morris

What to take care about flying unplaned stacks? Quite a lot of brakes at the very top? A little bit of brakes right below the very top/towards the middle? Or would you recommend building planes if we´re exceeding four persons because unplanned stacks of 5 or more persons are too difficult to fly especially at higher loadings?

And even more important: What happened to Spizzzarko? Just realising we are missing him here...

Now we are finally "closing in" on what I want to know... I understand that planed stacks are far more stable than unplaned ones. This was exactly what I´ve been asking for. My question was: a) Do you plane the stacks - from a certain number of persons on - for stabilitiy reasons (I know the answer is yes)? and b) What I don´t know is: What is that number??? With how many persons can you build UNPLANED stacks?? Or do you always plane ´em as soon as possible? let´s add c) What is the largest UNPLANED stack on record? let´s add d) What to take care about flying ´em? I´ve seen pictures of 5ways that flew very nice. I have not been looking/searching for pics of larger ones yet, I thought it´d be better to ask you guys as words will tell me more than any pic. We´ve tried to build an unplaned 5way stack with regular Storms (not CF-Storms but with the CF-option and dacronlines) of various sizes and loadings ranging from ~1.5 to 1.6. After the final jumper docked (myself) the formation became very "nervous" very fast. This was not caused by the dock! After the final dock it flew very nice - but just for some moments...

planned stack?

"...it was swinging at the low-end..." this is why I´m asking, without any planes in the formation at all, just "pure" stacks, we experienced a 5way that didn´t fly very nice at all, but maybe that´s just us...?

I´ve already been checking their website before even posting here and couldn´t find the information I´m looking for. There is a video of a 10way on the site, but they are flying it as a plane, not a stack...

Can you/do you build stacks with as many persons as you have jumpers available? Or do you usually "switch" to planes once the formation starts getting bigger? Additional question: Lets say you are flying a 5way-stack. What inputs should be given? Half brakes at the very top? A little bit of brakes by number 2? A bit of frontrisering by the lowest person to create some tension? What to take care about while flying it? Thanks for any kind of information and/or input!

I forgot to announce the winner: It´s a 100% strike for polarbear. Sorry Ian, not this time.

This isn't true. Once your forward speed matches the tail wind speed, you will either have to touch down, or you will start flying backwards. You are assuming that your canopy will maintain the same speed as the headwind during the last seconds of the swoop which isn't correct. You misunderstood him, he was talking about a headwindscenario. You are saying that once your forwardspeed (=groundspeed) matches the tailwindspeed, you will have ... to touch down ... this is correct as once your forwardgroundspeed matches the speed of the tailwind, your airspeed would be zero and your wing would have already stopped flying... but he was talking about a headwindscenario. With the groundspeed being zero, the airspeed would still be the speed of the wind (the air, therefore called airspeed :-) ) and as long as the windspeed is faster then your wings stallspeed, you´ll keep flying. The groundspeed being zero it will look like hovering, but from an "air-point-of-view" it´s not what is is....

Yes, I know the windstrength. The average wind for most of the guys on the load the record has been set was a tailwind of about 4m/s. (Tailwind was not for granted as it switched between cross- and tailwind, as jumpers from load 2 might be able to tell you.) However, the very moment Nick did his longest run, the tailwind picked up to 6.7m/s. This is not me guessing, this is first hand information from the numbers written down by the judges, monitoring the windspeed at any time. I don´t know the exact windspeed for his second longest run (the video) but the blueskiesmag-flag gives you an impression. On his longest run he could have been even a bit tighter on the gate. On training day, Nick did one even longer run, with the winds being a bit over the limit that very moment.

No, I don´t disagree, I agree. Do you know why that is?

no, the fastguys are accelerating all the way till they start slowing down in preparation of a survivable opening

