constructive criticism appreciated (long)

[fuga 0]

I may not be amazingly experienced compared to other flyers but I think I have a reasonable understanding of how this all works. I started writing this mainly to help myself (they say the best way to learn something is to try and explain it to someone else) and also to help people who are just starting out freeflying or want to give it a go. I haven't done any diagrams yet and it is no way near finished (I still havent got to writing about headup flying yet).
However if you've got time to give it a read I'd apreciate some constructive criticism from both experienced and non experienced freeflyers, wether its about my ideas on freeflying or the way its written (writing isnt my strong point at all).
Ive got a long way to go with this but I think its worth it, the idea in the end is for it to be freely available to anyone who wants it, along with diagrams, to act as a starting point for beginner freeflyers.
Towards the end I'd like to have a section with drill dives for people who have got the basic skills down and want to work with a partner so if anyones got any drill dives they could send me (headup, headdown, belly, tracking, anything) then i'd be very grateful


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Introduction
Freeflying is the art of flying your body in every orientation possible using as many of your bodies surfaces as possible to be where you need to be and do what you need to do. This includes belly flying, you should have a basic grasp of this before you start to freefly as you can learn the basics of flying with other people at slower speeds and these skills wil help you further along in your freeflying career.

Although we try to learn to fly in all orientations possible we must also learn some basic positions to learn from (belly, back, headup, headdown, tracking). Once we can fly some of these basic position we can start to mix them up during a jump and really start to freefly, however there is a long journey ahead before you start that.

Once you have a basic grasp of belly flying you should start to play with other positions to get used to feeling the air on other parts of your body. Try a few of these for some fun things to do that will help you when learning to freefly (you might have done some of these on your consolidation jumps or before you got into belly flying).
* Improve your backloops from AFF and also try frontloops
* Learn to do a barrel roll (to barrel roll right, tuck in your right arm and see what happens)
* Can you roll onto your back and feel comfortable? (this will be covered in more detail later)
* When you track away after a belly jump can you comfortably perform a barrel roll while keeping the same heading and still tracking?

Once you have done a few things like this and you feel ready then you can start to learn about freeflying. Before we go on to look at specifics I will explain a few terms that will be used throughout this text and that you will hear other skydivers use.

Relative Wind
The relative wind is the direction of the wind, this may seem obvious but many people do not truly understand this term. When you first exit an aircraft the wind is coming at you horizontally as the aircraft is moving forwards and not downwards, over the period of roughly 10 seconds the wind changes from being horizontal to vertical, this is because you are accelerating vertically.
When you are tracking the relative wind is coming at you from an angle of about 45degrees, you must understand where the wind is coming from so\you can fly your body accordingly.

Burble
A burble is the area of turbulent air above a skydiver, this can be dangerous to fly through as you can lose control and suddenly drop onto the skydiver below. A burble is created because as you fall you are disturbing the air you are falling through.

Try not to be rigid with your freeflying, this text is only showing you a few techniques to perform certain manouvers, there are many other ways of doing them and many other surfaces to use, use your common sense and imagination, a lot more is possible than you think.


Tracking
Tracking in skydiving is one of the most important skills you can have when jumping in groups of 2 or more. When you are jumping with someone else you must make sure you have enough horizontal seperation to safely deploy your canopy. This is done by turning 180degress from each other and tracking until deployment time.
Tracking is also another form of freeflying, you can track in groups with a leader (called a rabbit) leading the group on his back. This kind of tracking is different to normal tracking. In normal tracking you are trying to gain as much distance away from another person, therefore tracking as fast as you can. When tracking with other people you are trying to track relative to another person who is tracking, this is not necesserily your fastest track.

Basic Tracking
When you went through your AFF, static line or whatever course you went through you will have been taught to track. Many places will have taught you a basic track which involves straghtening your legs and sweeping your arms back so you are in a delta position. This is ok to start with but when you do this you will be losing a lot of altitude and it is not the fastest way to track.
{digram}
Once you start jumping with other people or need to start to learn to track properly, you need to be flat tracking.

