dzjnky

Is it too early???? hehehehe 1) Rick (dzjnky)

+1 - same itinerary.... Wed/Thurs at ZHills, Fri-Sun at Sebastian. At least that is the plan at the moment. Can't wait to get back to it!!! Rick

546. About 200 wingsuit jumps before I added a camera to the mix.

Friday High Altitude Jump 1) Scott Gray 2) Chris Gray 3) Andreea Olea 4) Brian Barnhart 5) Marion Mobley 6) Scott Bland 7) Jeff Donohue 8) Rick Hough +1 vote for BEACH!!!!

I wonder how long it will be before PM cleans up the numbers again...

Isn't it all about how many birds you can fit on a telephone wire????

Cool - this is exactly the type of "new ideas" that I was hoping this thread might generate!!! keep it coming, guys! I thought the noodle idea was pretty cool, although we will all look pretty funny walking to the plane tripping over our noodles (OK - no need to take THAT comment out of context!!!) One thing to consider on that one, though - the noodles will tend to extend back into the relative wind, so you will have to dock on the noodle, then drop down to the correct level. And, the end of the noodle will likely be moving around a LOT, making it tough to dock on. I think it will prove to be very challenging, and probably a helluva lot of fun! I seriously doubt that custom electronics capable of range finding will be cheaper than commercial GPS units. The Wintec that I bought was less expensive than my Neptune!!!! The real questions on the electronics front are: How accurate are these units really, and can we find a way to "correct" static or slow-changing sources of error so that they are "good enough" for what we want to do? There are very expensive units that might do what we want, but 1) they are expensive! and 2) they are probably bulkier than are practical. Lots of research/investigating to do on this front... and figuring out what other people have already learned about GPS... But I still think the tougher issue right now is to determine some sort of judging criteria, otherwise the best electronic gizmos in the world are useless. In-flight, real-time feedback to help us improve our slot flying is cool, but I think we need to learn to walk before we run. The real-time aspect, in my opinion, is a ways down the road, but the ideas we come up with for post-flight judging may help with that aspect as well. Thanks for sharing your "random thoughts".... Good stuff!!!

try accessing the page at www.scottyburns.com - the first link that scotty posted gave me an error, but this link worked 10 seconds later....

Interesting stuff, Lurch - figured you would build some industrial strength solution for us ... but all the technology in the world won't help us if we can't decide what constitutes a perfect formation... I guess that can change from event to event, but to compare various formations in an attempt to create "official" records, we need a consistent judging criteria so there isn't any second guessing on whether "we got it" or not. So, while the technology is the fun part (for me, Lurch, and numerous others too!) we still need more discussion on what constitutes a "record-worthy flock".

To Stoney and everyone else on that jump, I can't tell you how humbled and honored I am to have been remembered in such spectacular fashion. Thank you from the depth of my soul! I did get a phone call as you all were climbing to altitude, and I almost cried... I wanted so badly to be there, had spent a year plus building the skills to be there, but as was mentioned, this minor detail of having to beat back some stupid cancer cells kinda got in the way. I will see some of you folks in the air in Puerto Rico!!!! Hopefully I can shed my "winter weight" so I don't end up looking up at Scott Bland... And again, congratulations on the 71-way, something that, in my book, was officially "Wicked Pissa" And I WILL be there to "one up" this accomplishment, officially or otherwise! Rick PS - Just to correct one minor detail - I haven't made it to Europe yet, but hope to do so sometime soon.

1) Notsane (Scott Bland) 2) Butters (Tony) 3) fmmobley (Marion... bringing my whuffo wife) 3) Supergirl (Andreea) 4) stoney3434 5) yeyo (yeyo) 6) dzjnky (Rick... "I'm back!!!!")

Yah, Jeff - like he said!!!!

Agreed. My question (among others) is can we extend this useful tool (GPS) to evaluate "flock quality"?

I, and a few others tell people not to fixate on the tech and the numbers. Scott and few other Love the GPS, the tech and the numbers. There is plenty for everybody here. I agree with VectorBoy's comment. I also tell newer jumpers to not worry about the numbers. They will learn more about flying by flying with others instead of harping on the numbers. Then again, if you are only flying solos, then about all you have to "play with" are the numbers (right, Lurch??? Lurch did this for years before the flock grew in Pepperell - now he doesn't focus on the numbers so much - but they are still a curiosity for both of us ) But, the numbers are limited in their usefulness, and not much use for learning how to flock. If your goal is to claim really slow fall rates, and the accompanying long freefall delays, then by all means, chase the numbers. However, as we start trying to claim "world records", there has been an outcry of "Yah???? Prove it!!!!" In other disciplines, there are accepted standards of what qualifies as a record jump. Stuff like everyone must be in their designated slot, holding their designated grips, for at least x seconds (not sure of that rule). And it must be validated through stills and/or video. This thread is an attempt to 1) define what constitutes a valid world record flock, and 2) figure out how to validate whether or not a specific skydive actually met the agreed upon criteria. Neither one of these two issues is easy, nor are they particularly useful for newer flockers who are doing smaller flocks.

