Ski-Gliding

[trevzilla 0]

I just watched the new Warren Miller ski movie, and they have a segment on Ski-gliding: Skiing down a slope with a small maneuverable parachute so you can jump cliffs and rocks etc with your skis. More or less, combining swooping with skiing. As I watched this I immediately fell in love, and would like to purchase a parachute for this purpose. (I have only 28 skydives, so I don't think I'd be good enough yet to jump from a plane with that parachute. .) Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions of what type of parachute I should get, and where to find it?

Here's a link of a video of ski-gliding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srbide6Mwn8

[jakee 1,489]

If you don't think you're good enough to fly though a big mostly empty sky and land in the middle of a big mostly empty field with a small parachute, you may want to reconsider if you're good enough to fly it next to big jagged rocks, cliffs and trees just yet.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[FrogNog 1]

This is why I'm waiting: I need my groundlaunching skill and my skiing (or snowboarding) skill to both be high enough to be up to this challenge, which seems to combine the risks of groundlaunching with the risks of skiing. Unfortunately I have precious little experience at either, despite having fallen out of an airplane a fair number of times.

Others less concerned about risk might not be as restrained as I.

-=-=-=-=-
Pull.

[iamsam 0]

I've heard it more commonly called gin flying or speed flying.

I hope you're taking Jakee's advice to heart.

but what do I know

[arai 0]

I'm sure people with a lot more experience will put in, but I'd suggest that if your not good enough to skydive with a certain canopy that jumping off cliffs with it probably isnt a good idea. If its a sport that interests you, start building your experience and come back to it when you've built up more canopy time.

[trevzilla 0]

Yeah, Jackee's advice is quite good, however, I was slightly under the assumption that if you are in a big wide open ski bowl with no rocks and no cliffs or trees, you could just ski down and practice that way. I consistently launch cliffs of about 20-30 feet on my skis, and feel quite comfortable landing things that large, and I feel that just jumping a parachute the impacts I would experience wouldn't be nearly that hard. At least when I was practicing. I don't plan on taking it off giant cliffs yet. Just groomed runs with fun little rollers and places where I can get the feel of the parachute.

What do you think?

[blackout 0]

Seems like an interesting idea. Sounds like fun but seems like it has a lot of factors to consider for safety sake.

[dragon2 2]

This thread should be moved to Swooping and canopy control

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[yoink 321]

Trevor,

the trouble is that these speed wings are invariably quite highly loaded and require the same degree of handling skill that you'd want in skydiving for a similar loading.

Accidently burying a toggle because you're reaching for the ground unconsiously as many low experience pilots do will dive you very quickly at the ground...
Some of the speed wings do this even quicker because of the high amount of roll associated with a toggle input and the resultant loss of lift.

When you consider that the majority of your flight time will be in proximity to the ground, obstacles or even other people, it makes it even more important to have the piloting skill under your belt. Accidently hitting a ski lift tower above the padding at 50mph will sting a bit...

Additionally, it's worth learning all you can about micrometerology - predicting turbulance and rotors that might form on your planned route down is an invaluable skill to have.

A slight concern of the speedflying community is that it's beginning to be marketed at skiiers who have zero flight time as just another facet of skiing, when it's really using high performance wings in proximity to the ground.

[trevzilla 0]

As far as your last comment goes, yoink, I'm glad that I have taken skydiving courses, and understand the risks involved. I betcha anything that if I had learned about this sport before I did my skydiving, I probably would've gotten into some trouble.

Here's what's on my mind as of late though. Yes, there are obstacles to be worried about. People, Ski Lifts (assuming I'm doing this in-bounds) trees, rocks, etc. However the problem that I'm having a tough time getting over is this:

Earlier in the post I was told that I should be able to land this type of canopy in a wide open sky onto a wide open field. This only doesn't make sense to me because of the slope of the wide open field. When I was doing my skydive training, my instructors would swoop into this flat field going 40 or so miles an hour. Very impressive I thought, but then I was putting myself in that position as I was trying to land a 260 sq ft canopy. If I had a high performance wing, I would've never been able to gauge the correct distance that I should flare with a canopy that small, and I bet I would flare too late and slam into this FLAT field.

Now, with ski-gliding, the way I see it is if you are in a wide open bowl with relatively few skiers, no trees and no lifts, on a bright sunny windless day, if you accidentally bury a toggle at least you land on a slope instead of a flat bit of ground.

Another thing I don't know about is the speed these canopies are flying at, but just skiing I have taken many a spill going in the 30-mile an hour range. Looking at the video, it doesn't seem to be that they are skiing/gliding at a speed much faster than that.

