atmonaughty

Hi there, Without going on about personal experience, let’s just say I’ve most defiantly done a few flights, including some nice stuff with big T himself. I believe that on a few occasions I had Marcos grip so unless he was in the wrong orientation I would say I have experienced the dream that is Atmo flight! That was about 4 years ago now so I guess, I need to "re educate myself" huh?????? OK relative wind, what I mean by this is that the air, before we enter and disturb it, is without a doubt in a neutral state. to suggest otherwise is slightly foolish unless your talking about being in the prop wash. The diagrams show direction of the relative wind before it makes contact with the body?! Hahahaha. or if were going to be picky before the pressure bubble that surrounds the leading edges disturbs it. If we look once again at the atmophotos and remember that we are actually moving faster vertically than we are forward, it would make more sense to suggest that a large proportion of the relative wind is caught on the underside of the body. Trying to explain the lack of air on the chest can be put down to higher pitch and the head burbling out the chest area, this in turn would increase forward speed creating more of a high pressure area on the front of the flyer in the hip area, giving greater push and relative lift (note underline!!). Of course I might be wrong. It seems to me that you are under the impression that when flying in atmonauti, your forward speed and the orientation of the body allows for shallow trajectory, or some sort of glide? I think that the feeling of this type of flight highly exaggerates what is actually going on. You are still plummeting! If only in a controlled manner. I wonder if you would still have the same point view if you were carrying out an Atmo dive sub 500 foot. At that altitude I’m guessing that all that forward drive and lift would seem pretty insignificant in comparison to your decent rate. The more photos that you produce and the more romantic your answers get, the more inclined I am to accept the other point of view which uses inductive logic to try and explain this particular aspect of the sport. Its seems odd that in every other aspect of body flight we utilise air deflection to create movement. not with atmo though! Its Lift that drive us!!!! Hmmmm. sounds a bit like a story I once heard about a emperor and a new suit. I guess if you keep telling your self something for long enough it becomes fact. In fact, after looking at both sides of the argument, Im siding with the deflection argument. Thanks for all the posts guys. Im outta here. please continue this thread in good spirits. have fun up there. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it surf.

The images youve provided are interesting as they are just reinforcing fedykins theory in more ways than one. Take for example the first image which has little arrows to indicate where the relative wind is coming from. well this doesn’t make any real sense to me because there is no 'wind' as such, just air in a neutral state. No big hair drier in front of the atmonauts angled at 45 degrees. In fact Both examples are not really that accurate as it gives the impression that both the trackers and the atmo flyers are moving very fast horizontally. surely the descent rate of both atmonauts and trackers is considerably greater than the forward speed and therefore more air pressure would be generated from below, creating high pressure on the bottom surface area which is deflected, propelling both tracker and flyer forward. The only difference I see between the two is that the atmo angle and specific body position could be a more efficent means of achieving greater forward movement. The image concerning no fly zones also reinforces the fact that the burble of a atmo flyer is allot steeper than the body position. This highlights the fact that an atmo flyer is still descending rapidly and not moving forward as much as the flyer thinks. If like you say atmo is flown in the correct angle, the burble would supposedly be coming off the feet and would be directly behind flyer. This, as illustrated, is clearly not the case. If it was the flyers would be able to venture into the 'no fly zones'. The image concerning frontmo and backmo, shows quite clearly that if we are still descending rapidly that the leading flyer still has their head and upper body, probably as far as hips area, exposed to relative wind and therefore is able to stay above a backmonaut without the need of any so called 'lift'. also if you look closely at that particular diagram you will notice that the frontmonaut is flying a wide position allowing for greater lengthways surface area, I.e. keeping the arms and legs out of a potential burble area. The backmonaut in comparison is flying a tight position and is positioned further back in relation to the frontmonaut. The technical diagrams are a good effort to explain what’s going on but it seems to me that they could be a little misleading or be interpreted in such a way as to lead to false conviction. Please believe me when I say I’m entering this argument with an open mind. so far, however, Im inclined to side with fedykins hypothesis of angular deflection rather than the theory of generated lift. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it surf.

No worries bro, Im ultra 'chilled'. Just looking for some answers. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it surf.