notsane & LouDiamond - I was wondering if we could just compare the tracks of multiple "standard" GPS receivers without using DGPS. All the GPS units use the same time signal, and should be subject to the same timing errors, so you can time-align the tracks, and then compare what each GPS unit reports for a position at any given point in time. LouDiamond commented in the other thread that he pointed to: The "margin of error varies from receiver to receiver" is the part that bothers me... is this due to manufacturing variances, or ??? I initially was thinking that GPS receivers were digital devices, but in the reading that I have done in the past 24 hours, I am starting to think they are analog devices with a digital output. Scott C - can you confirm that guess? If the receivers are basically analog devices, then I understand why there is unit to unit variations, but then I get confused on how that unit to unit variation gets cleaned up in DGPS - don't all participating DGPS receivers get the same correction code? If so, how does that clean up the unit to unit variation? I guess I have a lot of learning to do on how GPS really works... My naive hope was that all the various receivers would have the same error, so in absolute terms you would only know where the flock is within "standard" GPS tolerance, however if all the receivers have the same absolute error, then you can get a VERY accurate measure of the relative distance between receivers, which is what we are really interested in. How accurate, I don't know, as we are now really talking about how big the unit to unit variations are. Do the unit to unit errors change over time? Maybe you can calibrate it out by putting all the receivers in one place prior to the jump, noting the deltas, then hand out the receivers and go jump? Would that "calibration" hold for the entire day? Do you need a second calibration at the end of the day? Would the error drift be linear with time? As I said, a I need a lot of learning about how GPS works. Just realized that we also may have to sort out sampling errors (in time) - I wonder how close the GPS units really align their samples in time? In other words, if they sample once a second, do they all sample at "the top of the second" relative to the GPS time signal (which should be consistent across the receivers). Sounds like one of my experiments will be to throw several GPS units in my helmet, and compare tracks that I know vary by only centimeters, unless someone else has already collected that type of data. SuperGirl - my current concern with your approach to tying the pictures to GPS data is how do you time-align the photos??? With video, you may be able to time-align exits (kind of like how a "slate" aligns the audio with the video). As you get further into the dive, though, errors in time can add up (is the video camera really running at EXACTLY the NTSC rate? What is the tolerance there?) For stills, is there a way to accurately timestamp them to align them with the GPS data? I wonder if you could tie the camera shutter switch to the GPS, and log a waypoint each time the shutter is clicked... We gotta figure out how to walk before we can run, though... this will be an iterative process. Just like building large flocks, we will have to cut our teeth measuring small flocks, and then see if we can scale it up...

One "down-side" that comes to mind about any GPS-based solution... the data collection logistics probably mean that a GPS-based solution will only be usable as an end-of-day "forensic" (i.e. after the fact) analysis tool - I don't see a way to collect and process the data quickly enough to use it as a debrief tool. And even if you could collect and process the data quickly, visualization of it as a debrief tool would require some significant software development. The big positive, though, is that GPS data, for this purpose, is probably pretty bullet proof, so it would probably see broader acceptance as being "official". Getting that many (100?) GPS pucks to all function perfectly all day long (or at least on the key jumps) may be a challenge in and of itself... and like a 4-way team not getting video, if one GPS puck failed to record the jump, that probably would invalidate the entire data set for the jump. Would "video backup" of the jumper with the "bad puck" be sufficient to validate the jump??? Another point to contemplate...

