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mccordia

Docked formations: How far can we take this one....

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Agreed, I wasn't really thinking of a long rope, but rather a flexible gripper maybe 20cm long with only one end attached.



Well, there's precedent of a sort. At the 1938 Hendon Air Show, three Gloster Gladiator biplanes performed an aerobatic display with their wingtips tied together with string.
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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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Agreed, I wasn't really thinking of a long rope, but rather a flexible gripper maybe 20cm long with only one end attached.



Purple and I talked about experimenting with ideas along these lines. My thoughts were using something like reserve bridle material. A sewn loop on one end to put around the ankles and the reserve bridle type material would trail behind on each leg. The length of the bridle would determine the tolerance of the formation slot flying and would also give more room to make 4 person diamonds. This addresses the concerns that Matt posted.

Once a flyer grabs the bridle material, he/she may fly out a bit to one side of the flyer with trailing streamers. This would address the 2D aspect of a formation as the length of the bridle would keep everyone on the same plane. No grid system would have to be used, a judge would simply count all the hand-to-bridle-foot connections from each flyer. Completely objective.

Short bridles shouldn't really ever entangle with anything during deployment as they simply would not be long enough and would be flying in parallel to anything in your system deployed.

Since the bridles would be slack, holding on to the bridle wouldn't have too much effect on the person you were docked on. This is still a made easy advantage compared to RW/CRW/Freefly bigways since I know many wingsuiters on here would rather have a system made easier for them :P

No grid, no software, slot flying necessary in 3D, skills needed, and more like normal record standards.

Now... where is my check?
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I will bring some ankle grippers to F&D to play with..

Edit in reply to DSE:
Tony and Phill had loops sewn onto the sleeves for the competition.
Though with the requested as hand/hand docks, the use in competition wasnt allowed.

Ankle docks where not part of the conpetition this year.
Though I did end up almost loosing a shoe during the comp back in 2008 due to an ankle dock:P

JC
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