morris

You´re right, I agree on that.

What is more difficult to explain? a) all the different watergate- and zonepoints or b) all of the above and then add to that "ok, this has been just the beginning. now that you got all those scores a percentage system comes into the picture and the judges take the highest of all scores and.... I´d say it easier to understand without the percentage system wouldn´t you agree?

There you got it - in the past you couldn´t make up the ground you´ve lost during speed and distance by doing well in accuracy, now you can. How can it be that you can regain in ONE event what you´ve lost in TWO? That´s my point

You won´t believe - I´ve been thinking about suggesting this for distance as well as it is for sure more than twice as difficult to exceed 500ft compared to exceed just 250ft - I just didn´t dare to (make that suggestion). But I think a change is of much more importance for speed as the speedscores are way "closer together" and the distancescores are "spread much wider". Distance is already of more importance for the overall scores than speed so there isn´t that much need to change it.

At the competitors meeting of the 2007 WorldCup in Australia it has been mentioned that the rules - the way they are at the moment - don´t judge all events equal. The different events aren´t of equal importance for the overall results - which they should. (I guess we all agree on that). The rules undervalue the speed event and overvalue the accuracy event. Since then no solution has been found to change this. Things became even worse as accuracy became even more important… Speed: Physics tells us that to go twice as fast you need four times the energy (= be four times as good). Right now the guy who goes twice as fast (as someone else) receives only twice the amount of points. Example: The fastest run of a given round might be 2.6 seconds, worth 100 points. Someone who isn´t even able to finish the course flying and runs through the exit gate after 5.2 seconds still gets 50 points! Someone scoring 3.9 seconds still gets 75 points! While 2.6 is a worldclass run, 3.9 is very slow and should never ever be worth 75 points. The way it is judged right now, speed is more or less a “you-just-have-to-score-somehow-event”. Proposal: Listen to the physicists! Multiply the times with themselves before the final point-calculations are done. Here some examples how this would affect the sores (calculations are just almost 100% exact, don´t blame me for mistakes after the decimal point): 2.6 sec. x 2.6 = 6.76 (100 points) 3.0 sec. x 3.0 = 9 (77 points) 3.9 sec. x 3.9 = 15.21 (44.44 points) = instead of 75 5.2 sec. x 5.2 = 27.04 (25 points) = twice as long would result in one quarter of the points of the leader instead of 50% Wouldn´t those scores make way more sense and represent the performance of a competitor way better? Accuracy: Example: The best competitor of a given round scores all watergates and does a stand-up landing in zone three. No-one else does any better. If this happens during all three rounds, the competitor would receive 300 points. The way it used to be the person would have received 272 points. This would still be a lot of points! Wouldn´t those 272 points represent the performance of the competitor way better? Shouldn´t 100 points in accuracy represent a perfect run? To give someone 100 points for a good but not perfect performance - only because no-one else did any better - is as if a student at school or college would receive the very best of all possible grades - for a “just” good but not perfect performance - only because no-one else did any better!! Proposal: Judge accuracy the way it used to be! The most pilots I know are first of all into swooping for their love for speed and distance. Should accuracy “decide” who is the overall winner of a competition?? Right now someone needs to be outstanding in speed AND distance to have a chance of beating an “accuracy-expert”… The persons in charge at the FAI are very willing to adapt the rules in a way that makes sense to the majority of competitors. If you compete at the Worldchampionships speak up at the competitors meeting and let them know your opinion. If you don´t, post your opinion right here, we will let them know. All thoughts very welcome! Add on: A well known pilot I´ve sent a PM about this topic came up with the idea to make the speed course more difficult by changing the course itself instead of changing the way it is scored. This would create more zeros and thereby make the speedevent more important. But it would not solve the major problem that pilots who finish the course with slow times would still receive too much points for their performance, it would still be a "you-just have to-score-thing". In addition an ultra difficult course could be counterproductive for the sport of CanopyPiloting as it could cause new pilots not to compete if they think about a given course as too difficult for their skill-level. So changing the course isn´t an option...

It shouldn´t take you from 0% to 100% toggleinput 3 seconds on that canopy - this is too long. Try to start your flare a bit lower and make it take just ~two seconds. In addition try to execute the last ~30% of your flare(from ~70% to 100% toggleinput)unusually fast/all in a sudden/"explosive". While doing so you shouldn´t try to end up at 100% input the moment you touch the ground but sooner, about 2-3 feet from the ground, if in doubt even higher. Give it a try and feel free to get back to me...