I am starting a new thread for this discussion so we can separate all the well-deserved high-fives for the Elsinore and Eloy flocks from the conversation about how to measure future attempts. All you motherflockers are keeping me up when I should be resting - my mind is just racing along thinking about how to measure a perfect flock... The good news is that technology is constantly getting better, and there is a program under way to develop "High Accuracy Differential GPS" (HA-DGPS) with an accuracy in the neighborhood of 10-20 cm depending on axis. Unfortunately, it is still under development by the US Federal Government, and is subject to the funding cuts, politics, etc. of being a federal project. As far as I have been able to learn online, there are only 3 base stations in the USA that are broadcasting the HA-DGPS corrections, and I doubt there is any commercially available equipment that will support it yet. In any case, that accuracy would be enough to "judge" flier position pretty well. So the concept floated by "unclecharlie95" on another thread may very well be a good core concept. As I think about it harder, though, we probably don't care in an absolute sense where the flock is - what is important is a time-referenced distance from other fliers in the flock - and sufficient relative accuracy may be available with the current technology. Clearly some experimentation is in order, as well as some discussions with GPS knowlegable folks (manufacturers?), and I may see what I can pull off along those lines either over the winter, or early next season (it is getting cold up here in New England). However, all this technology is useless unless we can agree upon what is a perfect flock - how do we measure this beast??? One concept floated is this "grid" thing, where everyone must be "in their box" throughout the entire flock. Very difficult, as this forces the back row to be in exactly the right place relative to fliers that they probably cannot see who may be 200+ feet away. It will make for a truly impressive flock, extremely uniform! But it does "up the ante" in that it is exceptionally difficult to pull off, especially as the flocks grow larger. Maybe that by itself makes that yardstick the "gold standard" to shoot for.... Another idea floated was the "movable grid", where a 5x5 grid is moved around the flock, thus forcing the flock to be "locally perfect" yet allow some breathing across the overall formation. Is 5x5 the right size? Should it change based on the size of the formation? Is the flock a "non-record jump" if there is ANY position of the 5x5 grid over the flock that can't fit all wingsuits in their appropriate box? Does ALL of each wingsuit have to be in their box, or just the pilot's head??? (I'm thinking ahead to where GPS units might be located). We need to agree upon what makes up a perfect flock. We also need to decide what is "perfect" for levels in addition to just the X and Y coordinates. Are those 3m x 3m boxes also 3 m tall??? Is 3 m the "right" size??? In all directions? For all flocks? If we can get better data about how accurate GPS really is today, especially when used relative to other GPS receivers in close proximity, the opportunities for detailed analysis of the flocks become very interesting indeed, and the logistics of analyzing all that data are also quite a challenge. Please, throw in your thoughts on this - I am really intrigued with this the more I think about it... Does anyone have any other ideas on what constitutes a "measurably perfect" flock???? Thanks in advance for helping brainstorm this - be bold, post all your ideas, good, bad, or ugly. Risk getting flamed for the collective good . As you can see, I had earlier shot down an idea from unclecharlie95 that I didn't think would work, but on additional reflection, it may work after all - my focus was too narrow initially... had to think "out of the box" to figure out how to measure the box Let's come up with a collective solution to this!

Aside from the cost of equipping everyone with DGPS receivers, the article you pointed to states that "Monitoring of AMSA's operational stations indicates that accuracies of 2-4 metres can be expected from a typical maritime DGPS receiver." Thus, the measurement error is roughly equal to the separations that we are trying to measure, at least on the Elsinore attempts... So, interesting idea, but I question the practicality of this particular approach - tough to get meaningful results when the measurement error is approximately the same size as what you are trying to measure... Keep the ideas coming, though - we will find the right combination of ideas at some point!

So how long until we hear from Yuri on this topic??? Anyone want to start a pool?? Unfortunately, it is really hard (like impossible) to get a 3-dimensional model of the flock from a single photograph, especially one that is set up to minimize distortions in X & Y... And trying to patch together a 3-d model from a bunch of photographs that were taken from unknown locations at unspecified times will be equally difficult. I think this is the first time we have tried to measure a flock, and attempt an objective, rather than subjective evaluation of whether the flock was "good enough". While the basic idea is great, this type of measurement is very challenging - probably nearly as difficult as flying a large flock!!! We will need to put a bunch of thought into the whole measurement concept if we plan to use this as the acceptance criteria for record attempts. The other challenge here is that video/stills that are good for judging purposes are really kind of boring for artistic, engaging post-event videos - so we may need to have more videots in the air to get the "cool" shots as well as the judging/measurement shots... I do want to congratulate Jeff (or whomever came up with the grid concept) on moving us towards measurable goals, rather than having "Dang, that flock looked cool!!!" as the primary judging criteria of our big formations! I agree that for subjective evaluation, lens distortion isn't a huge issue, although it might make "good" formations appear a little warped. As we try to actually measure people's positions in the flock, however, lens distortion, as well as simple perspective issues become critical in getting an accurate model of what really happened in the sky.

You guys suck... uhh... I mean RAWK!!!! You don't know how badly I wanted to be there - in the planning stages for over a year, only to be grounded by a friggin' health issue. I WILL BE THERE on the next one (OK, not Eloy, but the one next year or whenever we attempt to break this record!!!) Seriously, congratulations to all involved. A truly impressive achievement!!! Definitely looking forward to the pix & video! Rick

Wow!!! My panties are all wet! That is some good stuff!

Tom, Let me add my "welcome to the Flock" too!!!! I am really excited that you enjoyed your flights. We have definitely got to play next time you are up in Pepperell, or I end up down in Z-Hills. You should see if this is something that your lovely wife might like to do We need more female pilots in the flock!!! Rick

Just got a confirmation from Jeff - the Sebastian Island Wingsuit Invitational Boogie will be held April 25-26, 2009. Thanks, Jeff!!!!

I'm guessing that Lurch got all flustered with the "5" in "FlocknDock 5".... kinda like target fixation, I think... Lurch - put down the sewing needle, and take a deep breath!!!

Skydive Sebastian's website shows this event happening the following weekend (4/25-26/09). I know that Jeff's email had the earlier date... not sure which one is right, but I will let you know once I get a clarification from Jeff, unless someone else posts definitive info here sooner. [edited to fix typo]