Flat Tracking
Flat tracking involves giving your body the profile of a wing so instead of losing so much altitude you can fall a lot slower than you would on your belly, with a bit of practice. To do this you start with a normal track position but then roll your shoulders in (think of pushing them together) and slightly de-arch at the waist, make sure your toes are pointed and for the most efficient track tuck your chin into your chest looking at your toes.
{diagram}
You can improve on this track more as you become more experienced and experiment with it. Once you are comfortable with this trying turning your feet out so the sides are parallel with the ground.
{diagram}
This is good when tracking away from a group jump as you are able to see where everyone else is behind you.

Tracking Exits
A standard tracking dive exit involves the leader with his back to the propeller (relative wind) and everyone who is following facing him on the outside of the plane. Depending on the size of the group there will be some divers on the inside but to start with we will just look at the floating exit.
While hanging on the outside of the aircraft you may find it beneficial to lean further out to make sure you have a good view of the leader and it will also help you to find some clean air to use if there are many others in front of you.
Once it is time to leave (when the leader has finished the exit count) you should push out slightly while keeping you body straight (do not hop up as you may hit the aircraft and will lose some distance on the leader), start with a lazy track, so slightly bent legs, arms to your side for balance.
A mistake that a lot of people make is to exit in a track but still arch from the hips, this is likely to make you unstable if you have not done a lot of tracking jumps. Instead arch from your chest, think of pushing your chest towards the leader. This will help you keep your balance and also, if done right, will keep you relatively close to the leader.
{diagram}
Try to keep your body pointing straight into the relative wind, this will help you if you are having stability problems on exit.

Relative Tracking
Once you have started tracking you will want to try and stay as close to the leader as possible. Before we go into how to fly relative while tracking we'll go through a few rules that you should follow while on a tracking dive.
* Always track in a straight line, do not snake about
* Never stop tracking, someone could still be tracking behind you
* If you are low move to the side of the tracking dive and try to get back up
* If you are not close enought to the rest of the group break off 1,000ft early
* At break off peel off and watch for others around you, if you are at the back you can just about turn 180degress to gain more seperation
These are only generic rules, listen to the leader of the dive for more instructions.

While you are tracking you can speed up (horizontally) by straightening your legs as much as you can and rolling your shoulders inwards (gradually moving into a flat track). To slow down (horizontally) you can bring your shoulders out and start to bend your legs the desired amount.
To slow down vertically it is the same process as speeding up horizontally, if you want to slow down horizontally and slow down vertically try to cup your shoulders, slightly de-arch but at the same time spread your arms and legs out to the side.
{diagrams}
While breaking off from a tracking dive, if you feel comfortable, do a barrel roll to check the airspace above you before deploying.
After a tracking dive, when you are about to deploy, make sure you revert to a normal belly fly position and get rid of all your forward speed or you could get some very strange openings.



Back Flying
Most people go straight into sitflying, I think this is a mistake. It is a good idea to learn to do some basic flying on your back, this helps as it is a recovery position in sit flying and you will use it a lot later on in your freeflying career. Back flying is a very dynamic position, you can fall as slow as a belly flyer or as fast as a freeflyer and you can move around just as easily as you can on your belly.

Basic Position
The basic back flyinig position is similar to your belly flying position but on your back, you arms should be out at your sides with your palms twisted to face the ground (or as close as possible). Your legs bent at 90degress with your calves parallel to the earth, your back should also be straight and parallel to the earth.
{diagram}

Fall Rates
You can adjust your fallrates just as easily as you can with belly flying, you do this by using your hips. To slow down push your hips up and possibly stretch your arms and legs out further if you feel comfortable with it, you should also push down with your arms and legs at the same time. To speed up simply drop your hips and again, if you feel comfortable with it, bring your arms and legs in like curling up in a ball.
{diagram}