A liitle more than 30-35mph? Swoopers have already flown through the entrygate of the course with horizontal speed exceeding 90mph...

I´m using the PD-lines since early 2007. At the moment I got two canopies with those lines, I´ll post pictures of their conditions/amount of wear early next week.

So what do we do now? What are the consequences of the incident? No more HMA300 anymore? If the lineset of the incident just had 150 jumps on it, (or even just 150 hop´n´pops?), and nothing else happened to the lines that might have weakened them, this kind of incident can happen to everyone of us one every jump, right? I´m longing for more detailed information about the lineset of the incident, type of canopy, loading, type of jumps, additional informations that might be important, maybe we can find a possible reason why this happened?! I know that Marat was putting terminal jumps on one of his working canopies with HMA300 for test reasons till a line finally broke early this year. If I remember correct it was on a Velocity90, loaded 2.7 and the lines lasted for a bit more than 400 jumps. I always thought I´d be on the safe side if I replace my lines every 200-300 jumps. This is taking into account that almost all jumps on those linesets are hop´n´pops with full rds. Does this still holds true? I got HMA300 on two of my canopies, the older lineset has ~150jumps on it right now, out of those just 10 terminal openings, the lines still look pretty good....

150 hop´n´pop jumps or 150 terminal jumps? Any more information?

Please explain this saying to a nonnative speaker. Which one is longer? Line life with an rds or with a regular slider?

I now (finally) got all my "numbers" together for different wingloadings, fieldelevations, temperatures,... It´s just almost impossible to give any numbers that are valid for everyone or for you. For this reason I don´t wanna post numbers here. I could give you an estimation (without any guarantee!) if I´d know more about your WL, type of turn, initiation altitude,... PM welcome...

I voted "no". I used packers for full RDS just during one single training camp. Working with Jay I didn´t want to waste my time and energy on packing. But I still hooked it up myself... The packers (DeLand) did well.

As I said I take care about my chest strap first, reason is that I used to stow my rds under my shirt. If you have three things you wanna give an order to, you have six possibilities to do so, not just 4...

I voted loosen chest strap, stow slider, release brakes and I guess no one is releasing the brakes first. But your overview is missing two possibilities!

But they do, it just far from being that bad that it is a "control-problem". I never thought about yuris explaination that the canopy has less mass than its pilot and thereby being more affected by gusts, creating a bank angle for a moment... interesting - could add something to my own explaination... My explanation is that the profil is way "wider" in the front half. Therefore any gust will affect/push the nose of the canopy way more/stronger than the thin tail, resulting in a turn. A canopy flying north should turn to the east if it´s hit be a gust from the west. As air is almost never completly "quite and equal" a canopy should in perfect conditions (canopy perfect, harness perfect, weight in the harness symetrical,...) always fly downwind sooner or later...

So if it´s mostly teenage males who are watching the X games (who are too young to jump), why did the worldwide jumps numbers go down after that drop? Coincidence??

At the WorldCup the best pilots chose about 2.7 for distance in crosswind conditions...

Does anyone know? The fact that the worldwide overall numbers of jumpers and jumps have been going down since about ~2001 - the year the X games dropped skysurfing - I´d like to know why that decision has been made? Financial reasons? TV-viewing figures?

check out "swooping in southern germany"

What was different in your opinion?

If you havn´t had a chance to show up at this first date of the SussexSwoopClub, you better don´t miss the 6th of June! Why? Because Pias Club rules! Big time! Even we over here, on the other side of the pond, in Europe, know that this is just the way it is - and wish we could participate as well! So think about yourself as being damn lucky to live within driving distance and enjoy being part of it! :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q89Wghl9rKg

Did you receive my PM? Here comes the promised video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q89Wghl9rKg The "obstacle" in the background is a telephoneline (no high voltage), you need to fly (from the entrygate) almost 600ft to "get in trouble" due to it. If where is too much of a downwind we just move the gate further away. The gate is just in place where it is right now because from that point we have the same "save amount of distance" in BOTH directions. If you vertical the gate in a way that the telephoneline might become an issue, you still have all the time in the world for a slight righthand-carve into the open. (To the right the line immediatly starts dropping further away and then even ends entirely.)

Some of the lakes close by...