Food for thought

[mnskydiver688 0]

All this talk about vertical velocity (not speed since we have a direction ) in flocks I wanted to show a graph of a recent jump where I was flying at peak performance. A little info about the circumstances:

Altimeter: Neptune 2 on mudflap
Wingsuit: PF Ghost 2
Exit weight: ~215lbs

This would make me think upper 40's to mid 50's would be reasonable for flocking.

Thoughts?

Sky Canyon Wingsuiters

[LukeH 0]

Consider velocity on 3 axis rather than 1.

Assuming reasonable glide ratio I like flocking with a downward velocity around 50mph - 55mph in small suits to give everyone a bit of range so agree with your upper 40s - mid 50s.

[Butters 0]

Quote

This would make me think upper 40's to mid 50's would be reasonable for flocking.

Thoughts?

I think mid 40's to mid 50's in large suit and mid 50's to mid 60's in small suit ... with plenty of forward speed.

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[lurch 0]

Am thinking, your basic range is ok but the range of birds and suit sizes means 40-50 is an "ideal" thats not actually going to happen all that often in practice.

Get a bunch of birds with roughly matched suit scaling and/or experience, sure. Scott Bland is one of the best flock leads alive and he usually tunes his flocks taking into account what all the birds in it can do. I've been on flocks with him where everyone was capable of the 2-3+ minute range, he opened it up gradually and we had some 2.5 minute tight flocks. Unheard-of. I was thinking "Now THATS more like it!" Only flocks I've been in that actually made my arms burn. Being a light endurance pilot, for me in typical flocks I've got my arms behind my back. For vertical flocks I prefer to downsize the suit, an S-Bird is just too much wing for that kind of "precision dirty flying" where nobody cares what the resulting fallrate is just so long as the formation is tight.

Anyway a more typical flock, we've got a mix of everything from S-Birds to Vampires and the buddy flying my ragged out old GTI. Experience and ability ranges from thousands of flights and sub-30's to the guy in a used T-Bird with 35 flights who is just now getting used to the suit and happy to get it into the 40's at all, let alone be able to cruise and flock at that level.

So, your 40-50 is reasonable but I wouldn't expect it much in reality. When I GET a flock that goes that way its cool, but most of the time to keep it in everybody's range its more like 50-75 and theres sometimes some heavy guy in an old Raptor without a hell of a lot of wingsuit experience who finds even THAT challenging.

Since the goal of most flocks at this stage in the game is to have a lot of fun, include everybody and let guys like that build the experience they need to be able to DO 50's and 40's, our "typical" flock rates are all over the map depending on whos in it.

Variety is GOOD... besides. Armed with an S-Bird, for me the leftover speed at breakoff is good for another minute and a half, maybe even two till pull time. I'll go off to one side, clear my airspace and shift to "God mode", STAND on that sucker till the suit planes out to near-zero, watch the others drop 1000 feet and pop canopies, then buzz the canopies when I get back down there. High flock rates are not necessarily a bad thing...
-B

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

[LukeH 0]

That sounds fairly typical to what I've experienced in the past too. I call them social jumps.

It's nice to jump with all the other people with wingsuits, and can be a lot of fun but the quality of the flying suffers.

Could you imagine trying to take a large mix of canopy types, wing-loadings and experience levels and doing a large CRW formation?

The discipline is still finding it's feet and is a novelty for many, but there is progress in the right direction. I cheered when I read you prefer to downsize the suit for flocks!

[DSE 3]

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The discipline is still finding it's feet and is a novelty for many, but there is progress in the right direction. I cheered when I read you prefer to downsize the suit for flocks!

Add my voice to the "cheer."

Imagine a CRW guy showing up with a 240 Navigator wanting to fly with a group of Lightning 126's?
They might even suggest he put on 30lbs of lead in order to compensate.

[mnskydiver688 0]

Since in larger groups I like to work on my camera skills I never expect to be in the best body position possible, but I like to have these conversations because we are still figuring out just where we want this discipline go and such. I don't think there will ever be a one wingsuit quiver. As long as a community we continue bring the average performance level higher and higher that is good with me.

Sky Canyon Wingsuiters