What is a "perfect" flock anyways???

[unclecharlie95 3]

Q. Why do we need to define what a complete flock is?

Open to discussion - but my answer:

A. So that we can have a solid goal to work towards, bringing progression in the discipline and attracting others to wingsuit flying in the process.

I think we need to have 2 different classifications:
1) Flock formation
2) Slot perfect formation

The most obvious and practical judging method is the "top shot" photo.

I agree that it is poor to evaluate flying objects by only looking at the formation for a fraction of a second but due to the inherent motion judging video is not practical at the moment (until we all go away for a years skills camp).

Getting 1 photo is obviously easier than providing 3 seconds of video but at least is a starting point.

Lens distortion - I don't know anything about it, maybe DSE can provide a before/after example to illustrate how significant this is.

For the flock formation the definition could be quite loose - "all flyers exiting and flying together in one direction in a group, with all flyers within 3 body lengths of the nearest flyer"

Yes, I agree it would be easy to go BIG but the safety of separation / landing patterns should become an inherent brake to keep things sensible.

A 'flock' would still be a justified accomplishment but will always be easier than performing a 'slot perfect' of the same size.

For the slot perfect "all jumpers exiting together and flying a predefined slot according to dive plan..."

I think we should try and find a way to define the slot without measurement using words symmetry, overlap, offset and alignment - I know, still needs lots of work..

Attached are some photos of various big ways from the past 4 years, please post the others that are missing.

Just using your Mark I 'eyeball' look at the following photos and see if you can come up with criteria for the "slot perfect"

Deland 23 way - flock or formation
Top gun 6 way - flock or formation
Stupino 25 way - flock or formation
Top gun 7 way - flock or formation
Empuria 8 way - flock or formation
Z flock 16 way - flock or formation
Lodi 16 way - flock or formation

I will avoid the political hot potato of the 71 slot perfect or not - once all the photos are released to the public that question will answer itself.

BASEstore.it

[mccordia 73]

I think Id qualify the Lodi 16 way, TopGun 7 way, TopGun 6 way as completed flocks, with no real improvents possible in terms of even spacing and symetry in all directions.

The Empuria 8 way would also count as a completed flock in my book, only with a minor comment on the spacing near the base.
But still complete.

On all these, Im just using my eyeball as the judge. Are people all in their slot or not. If a formation slightly stretches in one direction, but all slots are still flown properly. Id still count it as a complete formation.

I think a simple way of saying it would be: you should just be able to recognize the complete (intended) formation at first glance. And not have to puzzle for even one second on who should be where.
Everyone should be in slot, and the spacing should be (quite) even throughout the formation. With clear defined lines/slots flown.


The Deland 23 way, though a nice flock, wouldnt count as a completed formation to me. Few people clearly out, and some issues with symetry/allignment in the different rows.

The Stupino formation, though nicely crowded, not really a clear recognisable formation. Quite clear there are more than a few ppl out.

The Z flock 16 way. Really nice in the 9 way base (though ever so slightly sqewered/stretched) with everyone clearly in slot.
The outside row on the bottom all fly at a slighly larger distance (in both X and Y), and would have to each move half a meter to 2 meters to make it a flock that I would rate slotperfect.

Attached an image with a formation pic. overlayed on the image.
Slighly adjusting rows throughout the formation, to maintain a good shape of all the rows. Though not the exact position everyone should fly, it does show some people being a bit out of their wishfull/ideal placement/slot.


I dont know if 'the perfect flock' can be flown (at this stage), but think the Lodi 16 and TG examples are what Id rate good/close to slotperfect flocks. There is no confussion over who is flying where. You see the flock. All the lines are well defined. No people to far back/sideways to mess with the symetry..


But all of this is still just an eyeballed 'was the formation complete/flown or not' way of deciding.

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[Tony-tonysuits 0]

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Just to be a troublesome newbie isn't a lot of this like when a seasoned wingsuiter tells a newbie to not worry about the numbers and just go out and have fun and learn to fly your body and fly it with other people? You guys got 71 wingsuiters together in a formation that was understandable and clean. What more do you want. Do you really want to make it a complicated process with a lot of additional technology? It sends mixed messages when you tell a newbie not to worry about numbers when you are doing just that. Flame on...

Yes, I agree, the 71 was a fine looking formation, why complicate things to such a level. well done everyone....

Life is a series of wonderful opportunities,
brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.

tonysuits.com

[unclecharlie95 3]

Why complicate it?

The problem comes at the next step - what is the formation to beat?

What was achieved in Elsinore? Can you define the formation?

No photos released to date show the claimed "71 way slot perfect formation" in that case leaving the Lodi 16 - so would 17way be enough?

I don't want to start that debate again and don't expect an answer - but that in short is WHY.