Just to make clear this point before the scenario of another flyer flying directly below a frontmonaut rears it head; and how lift probably makes this possible: The steep angle of attack would still allow for a high area of pressure under the hips created by the de arch, this plus the fact the leader is ahead and both flyers are in a staggered formation in relation to the relative wind allows for a frontmonaut to still catch enough air on the front to stay ahead and above the bottom flyer. This sounds a little more reasonable! We can always look at it from another perspective. If the leader was behind, with the bottom flyer ahead, with both flyers in the same angle, the top flyer, leader, would certainly fall into the burble, would he not? This is especially more apparent in shallow atmo dives. Surely both scenarios covered here are a little more realistic, and showcase that angular deflection is the most likey reason for forward drive and the ability to position one self seemingly in another flyers burble area? Soz, dont mean to be a party pooper, but Im having to continue to lean towards fedykins explanation at the moment. I would love your argument to be sound. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it surf.

Im still not convinced for the following reasons: Even if like you say a flyer is flying in a very steep angle and the relative wind is hitting the head and shoulders, the air that flows across the bottom of the body from head to toe is still being deflected by that flat surface thus initiating drive. It might seem as though were actually moving great distances relative to another flyer in a similar trajectory, but If we were to look at this from a third point of view, we would probably see that the flyer would be descending allot faster than they are moving forward. This would lead me to believe that it is unlikely that there would be 'dead air' below an atmonaut. Were simply not going fast enough forward for that to be the case. Isn't it more likely that because of the bend at the hips, the relative wind follows the steep path of the underside of the torso until it reaches the Hip area, where it is momentarily trapped creating an area of high pressure. An 'Angular de arch' of sorts, allowing for slower fall rate? The air would continue to slide off along the legs; this combined with fresh air from below would greatly increase drive, would it not? Unlike aircraft, which create their own forward drive and have areas of dead air directly beneath the wings, a human is descending at a rapid rate of knots and cannot really hope to achieve this dead air scenario, unless in an extremely steep dive (trace) where the pressure bubble around the body would be the overriding factor. I find it hard to believe that Atmo can achieve this amount of forward drive in order for this to happen, especially when flown in a shallow angle. I'd personally put the weightlessness effect down to a few things: 1. We are without a doubt descending as slow as we pretty much can when flying in atmonauti because of the angular de arch, creating an area of high pressure which combined with angular deflection allows for efficient energy transfer, and forward movement. 2. The arms and legs being out to the side also create more drag and take some of the weight, this leaves the torso area supported with even less effort. This slow flight combined with a large amount of longitudinal weight distribution would in my mind give an effect of floating on a bubble of air. However I might be wrong. Even if genuine lift is being created I doubt that it would be the overriding factor that creates the weightlessness effect. Im sure lift is generated to some small degree, but as Vertifly says, it would probably have a very marginal effect. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it surf.

Im more inclined to go along with the theory of angular delflection rather than lift in order to produce extended flight time however I wouldnt say were falling. Falling is a term used to describe something that is pretty much out of control. I would still say that humans are flying as they can choose diferent vectors, if only for a short time and distance. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it surf.

Thanks Mciocca. Thanks a pretty helpful explanation of the varying positions required to get the 'atmo' effect. In regards to the similarity of the body and a ram air canopy. Do you think that the two are that similar in relation to the amount of lift achieved? Surely even with even the most efficient ram air wing, the canopy is continually descending unless going through a speed conversion / swoop for instance. Also, if the two modles are similar is it possible that a flyer could create a similar effect by increasing vertical speed and then converting into drive and possibly greater lift? Body swoop for instance? I do see the lift argument, but after watching videos of base jumpers for example, going at full tilt, they still only cover a relatively small distance. Surely deflection is the overriding factor and not lift in relation to greater horizontal distances covered? I hope I’m proved wrong. Its would be fantastic if manipulation of body position and angle could lead to the generation of useable lift. has anyone got any hard data supporting the lift argument? You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it surf.

Come on guys, It’s only flying! No need to get defamatory or threatening! All I wanted was to find out if real lift can be generated (useable lift), in order to prolong flight. There seems to be two types of argument here. Fedykins: That the Atmo position in the correct angle creates more surface area, resulting in high pressure on the bottom surface area, slowing the fall rate and the use of angular deflection to produce the forward drive. It’s a matter of shape, body position and angle that allows for extended flight time. The other arguments: That Atmonauti creates areas of High and low pressure resembling Wing aerodynamics and it is the phenomenon of lift which alows for extended flight time. Can we stay on topic and not dirty this thread with personal snipes? Thanks. On that note has there been any real non biased data produced in regards to this topic? You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it surf.

Following on from previous threads / discussions about Atmonauti I was wondering if anyone could explain the ‘lift’ phenomenon and whether steep angle flight can produce real lift as claimed by some Atmonaut’s? Apart from the effect of the rig rising off the back, which could be attributed to a number of different things, is there any real hard evidence that such a thing can happen? You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it surf.