TRACK!

[Jolly Jumper]

Hi there! a little report from Norway at the end of the season; This year we have seen a revolution in
tracking! Norway has always had a tradition in skijumping, some of the jumpers has taken up BASE, and wow! does it move!! This is the trick:rotate your feet outwards! by doing this you present the inside of your legs towards the vind-pressure. Look at the new techniques in skiflying, the skis are kept in a delta shape position instead of a broad parallel-to-body position. This, I guess, is to
gain the extra surface. Beside this, it looks like a little broader legs and arms position is working.
It is very difficult to argue with Stein Olsen about this; He tracked app.. 900m (3000ft) with ca 900m total drop!!! moving the record in Karlskraatind
Romsdal from 17s to 30s!!!!!.
He is 180 cm tall and weigh in on 78 kg, nothing unusual about that! (no booties, slicksuit, just a plain outfit) After this jump, all the jumpers
walk around on the exit prior to jump, looking like penguins! Later a girl smashed the record (31) humiliating the machos!
(you hit water at Kjeraag at 24)
N.B try it out! it really works!
:o

[guest]

This is just such excellent stuff. I can't wait to try. I can track pretty good myself, but haven't had that much experience on big walls. I have most experience from exit #6 in Lysebotn when it comes to big wall tracking, easily reaching the water within 15 secs.

My technique sounds quite different. I got really slim, sort of arrow shape to get maximum forward speed, had my arms tucked in real close to my body and legs tight together with a very pronouced hump. I wonder if my technique got good forward speed at the expense of glide ratio and freefall time. Perhaps the Norwegian technique generates more lift and gets a flatter glide, but with a lesser forward velocity component? Who knows? I'd like to hear from the guy and from others like Douggs who out tracked the talus at Smellveggen and almost reached the water from number 5 on another jump.

One thing I am pretty sure of though is that good strength is needed, ie rigidity in the body position and that skinny people will beat fatter people on average because they have lower wingloading.

But tonight from 380 feet this is hardly applicable :-), Lonnie and Anthony would be proud of me.

/Lukas

[Jolly Jumper]

I am not sure what's the best... but lets have fun sorting it out! I guess your forward/fall-rate-theory might be right, the girl looked like a bullet tough!
4 walls so far with 30+, Kjerag is left at the car-park.

[guest]

i know two ways of tracking with my hands and i dont know which one is better.

1) arms really close to the body (face of the palms is forward) and bend my arms from the elbow and on a little bit in (towards the face). the part from the elbow and up is not moving and stayin close to the body!

2)arms not so close to the body but with that not so far (about the same angel that ur legs are spread). turn the back of the palms in towards the legs. when u do this notice that ur shoulders are in De-arch position and u r cozin' a kinda turbulant inside of u (if u like it or not). this causes a great push forward !

Which one got more horizonal speed ?
should i combine the legs stuff with this track ?


Blue Skies
Dan Mordechay
A-37509

E-mail : jumpingmindcool@hotmail.com

[guest]

All I can say is that your focus should be your legs as they are generating about 80% of your lift, together with your hips. Look at ski jumpers, sometimes their arms might waiver a little, but their hump and rigidity seems to be the important factor.

Another theory. Booties might get you going slightly faster, but they will hamper your max track in the end. Who ever heard of an aeroplane getting greater performance from larger elevator flaps ? I think the flattest glide, but not necessarily the longest delay, will come from a tight slick suit.

/Lukas

[Jolly Jumper]

Sorry if I sounded as some sort of expert in this! I`m not. I just seen those amacing track`s and tried it a couple of bigwall-jumps (had a feeling of more lift) The main point was that Skiflying is a more interresting place to look than sky-diving. At the university were I work (lecturing arkitecture) it`s vindtunnel-testing going on, for skijumpers on the olympic team. I think this is were you find the pro`s on subterminal and terminal track!

[Ebbe3]

Concerning tracking and slick-suit. I do not know if it is right to compare tracking capabilities with golf-balls and spears. The golf balls are not slick and and it is not allowed to use spears with "golf-ball-surface" because they had a tendency to go longer than the regular ones. Air-resistance. Concerning flaps on planes I guess they are used to get maximum lift with minimum vertical speed. (Bernoulli s law.)
have a good one !
ebbe3

[guest]

I have found that the "Yuri" Birdman classic position significantly improves no-wingsuit tracking performance during airplane skydives.

I jump from the plane and assume that position - a good bend-at-the-waist "hump," legs spread, arms out and down the way you do with a Classic - and it was really noticeable, even at high altitude, that I was making much bbetter horizontal distance than with a "classic" track.

I don't think I turned my feet out ala ski jumpers, but it makes sense -- and you know, if you are flexible enough to really get your feet flat in relation to the ground, it seems like booties would actually be a benefit.

Anyway, congratulations to everyone had all the great accomplishments this year.

Robin