross

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compressed pieces tend to be floaty in nature. (watch a vid of any 4way team in early stages doing the cat-acc block... cat will be a little lower than the acc). Just being aware is usually enough, try to dearch a little also the floaty person needs to be equally aware that they are floating and arch a little more into the turn. people naturally fall faster when initiating a turn (hence level problems on jumps involving 360s).- all about awareness and tiny adjustments. eye contact never hurts either. =c)
Stacy
http://users.snip.net/~stacy

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As a fellow "Fast faller" I can feel your pain. I gave up on trying to wear any normal looking jump suits. I now only jump in my favorite Free Fly garb. That has helped. I had to work so hard before. Just like you, whenever I let go of someone I took off low. I now have a built in de-arch every time I let go. This makes me go high a little now that I have on floppier clothing. Hard habit to break. The only way to fly decent RW is to not have to work over time to stay up. De-arching makes for slow turn rates and generally any movement you make is hindered by the "Ball of air" under you. The only way to fix it....Baggy clothes....drogue???? :)"I got some beers....Let's Drink em!!!"
Clay

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>everytime I turned the point I would drop lower than her....she is a lightweight
>but I seemed to acclerate while turning....what can I do to SLOW me down
> during the turn...
I suggest that the problem might be the other way around - perhaps she should make a point of increasing her speed during the transition. Floating during point transitions is a common problem on medium-sized dives, since people tend to relax and back away as they think about the next point - not a good thing. You might tell her that she should expect to see your belly, not your backpack, as she prepares for the next point. If she's seeing rig she's too slow.
If you really want to slow down, think about extending your arms towards her as you transition. If you are flying well, your legs will automatically compensate, and your fall rate will decrease. I would _not_ recommend doing this regularly as it is exactly the wrong thing to do during "real" RW, where faster is generally better, and arms are generally not used for fall rate control.
-bill von

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>Are you saying then, that it's the responsibility of the slow person to keep up and not the fast person to slow down? Just as a general rule.
Yes. Faster means more control, and it's almost universally easier to speed up than to slow down - hence the rule that you build on low man after a funnel.
-bill von

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>So how fast is too fast? There has to be a point when it's just no longer reasonable or even safe.
Now that is a loaded question! There's a lot of gear not rated for higher than 150 knots (165mph.) It's very difficult to exceed that in normal belly-to-earth RW without going to extreme measures i.e. 40 pounds of weight or Santa Claus in a skintight suit. However, freeflyers routinely exceed that speed all the time, and risk damage or failure of their mains and reserves if they deploy inadvertantly. Some manufacturers are looking into higher speed designs, but there are tradeoffs - do you want a slower opening reserve (that will survive a 200mph deployment) if you cut away at 800 feet?
If, during RW, you can keep your fall rate at 130, you're going very fast, and it's going to be tough for most jumpers to stay down with you. Practically speaking, most RW simply won't work at faster speeds. I've been on several dives where I could get to the formation but not dock due to its speed - the flying position I had to maintain to stay at that speed didn't allow me to get my arms out in front of me to pick up the grips. If you find the people on your dive unable to take any grips, it's probably a safe bet that you shouldn't go any faster.
-bill von

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Faster is great, atleast for people like me who have to fight *very hard* to catch floating formations. The only time I experenced *too fast* was a base that was humm'n along at almost 140mph. It was a 17-way attempt. The base and a couple of the better guys made a 4-way, the rest dove and never made it. It was a freeflown exit, diving out of a CASA, people like me didn't have enough experience to catch it safely (diving really hard) so we didn't watched it from above (which was a first for me).
Once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue
And into the black-NeilYoung

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was a base that was humm'n along at almost 140mph.

My God! Did they all have 50 lbs of lead with them? That's FAST for a belly dive.
Quote

so we didn't watched it from above (which was a first for me).

Done that a couple of times when I couldn't make it down. It's a really cool place to watch a skydive from. Be careful though - it would suck to have one of them deploy into you!
-
Jim
Help with cancer research here.

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40 pounds of weight or Santa Claus in a skintight suit

Or Big John... guy at my DZ is a national level weightlifter, and all-round big musclar strong guy... weighing in at (I think) 260 lbs. He's about 5'11", and I'm 6'6" weighing in at 185 lbs. One of the first (and probably last for a while) jumps we tried together - the pro-track reported a speed in excess of 160 mph - belly flying! I couldn't even get close diving! We have managed to fall together, but I was wearing 10 lbs... and he was flat as could be.

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Well, no, no weights on the base, but the girl that was laying base was, well, dense, as a way of speaking. I'm sure if I was a better skydiver I could have caught it, or I could have gone into a sit-fly and caught it (I know, very dangerous, don't do it, etc...it was a joke).
Once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue
And into the black-NeilYoung

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I just got back from Eloy, where Big John and I did 28 jumps together
mostly 3way, 4 way but a big as 8 way.
At the start I was wearing 14lbs to keep up.
By the end I was wearing 6lbs at a fall rate of 124mph
which gave us both a bit of range.
Expect to see both of you at Kamloops
Andrew

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I agree with almost everything said except " it is the resposibility of the slow person to speed up" The term relative work means everybody stays relative to each other. be it 2 people or 40. Both parties need to adjust! If you have a naturally fast fall rate put alittle altitude in your pocket right as you release grips, takes a little practice but it will become 2nd nature afer a while Plus what everybody else said.

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>I agree with almost everything said except " it is the resposibility of the slow person to speed up"
>The term relative work means everybody stays relative to each other. be it 2 people or 40. Both parties need to adjust!
Yes, but:
1. The faster you're going, the more air you have to work with and the faster you can manuever. This means that four-way teams generally go as fast as they can, so faster is always better if there's a choice.
2. A slow person can nearly always reach a much faster person, and when they dock, they naturally slow down the formation. (This is true of even two fast people.) The opposite is not true - a faster person cannot, generally, slow down to match the slowest a slow person can go. Therefore it's generally better for the slow person to speed up.
3. It is safer to approach from above than below, since you can see more. (Compare the view 20 feet below a 40 way to the view 20 feet above.) That means that, in general, you want to be approaching from on level or slightly above. A 'standard' big way approach is one that brings you in from above at a 30 or 45 degree angle, then gets you on-level some distance from the formation (20 feet?) for docking. That means, essentially, that you should increase your fall rate during your approach, not decrease it.
You are correct in that everyone has to work together to make a dive work. However, if there are fall rate differences, it generally works better if the slow people increase their fall rate instead of vice versa. You will almost never hear a big-way organizer tell the base they need to slow down.
-bill von

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2. A slow person can nearly always reach a much faster person, and when they dock, they naturally slow down the formation. (This is true of even two fast people.) The opposite is not true - a faster person cannot, generally, slow down to match the slowest a slow person can go. Therefore it's generally better for the slow person to speed up.
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I definitley agree, The point i was trying to make is that all people have to adjust. Of course in the bigger formations the base has to fall fast and everybody matches the base... But as you know as the larger formations build they tend to slow down, so the folks docking last better be able to slow down their fall rate or it's ooops there they go what a pretty formation that is above me

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