Finally something I had no clue about is this micrometeorology you speak of. What makes this so tough is the area I live in though. It is some of the best skiing in the world, but the skydiving scene is virtually non-existent. Therefore it is extremely difficult to get any training what-so-ever. Where would I find training on micrometeorology? I will look into it more.

Give me your thoughts!
Trev

[PhreeZone 20]

Paragliding has a lot more info on micrometeorology then most skydiving books do. There is even an entire book on it that you can get. You need to understand things about thermals and what could cause them, ridge lift and what it is, things like that are way more important to paracliding the to skydiving usually.

Quote

If I had a high performance wing, I would've never been able to gauge the correct distance that I should flare with a canopy that small, and I bet I would flare too late and slam into this FLAT field.

Now, with ski-gliding, the way I see it is if you are in a wide open bowl with relatively few skiers, no trees and no lifts, on a bright sunny windless day, if you accidentally bury a toggle at least you land on a slope instead of a flat bit of ground.

How do you think you stop at the bottom? You still need to be able to time that flare as you are in a bowl to stop. You still need to be able to have control over the canopy and unless you understand concepts like roll and pitch more then are taught during a normal First Jump Course you might find yourself hook turning into the side of the mountian. If you accidently bury a toggle you might suddenly find youself facing directly into the mountian face going at 40-50mph.

Quote

Another thing I don't know about is the speed these canopies are flying at, but just skiing I have taken many a spill going in the 30-mile an hour range. Looking at the video, it doesn't seem to be that they are skiing/gliding at a speed much faster than that.

Most Speedriding canopies seem to be loaded up to 1.8+ and are 150 sq ft or smaller. The other factor you need to keep in mind aout a wipe out skiing vs on this is that if you wipe out here you might end up tossing youself 20-50 feet off the slope just by hitting your toggles and could find yourself falling not the 2-3 feet at 30mph but 50 feet at 30mph. Thats usually a serious injury speed if not fatal.

I ski 4-5 days a year, I know I don't have near the experience to attempt something like this. I also don't have any hills worth trying this on near me.

Try to contact a paracliding school since a lot of the concepts of Paragliding like foot launching carry over more then some of the skydiving ones. Speedriding, ground launching or what ever they are calling it today is a blend of Paragliding, swooping and skiing. Study all 3 and you will be safer.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[jakee 1,489]

Quote

Earlier in the post I was told that I should be able to land this type of canopy in a wide open sky onto a wide open field. This only doesn't make sense to me because of the slope of the wide open field. When I was doing my skydive training, my instructors would swoop into this flat field going 40 or so miles an hour. Very impressive I thought, but then I was putting myself in that position as I was trying to land a 260 sq ft canopy. If I had a high performance wing, I would've never been able to gauge the correct distance that I should flare with a canopy that small, and I bet I would flare too late and slam into this FLAT field.

So (like phree said) what are you gonna do when you reach the bottom? What are you going to do when you go over a ridge and accidentally gain 20 feet of height? If you think the canopy is going to leave you behind when all you have to do is judge when to flare then think how far it'll leave you behind when you start trying to actively follow the terrain! The most dangerous part of canopy flight is going fast close to the ground, in speedflying you're doing that all the time.

Quote

Finally something I had no clue about is this micrometeorology you speak of. What makes this so tough is the area I live in though. It is some of the best skiing in the world, but the skydiving scene is virtually non-existent. Therefore it is extremely difficult to get any training what-so-ever. Where would I find training on micrometeorology? I will look into it more.

If you live in a skiing area then the chances are overwhelming that you live in a paragliding area. Paragliding schools can be your go to source for information about every aspect of micro-meteorology and flying slopes - they've been doing it for a long time and they've learned a lot of lessons the very hard way.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[wardo 0]

speaking of being under canopy with skis on, check this out

http://www.break.com/index/ski-base-jumper-accident.html

[jcbfly 1]

The folks at Super Fly in Salt Lake City teach PG and speed gliding, and they are also the North American distributors of Gin paragliders and speed gliders. Jeff and Chris, the main instructors, are also way into skiing and skydiving as a recreational activities.


http://www.superflyinc.com/

[yoink 321]

Kevin Love of Team Extreme now teaches Speed Flying around Lake Tahoe I believe.

You can find some posts of his in the Canopy Control forum...

They're the ones in ALL CAPS!

[trevzilla 0]

Hey, thanks for the link, jcbfly! That is exactly what I've been looking for. And I guess salt lake isn't too far from me! These are probably the guys that I see paragliding in that area every time I drive through.