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Hi there,

I am due to make some terminal jumps in Norway this year and have have made most of my 30 jumps in the 1-5 second delay range and never made any jumps where i have had to track.


I plan to obviously practice on skydives etc, but i am looking for peoples thoughts on the most efficient sub terminal / terminal base tracking position.

I don't plan at this point to be using tracking or smoking pants.......except from my baggy freefly pants.

Any big wall jumpers that can give helpful advice, I would really appreciate.

.

Search function for terms "tracking" & "sub terminal tracking" here and also on blincmagazine.com.

I also recommend you make some group track jumps and if you have $$ jumps with your local freefly instructor and get him to make you work

J

Knock yourself up!

http://www.blincmagazine.com/...p;highlight=tracking
http://www.blincmagazine.com/...p;highlight=tracking
http://www.blincmagazine.com/...p;highlight=tracking
http://www.blincmagazine.com/...owthread.php?t=21501
http://www.blincmagazine.com/...owthread.php?t=18156
http://www.blincmagazine.com/...owthread.php?t=21636
http://www.blincmagazine.com/...owthread.php?t=21407

Put on your RW-suit and use those booties!

Booties make a lot of difference, a good tracker with booties will by far outtrack a bad tracker with Pantz or smokepants.

Freefly pants... well, you really need to be a good tracker if you want to get moving in those. Even though Kjerag is high and you get plenty of freefall, you DO want to get away from that wall.

When it comes to technique it depends on what you're wearing. The classic "legs and arms together" will work with the RW-suit and booties. A wider arms and legs position is probably preferred if you use smoke pants. Nothing will really help if you jump a freeflysuit

/Micke N

Comparing a good tracker and a bad tracker is confusing tho.

All things being equal, pantz > booties.

        get some pants mate ...!!!

 

Plenty of people that can teach you to track, not just your local freefly Instructor as some suggested.
There are plenty of RW people that can teach you also.

Doing some solo, 2 way or larger tracking skydives will definitly help you refine your body position and also let you find the best body position that works for your body structure, to achieve maximum performance.
But it will not help you find the correct position for sub-terminal exits such as in Norway.

Try getting ballon jumps or do a short trip to TF to get the sub-terminal exits down.

Many people believe Kjerag is just like a 3000ft skydive......it's NOT.

Be safe.
Ed

What Ed said... and when you're doing a 2 way track dive, track as fast as you can, not just relative to each other, really go for it.

Spend some skydives in a max track. Go all-out.

Just track your ass off the whole way and feel out what is working better. You can actually learn a lot in a couple days doing that.



edit: in a couple days of tracking practice, I found I could easily smoke hookitt.

Not really. I've done 200 jumps at Kjerag, 150 using booties. When I bought the Pantz I put 100 skydives on them before using them at Kjerag and they definitely did not get me any further. Then I put some small booties on the Pantz, almost closed the leg inlet, and put on a mini-wing (really small)... and they kicked ass! Almost took me to the grassy landing area

So... no, the Pantz does not work better than booties as is, but with some minor modifications... Yes!

/Micke

I've been called out

Ok Chad, we'll race sometime.

One of my teachers told me when I could pass cars on the freeway, I could do a terminal jump. No one would ever guess someone is passing them 10,000' above them..

oh man... I was just playing... hehe... okay?

Just rember only to pass them in one direction..

I didn't realise you were a BASE jumper also Ed.

Is it legal to jump the with skydiving rig?

I know base rig would be better and safer there.

I dont believe there to be such a law, but you hit it on the head though, by saying it is safer to use a BASE rig. You could though use a Sorcerer, which uses 2 BASE mains.

What is the benefit to use that? I`d track away and open high like 700+m.

possibly having to land in a tight landing area.........

Kris.

Let's not forget the affects of the overstuffed fanny pack thats like a lunch box strapped to your waste. I don't have very many terminal jumps but I could tell a difference when I jumped without it.

What kind of pantz are you referring to?

I'm guessing by the spelling that you've got the Birdman ones?

Truthfully, I'd say booties are probably better than those things. But a real pair of tracking pants (even home made) works way better for me than booties.

I wonder if anyone has tried just the bottom of a prodigy yet?

You don't have to be a BASE jumper to understand that basic truth. And it's to all of our advantage if experienced skydivers understand it as well, because when the young jumper at the DZ is wanting to take a trip there, he's way more likely to ask Ed about it than, say, me, because he knows Ed and sees him at the DZ all the time.

You may already know this Tom, but I am pretty sure Ed BASE jumps also. I saw him wearing a BASE T-shirt at the Birdman Boogie in Dec 2004 and asked him.

Kris.

Was...

Last trip to Norway was 96. I hurt my knee and had to stop hiking, so after a couple days of hobbling around Lysboten I arranged a local helo that I saw buzzing around, flying in heavy equipment.
And with numerous faxes to the Norwegian Commune and land owners I got permission for Rolf to lift us all to the top for the next few days.

Dont anymore. Never got my B thought.


Be safe.
Ed

Once a BASE jumper, always a BASE jumper is what I say.

You're just taking a break

Please go to www.basekjerag.com and read all the pages. There are some specific guidelines there that you MUST know before arriving at Kjerag, such as "skydiving gear is not allowed, you must you BASE-specific gear at Kjerag and Smellveggen". If you really prefer a 2 parachute system, the Scorcerer is the only one you will be allowed to use there.

Please note, people, that Stein Edvardsen has put a LOT of work into creating the baseKjerag website to help people come to Norway informed and prepared. Please take the time to read the website fully and contact Stein or Vibeke with any questions you may have AFTER reading the website thoroughly. I'm amazed at the amount of people that go over there without doing their homework. Just yesterday a man came by the shop and said he was going to Norway in June, and wanted a POD for his skydiving rig....

Peace...
K

 


I dont know him Tom.

I do know Timmy (Hookiit) though.



Be safe.
Ed

I was wondering about that too..

Wouldn't you be more likely to be head low, having all that lift at the rear though ?

Thanks.

Yes, I'm referring to the BirdMan Pantz. At it's best they equal the performance you get with booties, but many times they don't inflate at all giving no extra boost. I'm talking about BASE here, but on skydives they always inflate. I guess the sudden terminal wind in skydiving make them inflate easier.

The modifications I made was very simple but made all the difference. I put small booties on, that gave the Pantz stability from the toes and up. I also closed most of the lowerleg inlets. I've found (by playing around with smokepants) that too large lowerleg inlets don't work, it's like putting a PC on each leg, it will inflate but not help the track. And last, I put a really small wing between the legs, just enough to help spread the fabric of the legs giving a wider and more stable surface.

As stated earlier, these small modifications made the Pantz hot! If I was the kind of guy that takes it all the way down, like Atle and the guys , I probably would have opened at the edge of the main landing area (talking about Kjerag here), but since I'm old and slow I had to pull a little higher...

/Micke

I saw enough in Lukas's movies to know that neither of those is true. Team Bautasten still rules.

you must be one hell of a tracker then