BASEstore.it

[mccordia 73]

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Why complicate it?

The problem comes at the next step - what is the formation to beat?

Though indeed another (atm very emotional) subject we should not delve into. With regards to validating 'what' a formation is, its INDEED a good subject we should try and sort out.

Imagine somewhere in the dark backcountries of Kazachstan, some funny man with a big mustache organises and flies a '75 way'. Not completely perfect, yet they do claim the worlds biggest formation*

I think that will cause a lot of uproar with the previous 71 way record crowd. Especialy if it doesnt come anywhere near what the current 71 way flock showed in terms of precision and flying.

When such a situation arrises. I know a lot of people then WILL be trying to define exactly WHAT was done in terms of flying/formation, to be able to validate (be it for our own limited crowd, with un-official status) what made the previous formation a record (perfect formation/close to slot perfect formation)

So defining WHAT we see as a formation, and by which standards to look at it for validation..its important.

Once we set up a decent standard/way of judging, we could even go as far as 'electing' our own judges and form a 'wingsuit record organision' with a website and pix of all previous and current records.

Maybe even in different catagories in terms of slot specific flying or 'wild' flocks. But before we're at that stage...lets try and see what we're looking at...completely agree with ya there JB..


Cheers, the Jellyman!

*claiming a record in the media, and claiming (or we as a group acknowledging) it within the world of skydiving are two different things...if I call a newspaper and mail em pix and tell em I just did a record jump over my hometown. I have a media-record..dont give media-records too much thought, and focus on the ackowledgement within the discipline..

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[Hagen 0]

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The problem comes at the next step - what is the formation to beat?

the formation to beat will be the one made after acknowledgment of skyflying by USPA and other organizations like this. you disagree?

and don't beat anybody - it's not box nor wrestling

[PhoenixRising 0]

dont forget this oneFlock U 16 way

Justin

this one flew the entire skydive. ill try and post the video

Wingsuit organizing, first flight courses and coaching
Flock University
Tonysuits

[unclecharlie95 3]

The organization for skydiving records and competition is the FAI-IPC.

We have to demonstrate to them that wing suit flying deserves recognition (i.e. not a waste of their time and money AND that we will attract good PR with the general public).

How? By doing what we do. Jump, get better and organise boogies, records attempts and competitions.

Once we have good competition formats we need to hold them at a national level in as many different countries as possible. At that point they will take us seriously.

WS stands a very good chance of being recognized once the fad of people holding hands head down wears off. WS flying catches the public imagination much more

BASEstore.it

[Hagen 0]

I just wanted to return the discussion to the positive channel - it's quite boring to read over and over the discussion about whose formation was bigger and who should be beaten

[mccordia 73]

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it's quite boring to read over and over

Then dont read it?

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the discussion about whose formation was bigger and who should be beaten

Thats 100% what this discussion is NOT about.
This is a search for a set of definitions/rules which will help us outline what a formation is, both to ourselves and to the public (be it whuffos or FAI).

Thus meaning you can actually name something 'a formation' by a set of standards.

Otherwise we'll always stay at the levels of 'messy group jumps' counted only by the number of people who exited the airplane.

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[Hagen 0]

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Then dont read it?

ok

[The111 0]

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WS stands a very good chance of being recognized once the fad of people holding hands head down wears off. WS flying catches the public imagination much more

Good point, whuffos are much more interested in wingsuit photos than freeflying. They can also identify with wingsuits more I think.

www.WingsuitPhotos.com

[lurch 0]

If I remember right we had that puppy already built and flying before Scotty B even got within camera range. THAT was a perfect flock. We might not have it "defined" yet but I know it when I see it.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[mccordia 73]

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If I remember right we had that puppy already built and flying before Scotty B even got within camera range. THAT was a perfect flock. We might not have it "defined" yet but I know it when I see it.
-B

We are not talking about that jump in particular..

This is more on defening a formation/flock in general, and coming up with some hard criterea to judge the results by....

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[lurch 0]

A couple other thoughts here...
Justin, did you notice during the 71 event that the only flocks we got that were as glassy smooth as that 16 way were during early jumps with just our wing? I'm not talking about whether everyone was there or not... but early on we had a couple where my video is smooth and nobodys bouncing around in my field of view, you and Spot perfectly level, no unexpected motions at all. After those warmup flocks and for the rest of the event there were massive constant vertical and horizontal buffets hitting us all the time, everyone up, down, constant unexpected pushes and drops. I think much of the difficulty keeping that monster together was still the wake off the guys in front. I think our entire wing was flying in a giant, vague burble. I also noticed people going low tended to get bumped around then kicked off to the left, much further away than I'd have expected them to go and the ones I saw you ask didn't have much of an explanation for it, just "couldn't get back in."
What to do about it for bigger flocks?
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[JohanW 0]

I agree on judgeable criteria being important for reasons mentioned earlier by other people, and I largely agree with Jarno's opinion on which formations are good enough (or even nearing perfection, but that's not the point).

