Help! My wife's sit is way slow.

[diverds 0]

My wife is learning to sit. She is able to stay vertical, hold heading, and make controlled turns but her fallrate is way slow. My protrac usually reads around a 160 avarage for sit flying. Her's is at 120. I can fly with her on my belly without even trying to go fast. What can she do short of standing to increase her speed? She is 5' 2'' and 110 pounds.
-Dave
"Gas...Undercarriage...Mixture...Prop...Beer"

[quade 4]

Have her wear a freestyle type jumpsuit.
quade
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[freeflydave 0]

A couple things will help this situation,
1.good posture, form, basically proper presentation to the relative wind from only the necessary portions of the body AKA wings.
2.a tight jumpsuit, body size plus 1/2 to 1 inch
jumpsuits can help but proper form far out weighs what can be accomplished by changing suits alone.
And coaching from an experienced coach can't hurt, but it can speed up the learning curve,
later
dave

[freeflir29 0]

By proper presentation I would think to make sure she keeps her feet FAR apart. You may even try having her fly with her hands higher than her shoulders too. Make sure she keeps her feet down. A little more than 90 Deg upper leg angle will help.
"It's all about the BOOBIES!"

[jceman 1]

Quote

Have her wear a freestyle type jumpsuit.

Good advice, but as my wife is a big time sit flyer I'll pass on what she did in her suit progression. She started learning in tight shorts and baggy sweatshirt then got a sit suit from Tony Suits at the WFFC in '99. This helped her learn, but had the same problem the original poster's wife now has, she was way slow -- stable and capable, but way slow.
She had Mike Michigan make her a FF suit, but because she was planning on doing more sit than head down, she had him make the legs tighter, reducing drag, and left the arms normal, increasing drag. Result? she now falls with others at the same rate.
Regardless of the suit, however, the key to increasing fall rate in the sit is, as someone else noted and Lynn will tell others she helps, is to drive those feet down and power your way to speed, along with bringing the hands slightly above shoulder level.

[skycat 0]

I had the same problem as your wife and am about the same size 5'1 100-105 lbs. I used to be SLOW....going about 120-130ish. Well I got rid of the freefly suit for freefly pants which I ended up making cause I wanted them now and didn't want to spend $100. Anyway, the pants are tight in the butt and upper legs, with a little bag around the lower leg for head down. On top I wear a tight long sleve shirt that I got at gadzooks. Works great, I'm pushing 145-155 in a sit and in a stand can stay with head down guys. The pants also allows me to adjust my fallrate with the type of top I wear, kind of like add or removing lead in RW.
Also like was said before make sure she lifts her arms up and presses her legs down more also.