At the moment I don´t have the time to write a detailed answer. So I´ll give you just some thoughts to think about... Let´s say you´re under canopy and apply a frontriser input. This will - as we know - bring the nose down. Now lets give the very same input once again, but in addition lets lift your legs up in front of your body. What will happen? Lifting your legs will move the masscenter of your body forward. It will now not be any longer "somewhere in your stomach"/hips/inside your body - instead, it will be inbetween your body and your legs, "somewhere in front of your stomach"/body/hips. Agreed so far? Got it so far? Someone already mentioned that the masscenter will always be (or always wants to be) in a neutral position under the wing. (Inputs can of course move it away from that position, but that´s not what I´m talking about here.) Now that you moved the masscenter to the front of your upperbody, your upperbody will move backwards(!) to place the masscenter back into that neutral position under the wing. What does that cause? As your upperbody is connected by the risers to the wing, any backward movement of your upperbody is also a backward movement of your risers. Any backward movement of your risers will bring the nose of your canopy even more/steeper down. If you havn´t done so far, give it a try, compare a frontriser input while being neutral under the wing with a frontriserinput with the legs in front of your body. The difference in the steepness of your dive (straight on, no turn) will be very noticable... Now lets talk about flaring and swooping (I´m talking about the horizontal (or even climbing) part of swooping here, the traveling across the round, not the turn or recovery or whatever). If it comes to those, things are a bit different. I guess you know the difference between braking and flaring? Just once again: If you go slowly(!) from full flight to deep brakes, your body will stay in the neutral position under the wing at any time. (Neutral position for full flight and deep brakes might be a different one, but that´s once again not what I´m talking about here). To make the input be called flaring instead of braking, you need to apply the input faster. From a certain speed on, it´s a dynamic "thing" that will make your masscenter move out to the front - bringing the nose up. The more you are able to move to the front, the more you´ll bring the nose up (in addition to the nose-up-movement caused by toggle- or rearinput). For that reason leaning forward while flaring will result in better outcomes, and the same goes for swooping. During a swoop your body wants to place itself in front of the wing anyways as the wing has more drag (and less mass) than your body. The higher the airspeed the more noticable is that effect. During a swoop you are kind of pulling your wing along (behind yourself). The more you are able to place yourself in front of the neutral position, the more you´ll bring the nose up. If you are going for the extreme by being horizontal in the harness, timing (and speed) is critical. Why is that? Lets say you are waiting till most of your airspeed is gone before you move to that bodyposition. Now bringing the masscenter out front while flying at a slow airspeed, will cause the opposite! We are now not in that dynamic high airspeed flaring kind of mode anymore. So moving the masscenter out to the front will now be causing the same it did while giving a frontriser input out of a neutral position under the wing - it will cause you to move back and bring the nose down...

I came up with the idea that adding 2way-rotation to competitions for jumpers who havn´t competed yet/so far would make for an way easier start and therefore attract more teams/jumpers. For the upcoming german nationals in late August, the german federation did more or less the same for RW by adding a very easy 4way programm for beginners to stop the decline of teams competing. From looking at the registrationnumbers, this seems to be working... Let me know what you think.

I´m still very far from being a speedexpert. But I already know that at those speeds, weight isn´t really of importance anymore. As more weight will only help you on a "linear-basis", the increase of drag is squared. For that reason someone with little weight but small shoulders might be even doing better, at least he (she) would be able to do so/has no significant disadvantage. It´s really about the pilot at those speeds!

Hi Amazon, we did it! Great turn out and the best of the best attending! I´ve been told that years ago there was a SpeedSkydiving-event in France that combined real speedskydivers and wingsuitpilots shooting for speed in one competition. If we´re taking that competition into account we pulled off the second biggest speedcomp ever on the first try. If you don´t count the wingsuitpilots it was even the biggest speedcomp ever... The event saw a russian record and a german female record being established. In addition a new german record (male/overall) has been set. The worlds fastest speeders posted several incredible rounds, exceeding 500km/h average speed, fastest average speed was about 320mph (514 km/h). Next year its going to be even bigger. Would be awesome if you´d be able to come over and join us!

I liked it as well, been asked in the dubbing room by the chief judge (which I knew very well, unfortunately he ins´t living anymore) who´s the best videographer in my opinion. I told him that giving the award to anyone but the guy from the french 8way (I think it was Alex Pereira) would be ridiculous, and so they did. French 8way-video rules! Big time! The videos Alex did are what I would call perfect, it doesn´t get any better than that. Outstanding exits every time, great framing, and steeeeep!