Turning
You may have been taught to turn using your legs or your arms in belly flying, the same is with back flying, you can use either method. Either push an arm down, push a leg down, straighten a leg or straighten an arm, go out and experiment, see what works best for you.
{diagram}

Movement
To move forward (towards your head) you can gently straighten your legs, do not do this too fast at first as it could send you head low and tumble, experiment with it! To move backwards (towards your feet) bring your legs in towards your body.
{diagram}
If you want to side slide you can move the arm out and turn your leg out of the opposite side to which you want to move.
{digram}
This is only one way to do it, try other ways of performing the same maneouver, simply tilt your body the way you want to go. You can do this by making one side of your body slower, one side faster or any other way you can think of.

Exit
When exiting to do some back flying you should climb to the outside of the plane (or crouch in the door), with your back to the relative wind, then hop out (do not jump up) and try to go straight into the basic back flying position described earlier.
{diagram}

Sit/Back Position
Once you have a grasp of head up flying you can modify your back flying position to help the change between head up and back flying smoother. To do this you should keep the same back flying position but with the following changes. Your calves should be pointed into the relative wind (the same as your headup position) and the underneath of your thighs should be parallel with the ground.

Go and try these new skills out on a solo or even better get a coach or an experienced freeflyer to go with you and try these things out. See what works well and see what doesnt.


Back Tracking
Tracking on your back is an excellent skill to learn early on, it is a useful skill when breaking off from freefly jumps and also a very good skill for tracking dives. A lot of people say, and I agree, that when mastered you can track much faster and efficiently on your back than you can on your belly.

Tracking from Back Flying
To start tracking from back flying, in one smooth motion, straighten your legs and move your arms to your side. At the same time ensure you push your hips up. Your head, at first, should be looking towards your feet with your chin on your chest.
{diagram}
If you were to practice this position on the ground, the only parts touching the floor would be your arms, shoulder blades and heels.
To speed this tracking up you can push your hips up further, bring your arms and legs closer together while pointing your toes and leaning your back back to look at the horizon.
{diagram}
To slow the tracking down you should bring your hips more inline with the rest of your body, bring out your legs and arms so your arms are almost in a 'T' position.
{diagram}
If you are trying this on a solo make sure you are tracking 90degress from the line of flight and that you track for no longer than 10 seconds and then track back.

Tracking from exit
To start back tracking straight from exit you should follow the guidlines for the basic back flying exit but hold your hands at your side and extend your legs ever so slightly. A few seconds after you have exited you should to extend into a full back tracking position and choose a heading.
{diagram}

Before you try and do a full jump tracking make sure you speak to an instrucor or coach to make sure you do not encroach other jumpers airspace. As a general rule you should head 90degress off the line of flight but this depends if there are any other groups on the load that are tracking.
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Thanks

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[oldbastard 0]