I have been kicking an idea 'round in my head which does not lay a predefined grid over the flyers but uses a specific picture (the best one available), drawing a diamond of a predefined size over each flyer, centered on the head (or maybe the left hand, the reserve loop or whatever), and then checking to see if all diamonds overlap with adjacent existing ones. This allows for some skewing and breathing in the formation and does not require everyone flying off a single base, so to say, it does not propagate and add all the errors from front to back and side to side. It may also be too easy and judge formations as correct when the lines are not linear enough to subjective scrutiny. This may correct itself because in larger formations, you are flying off lines which you tend to average anyway.

But I also like the 36' noodle idea (or 35, or 37 ..). Attach to feet (or ankles, or maybe hands, laterals or wherever) and hold handgrips on 'em. This allows for skewing just like in RW-formations, esp. with long whackers. It may also lead to spectacular and very dangerous funnels. And to very ugly formations, not to mention very ugly glide ratios.

We have some pictures of historical formations that we can try retroactively to fit into grid-like rules, but for the noodle idea we may have to get noodles and flyers and actually go up and see if it works. My suggestion would not be to organise a 71-way for a first attempt ..

Just a random thought - how breakable should these noodles be?

Also, comparing to large RW-formations, do they still have to fly it for 3 seconds, or do they have to provide 1 picture? I thought those rules were changed more or less recently. The rule of all participants having to survive the jump, the landing and the next 24 hours also has been scratched sometime "recently". We may choose to hold ourselves to a higher standard than RW-formations have to, but it's a choice we might make consciously if we make it explicit. Wingsuit formations are definitely a very different animal from RW-formations; there will be differences in judging (or we wouldn't be having this discussion) but reinventing the wheel need not redefine round to umpteen decimal places.

'Nother random thought - the diamond grid might allow for realtime individual electronic assistance because all you need to know while flying is the distance to the flyers surrounding you. This would seem easier to measure and indicate than all the GPS-based solutions to me, admittedly being a layperson in these matters. It may still require custom electronics on each and every flyer, but orders of magnitude simpler stuff than GPS devices, and therefore cheaper.

The diamond grid thing also might allow for rating formations as % slot perfect by measuring total overlap. You need at least 0 to completely blot out the sky behind the formation with diamonds, but by flying closer you can have more overlapping areas which you can sum and compare to the total diamond area. Everyone in the exact same place would have 100% overlap; everyone perfectly in their defined slot would have an overlap depending on the size of the diamonds and the spacing of the formation. 100% would not be the goal to strive for ..

One last random thought .. F*CK THE GRID!

A big thank you and well done goes to everyone that made possible what we did and achieved in Elsinore, organisers, flyers, pilots, ground crew, everyone. I am happy and a little proud to have been one of that group. We proved the naysayers wrong, and I used to be one of them myself.

Johan.
I am. I think.

[DSE 3]

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IAlso, comparing to large RW-formations, do they still have to fly it for 3 seconds, or do they have to provide 1 picture? I thought those rules were changed more or less recently.

I was told this past weekend by an FAI judge that it can be a single frame grab of video, which is 1/30 of a second in USA/Canada/Japan, or 1/25 of a second in the rest of the world.

[mccordia 73]

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I was told this past weekend by an FAI judge that it can be a single frame grab of video, which is 1/30 of a second in USA/Canada/Japan, or 1/25 of a second in the rest of the world.

Dont want to correct the meistro himself here, but isnt a framegrab (the duration) depending more-so on the exposure/shutterspeed choosen than the frame-rate used?

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[DSE 3]

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I was told this past weekend by an FAI judge that it can be a single frame grab of video, which is 1/30 of a second in USA/Canada/Japan, or 1/25 of a second in the rest of the world.

Dont want to correct the meistro himself here, but isnt a framegrab (the duration) depending more-so on the exposure/shutterspeed choosen than the frame-rate used?

Depends on whether we're talking about video or stills. If it's video, framerate and shutterspeed aren't really related. If it's stills, then of course it's entirely related.
Frame rate is how many times pictures are taken within a second. Think..."how many boxes go past the shutter in one second." Shutter speed is how fast the dumper that fills those boxes can open/close in the 1/30 of a second that the boxes go by. That make sense?
In video, no matter what the shutterspeed is, the framerate is almost always going to be:
24fps, 25fps, 30fps, 50fps, or 60fps. Shutterspeeds *typically* vary from 1/30sec to 1/250sec within those framerates.