In my opinion what you are doing on the video is ok, but you are leaving still too early. Jumping away from the plane is fine. But you only need to jump backwards, not to the side. Jumping backwards only (no need to slide under the plane!) will give you clean air as the team is jumping out of the door and away from the plane. Yours will be the air between the plane and the launching 8way. Done like this you can lead by leaving almost the very same moment as the rearfloater, on a perfect shot you be within touchingrange for the first second. In general timing for great leading 8way shots is way more critical (compared to 4way) as the average 8way exit is a) flater (the one on your video is pretty steep for an 8way), b) will become even flater sooner and c) "floats" more on the hill. Try to fly up and forward as fast as you can. To do so don´t give full wings by having the arms extended all the way forward as this would be counterproductive to your straight legs/forward movement, the arms in front would of course like you to backslide. Instead, give full wings by having the arms lower than the rest of your body (see attachment). Done like this you can give full wings without the need to have the arms too much out in front of you. Done correctly this can result in an incredible fast forward- and upwardmotion, be careful not to overshoot! To make this work to the max, the set-up of your wings is important as well, have ´em as short as possible, just long enough to be able to reach everything you need (that short that teammates would need to open skyvandoors for you), if you make the set-up shorter, make it shorter especially at the "leg-end". This will bring the center of all the "windforces" that affect/attack your wings and your body, closer to the "weightcenter" of your body. This will result in a lower tendency for backslides every time you use your wings, leaving more of your "legpower" for forwardmotion... During the last moments of your video, it´s visible that you start turning to adjust the framing, to line up the long side of the formation with the long side of your frame - that´s great! Try to start turning even sooner! As soon as you are on your way up and forward you can initiate the 90 degree turn, try to have completed the turn the sooner the better. If the day comes that your teammates get even better and that the first point is for example an open accordion you´ll need to hurry! (see second attachment, on this one I made it just in time to look nice but for a perfect framing I would have needed to be even faster) If you are doing great and looking for a new challenge, try to do it all without widelens. Like this you´ll have to do a lot of vertical up and down work to adjust the framing in time for every point. A lot of work and a lot of fun with a faster team. In addition it will make you a very faster mover/great flyer on your belly if it comes to covering some distances... The other side of the coin of filming 8way is that you will never ever wanna do 4way video again, great 8way video is so much more fun and requires more skills as well... My thoughts...

Of course it is. But I wouldn´t call it the largest issue but the only issue. If it´s done the way you´re suggesting, HP-stuff usually isn´t causing any safety-problems at all. On the other hand this would take away training opportunities from the majority of jumpers, they wouldn´t get any better and they wouldn´t be very current in HP-landings. So if they would still be doing ´em once in a while (doing hop´n´pops) they would take a far greater risk (to hurt themselves, but at least not endangering others). The number of jumpers who are interested and willing to do large numbers of hop´n´pops from the beginning of their jumpingcareers on, is for sure not a large one. Usually people are working their way up over many years till they finally come to the point where they realise that hop´n´pops are the way to go to get any better (and that freefall is highly overrated). As it is many times very difficult if not impossible to be the first down or have everyone else on the ground before you´re initiating your turn, the idea to have not vertical but horizontal separation between regular and fast canopies still makes sense to me. It doesn´t even take two separate but just one landing area of reasonable seize to do this. In addition to all the other "rules" like slower and lower have the right of way, if in doubt don´t, blablabla, the HP-pilot just needs to be willing to walk all the way back from the other end of the landingarea to the hangar, just be doing the opposite of swooping the beerline. So the problem might not be the one who wants it all but the one who wants it all AND is not willing to run back to the boardingarea to catch his back-to-back load?

I´m with Dave!

I don´t get it, please explain. Almost similar rate of descent? A bit slower? A bit faster?

I´d like to get an impression how much additional performance has really been gained during the last couple of years. Any numbers? (especially comparing V1 to V4 if possible) Something like data for both suits in a "anything else but the suit being equal" scenario, for average rate of descent, forward speed and glide ratio? Additional question: Am I wrong or is it correct that the smallest gain of performance (if any?) has been achieved regarding forward speed? Additional question is because a) a skilled pilot with a reasonable exitweight could already be flying very fast (at least by my standards) in a V1 and b) because an increase in surface area, resulting in a slightly slower wingloading, should usually not result in higher forward speeds... Thanks for sharing any thoughts!

Yes, there is. Wingsuit(basegear)lowpulls just aren´t enough for some persons, so they choose to focus their jumping on the most intense experience the sport has to offer and only do WS once in a while.

No, you didn´t! But by the way how well do they work and how much did you charge for´em? But before you do that, get in touch and make sure they are willing to fill up the pond for you, it is almost ever empty and will be empty for sure, if you are just showing up there, coming with a whole group will raise your chances.

Now you´ve impressed me! (If your jumpnumbers are correct and not missing at least two zeros.) You are right, if your landing area is not very wide (I´m talking wide, not long, from your point of view on final. If it is pretty wide you could choose to turn sooner or later into final, likely sacrificing accuracy but at least making the landing area.) the length of your base is really fixed. Then to turn to base is really the only decision to take if you are flying a "classic" pattern "by the book" (= in straight lines and without "manipulating" the glide angle). For this and other reasons I don´t think it is a good pattern at all, at least not in the "classic" (=straight lines) version and I think it is especially difficult for anyone with low jumpnumbers...