well... i read most of it but I skipped past some of the trackin'. Sounds purty good but I notices a couple things I'd do differently. When your back flying you want your arms more above your head than off to your side. Picture yourself in a sit-fly position... your arms are off to your side with elbows bent. Now if you take the relative wind and move it so it is coming from behind your back... the arms in a sit-fly position would lose most of their surface area (elbows up). So you simply rotate them ninety degrees back so you look like some tribesman running around the campfire with his hands up near his head! Anyway... this is going to help balance out the legs and prevent unwanted forward movement. Now to go forward... I thought you had it ... straightening out the legs but you can also slowly start to pivot your arms down to your side. Think about holding their shape ( still bent at the elbows) and rotating your arms at the rotator cuff so your hands go from the side of your head down to your waist. (you should be pushing the air with your hands now next to your hips) THis will give you maximum forward movement. To move the other direction... you don't want to pull your legs to your body as you said... instead you want to think about bringing the upper body up while keeping the lower body low. To achieve this you want your arms in the normal position (hands to the sides of your head, elbows bent) and slowly extend them out... like your lifting something heavy over head... this is the only time you'll actually want to take your head and roll it towards your chest. Your legs actually stay in the same position (the sit-fly position) but instead of keeping your calfes parrallel to the ground you want to slowly drop your feet down. This will slow the fall rate of the upper body while increasing the fall rate of the lower body... this should give you the most efficient movement. To turn you were right that you can use either you arms or legs or even both together... but you don't push with your legs. You do with your arms.. think about having your arms in the position I talked about earlier... hands at the side of your head... palms up. So to turn with your arms... You take one arm and rotate it forward and strethching the arm out so it is now off to your side palm facing down. Almost like in a tracking position. With the other arm... you just want to move your hand a little closer to your head. This will cause you to turn away from the extended arm... like your pushing your body away. To turn with the legs you don't want to push them down... keep their normal sit-fly position... (only a little wider - that will give you more stability and make you less likely to roll)... to turn you want to use only the portion of the leg from the knee down. Simply point your feet in the direction you want to turn - lowering your heels into the wind. You want to use them like rudders. Anyway, I hope you understand all that ... It's hard to explain without being able to show you. To adjust your fall rate ... you don't have to arch unless you need to make up massive gaps or you really want to go firing away from someone... instead just slowly extend your arms and legs at the same time... remember to use more arms than legs as your legs have so much more surface area. And always keep your chese and head flat. Once you've mastered that and you want to sit it up... you don't want to use your legs for that... what you want to do is keep that ninety degree bend in your legs at the hips and knees and instead lean your head back towards your back and take both arms to your side... extended all the way out palms down. Then slowly push against the wind and inflate your chest. Like you do when you see a hot chick walking across the tarmac... puff those pecks out as far as you can... This will cause your shoulder blades to come closer together - creating a pocket. Coupled with the use of your arms this will quickly decrease the fall rate of your upper body... with your legs held strongly in the sit-fly position... the fall rate of the lower body is a lot faster than the upper... this will cause your body to pivot at the hips... once your head up... your can bring your arms to your side and get into your normal sit-fly position. Well I guess I could go on and on about the movements in a sit fly ... but me fingers are cramping up in my old age and I need a beer!!!! Hope this helps or maybe it all just sounds crazy... but it works!!!

[Zenister 0]

there is this thing...looks like a long key that says 'enter' but what it does is insert carriage returns into your text, making it infinitely easier to read...

my eyes hurt from trying to sort through that.....

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[silvere 0]

wow, thanks fuga...this helps a lot. I'd like to see more threads like this, maybe on sitflying and hd

[fuga 0]

More will be coming along soon covering headup, headdown and some other things including some good drill dives, all along with diagrams and in a better format.

fuga

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[dreamsville 0]

Someone start a thread on backwards tracking. I have seen it done recently but have not tried it myself. That is, moving feet first FORWARD. How is it done?
|

I don't drink during the day, so I don't know what it is about this airline. I keep falling out the door of the plane.

Harry, FB #4143

[Zenister 0]

you should definitelytry it on a two or three way... take turns attempting to transition into it, i've been told that is the most important element, you need to keep the forward speed you've already built from your normal track...

essentially you reverse your tracking position, extend your arms to spill air 'forward'... from there you just have to refine your position to get the most efficient track feet slightly lower close enough together to grab alot of air...... i'm not that great at it, ok actually i suck at it.... ive tried it a few times, but i can never transition smoothly enough, quickly enough to keep my forward speed and not drop out of the dive, but I've seen Andy Farrington and TJ flip around and backwards track multiple times in some fairly fast moving tracking dives..... those guys are good...

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[TeamFreefly 0]

I have been on a few of these backwards tracking dives and call it the powder ed toast man, dont ask me why!
All you are doing is sticking your legs up you butt and your arms out infront and backsliding like hell.

Exiting in a posied position seems to be the easiest way of starting.

The speed is surprising and it looks hilarious!!!

[Zenister 0]

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I call it the powder ed toast man, dont ask me why! /reply]

ren and stimpy!! now that you mention it it DOES look alot like the way he flies....

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

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