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Would anyone like to share their techniques..? for a good sub term track ( for object separation) in the 4- 7 sec delay range.
Exit technique inparticular..
As it makes a difference please make a note if you are using tacking pants/smoke pants etc.

Cheers...

 
there is some good info on the BaseBoard:
http://www.blincmagazine.com/...ighlight=subterminal

J

Subterminal track is the track you get before 8-10 seconds. Its not really fast and the rules for subterminal track ar totally oposite to the terminal track.

A good thing to think about is your surfice. For a Subterminal track, having a larger surfice works better, its about caching air asap.

After 2-3 seconds you will feel a small draft of wind. this is the "bubble of wind" your on top of. Picture this bubble as a large ball and yourself on top of this ball.

Have your legs a bit separated, totally straight. and your arms streached forward straight in front of your face. Dont look up, look at your feets. After 3-4 seconds beginn to slowly "roll over " the "ball" by pushing your legs and hips down and de-arche your body while moving your arms back in a wide track position.

then its just to push with your thighs and feets, and have your stommach pressed. Allso remember sholders down.

This might be totally wrong for others , but its about what I feel during a subterminal track.
The wide track position works good.

Its also good to be light and tall for this. while its better to be a little bit heavierin a long terminal track.

/martin

I've heard/read a bit about guys tracking from big walls with legs heaps wide and arms kept in close, kind of like a flattened out nauti jump I guess. I had a play with this skydiving over the weekend on some tracking jumps and breaking off from flat ways and was surprised by the amount of forward speed it achieved and also how much lift it produced compared to the guys doing the more conventional style of track (not that I'm anywhere near proficient at it).

So I was wondering in terms of BASE, what sort of delay do you need before this becomes an effective way of flying? My local S/U objects are in the 4-6 sec range so do you really need to be close to terminal or is this a good way of flying when you're subterminal too?

I figure your arms won't be as far back at least because you won't have the lift to support your torso...?

I've only just started looking into this technique so excuse any ignorance.

Cheers

BJ

in my opinion the best sub terminal tracks are accomplished when the jumper can successfully use their exit momentum and transfer it into a track by trying to keep the same forward movement gained from the exit launch.

its critical that you dont enter the tracking position too early and definately not too late. making the transition flow is the key.

being lanky seems to help for those who are. as for track style, i think its a matter of personal preference and seeing what works for you and what your comfortable with. there are a heap of techniques people use that works for them when they are tracking at terminal, same deal with sub-terminal tracking.

you can have the best track in the world but if your exit launch is crap then your sub terminal track will most likely be the same. obviously a running launch will get you the furthest, a few steps next, followed by a one-step-one-foot launch and then the two feet together launch. (all space dependent). if u don't make the track transition well enough its not going to help you in those few (sometimes critical) seconds either. the biggest things that will effect how good the sub terminal track is will probably be the things i mentioned above, not so much whether your legs are at shoulder width or wider or your arms by your side or out a fraction. see what works for you.

tracking pants seem to help a bit, but be aware of them putting you a bit head low. seriously, in the 4-7 sec range a jumper with jeans on and a really good launch will probably get further than a jumper wearing tracking gear who has a weak launch.

Greg

Dwain and Douggs is the best sub terminal trackers I have seen from Petronas. It is the same as Martin is describing Could someone digg up some videos of their exits.


Tracking big walls technices. You see great seperation 5 seconds after exit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDNJ-FxarD4

http://www.youtube.com/...ek#p/u/3/FpRRbfMl2SA
Good angle from Jin mao. Arms above your butt, a bit wider, and legs wide. Trying to be as much as an arrow ass possible. your feet a bit wider than you shoulders as well. On this jump we had cross wind. Those opening in front is wing suits ;-)

At 12.20 you see some sub terminal jumps here
http://www.facebook.com/...o.php?v=196929230598

the biggest influence I've seen is an extremely fast hard horizontal launch. 9on towers! here) i've seen megatrackers with so-so exits tracking and pulling at 5 seconds and compared it to people doing lazy tracks who knew how to mega-exit. The mega-exit more than made up for the poor tracking ability. Note however, no assistance items like tracking clothing was used by the jumpers I'm talking about.

Check out the jumper at 5:50 on this video

http://www.basejumper.com/videos/Earth/Watch_your_step__264.html

I think this might be the best sub terminal track I've ever seen. His body position is very narrow, unlike the wide tracking style that has become very popular ever since superterminal came out (coincidence?).

I think that this shows that good tracking (terminal or subterminal) has little to do with emulating some magic body position, but finding the position that works best for you.

I also believe that the overall angle of your body is going to be more important than how wide you splay your arms and your legs.

To get back to your original question, The subterminal technique that works best for me is creating forward motion with the launch, rotating my body forward at just the correct rate so as to go quickly into the optimal angle of attack (for me it is about 30 degrees head below horizontal, if that makes ense) without rotating past the optimal AOA. If I feel like I need to bend my legs after exit, this probably means that I rotated forward to quickly and went head low. I am pretty confident that the quickest way to start moving forward is to assume the optimal angle of attack as quickly as possible.

This all takes a lot of practice to do consistently.

I also think that people (skydivers more often than BASE jumpers) generally don't track steep enough to achieve the best possible forward speed.

Hope that helps.

One more thing on a side note...

I've seen people mention a few times that splaying out your arms and legs increases your surface area. I can see how this can be true if you are using superterminal style tracking pants with bungee cords, but it doesn't make much sense in any other scenario that I can think of. Or maybe I'm just missing something. Can someone enlighten me?

There's a pretty similar track in NIGHT139's DVD during the "alternative dropzone" segment. It seems very effective for her, and some of that can be seen in this youtube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR3N1Xh_r94

From my experience this is the only true advice that can be said about (subterminal) tracking. Find your own style, the style that works for YOU and don't try to copy somebody else. Look at (any) two different jumpers and compare their dimensios; arm, leg, torso length, heavily / lightly built and so on. The center of mass between two individuals can be vastly different. Add up different setups they are using, smoke pants, tracking suit what ever and you will have infinite amount of combinations that each require it's own technique to get the maximum performance out of it. But for me that's one of the beauties in BASE jumping, people can give you ideas and things to try out but ultimately the jumper alone needs to decide what works for him. :)


I also agree on that 100%. For me it has always felt that secret of good subterminal track is in the launch. I launch as hard as I can (always run if possible) and try launch flat and out, not up and try not to bend the legs at all. Like the quoted jumper, after the launch I push my head down (chin to chest) and try to rotate my body into the optimal AOA, all the time keeping my body straight and flat. As the quoted jumper said, it takes to learn to do a good launch and transition into track but when you hit it, it's going to be sweet. :)