[dzjnky 0]

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I have been kicking an idea 'round in my head which does not lay a predefined grid over the flyers but uses a specific picture (the best one available), drawing a diamond of a predefined size over each flyer, centered on the head (or maybe the left hand, the reserve loop or whatever), and then checking to see if all diamonds overlap with adjacent existing ones.

Cool - this is exactly the type of "new ideas" that I was hoping this thread might generate!!! keep it coming, guys!

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But I also like the 36' noodle idea (or 35, or 37 ..). Attach to feet (or ankles, or maybe hands, laterals or wherever) and hold handgrips on 'em. This allows for skewing just like in RW-formations, esp. with long whackers. It may also lead to spectacular and very dangerous funnels. And to very ugly formations, not to mention very ugly glide ratios.

I thought the noodle idea was pretty cool, although we will all look pretty funny walking to the plane tripping over our noodles (OK - no need to take THAT comment out of context!!!) One thing to consider on that one, though - the noodles will tend to extend back into the relative wind, so you will have to dock on the noodle, then drop down to the correct level. And, the end of the noodle will likely be moving around a LOT, making it tough to dock on. I think it will prove to be very challenging, and probably a helluva lot of fun!

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'Nother random thought - the diamond grid might allow for realtime individual electronic assistance because all you need to know while flying is the distance to the flyers surrounding you. This would seem easier to measure and indicate than all the GPS-based solutions to me, admittedly being a layperson in these matters. It may still require custom electronics on each and every flyer, but orders of magnitude simpler stuff than GPS devices, and therefore cheaper.

I seriously doubt that custom electronics capable of range finding will be cheaper than commercial GPS units. The Wintec that I bought was less expensive than my Neptune!!!! The real questions on the electronics front are: How accurate are these units really, and can we find a way to "correct" static or slow-changing sources of error so that they are "good enough" for what we want to do? There are very expensive units that might do what we want, but 1) they are expensive! and 2) they are probably bulkier than are practical. Lots of research/investigating to do on this front... and figuring out what other people have already learned about GPS... But I still think the tougher issue right now is to determine some sort of judging criteria, otherwise the best electronic gizmos in the world are useless.

In-flight, real-time feedback to help us improve our slot flying is cool, but I think we need to learn to walk before we run. The real-time aspect, in my opinion, is a ways down the road, but the ideas we come up with for post-flight judging may help with that aspect as well.

Thanks for sharing your "random thoughts".... Good stuff!!!

[KrisFlyZ 0]

A perfect flock is one that is fun and safe.

Things start to become less fun when we take ourselves too seriously. I read lurch's post and think maybe things got all washy towards the end because everyone was trying too hard. Something, I am very familiar with.

Take the goal away and just enjoy the experience.

Kris

[mfnren 0]

I noticed that as well on the sector i was in, right wing. I think that there were alot of factors.
One is normal turbulance. The early morning flights did seem to be smoother than those later in the day. It doesn't have to be feel warm for thermals to occur. The air near the ground just has to warmer than above for it to start rising and upper levels to start falling.
Another is that in a smaller group small movements don't get amplified as much. If someone in the front of a large group moves half a meter, and everyone down the line reacts, it's multiple meters off by the end.
At the start of the event I was only seeing 2 maybe 3 other people in front of me, by the end, my perspective was much bigger. As the line I was part of moved up or down, I kept my eyes on the front of my line who barely moved because they were next to the base. I started trying not to react to the small movements of those directly in front of me unless necessary to stay in my slot.
I think the unconcious reaction to small movements is a big reason for the waving and whipping. Add some turbulance to cause some larger movement and it gets worse...
Any body else notice anything similar?

[unclecharlie95 3]

Motion in the flock is due to lag response and causes small movements to get magnified the further back in the formation you go.

Having more experienced flyers who drift less and are able to watch the base as well as there immediate slot buddies can help reduce this.

Some movements you need to follow (for safety) others can be ignored if you can see your position relative to the base and front of formation.

True, the self imposed 'stress' and trying too hard could reduce your focus to just the flyers immediately around you.

BASEstore.it

[aarthus 0]

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One is normal turbulance

During the event in Elsinore & Eloy,
I heard several times people talking about turbulances during flight....?

As I never had the chance to feel such turbulances a part the burbles from another flyier, I would be interested to know more about this phenomena

Patrick de Guillebon

[JohanW 0]

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A perfect flock is one that is fun and safe.

That's one definition. But it's not the only possible one.

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Take the goal away and just enjoy the experience.

Tell that to the 400-way, or the 71-way Wingsuit, or the future 500-way. The goal is part of the experience.

If all this isn't your thing, just let us w*nk between ourselves ..

Johan.
I am. I think.