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What is the best little setup I can stuff several of in a cargo pocket and toss over the exit point as a wind drift indicator? Or toss at various parts of a climb to check winds at various levels (such as opening altitude?)

Spit, safety tape, toilet paper, plastic sheeting and cardboard just don't seem that effective...neither does drywall, drywall mud, aluminum cans or most other things I can find laying around objects....Urine is cool in a WS sort of way, but even it doesn't really work.

TP is not working for you ?

damn dude.

smoke is pretty much the best and only thing you can get to see EXACTLY what air is doing.

but,,, damn bro, I don't think NPS rangers and cops will look highly on this.

white napkin tied in a knot

I've heard of talcum powder.

What are you doing online Emo-Kid??


Did Fat-Tony not put out last night??

at night I like to use small glow sticks, in the day it's spit or TP. Although the best WDI is your buddy!

I like to keep a wad of TP in my pocket. Try taking along some pebbles with you. The TP flies better with a little weight twisted up in it.

Go to the local toy or sports store and buy a six pack of Whiffle Balls (Softball sized). Take them home and paint them bright orange or yellow...unless they already came that way.

Although they do take up more room than the usual wind indicating tools, they are light, can be strung together and carried like a necklace, easy to watch all the way down, and will supply the wind info at differing levels that you're looking for.

If it's for night jumps, place a couple of those very small glo sticks inside the whiffle ball before pitching it off.

Also easy to spot for retrieval from the base of the object, and will float if in water.

BASE359

If you are in the city, I found that using a large plastic lid of a soda cup with a long straw falls great. Also when it hits the street, no one is wondering what it is or where it came from!

McDonalds napkins are a perfect WDI. Just open it up all the way, tie a knot at the bottom of it, and spit on it to give it some weight. You can see them fine at night, and nobody thinks anything of it if they see one lying around. You can fit lots of them in your pocket or wherever, they're biodegradable in case you don't pick them up after as well.
If your jumping in the winter and there's snow on the ground, switch to Wendys napkins they're yellow and stand out against the white background.

You can fine tune them for different winds too. If it's windy just move the knot up higher to give it less drag and add more spit for weight, and if there's light winds move your knot down as close to the bottom as you can, and less weight on it

rocks and emty beer botles work the best for me

Wow, there are some great ideas in this thread, but a lot of this seems like overkill to me, and I'd like to hear some thoughts on how you put all this information together at the exit point. Here's roughly how my assessment of wind conditions usually goes:

First, I take a look at the forecast and, if they're available, more detailed charts showing highs and lows, isobars, etc. This gives me an idea of the "really big" picture--what might be moving in or out, how stable I can expect conditions to be, and so on. This usually gives me an idea if it's even worth leaving the house, but it also forms a context for other things I observe later on.

If that all looks good, I'll head out to the object. I can get a feel for the variability of the wind, as well as how it interacts with the object, on the way up. If it's daytime, I also keep an eye on the sky. Changes in clouds, in particular, help me to confirm what I might have seen on the weather charts. If all the information lines up, I feel a little more confident about the big picture. If some of the information is conflicting, it makes me more cautious about the rest.

When I get to the top, I take a look around for trees, lakes, flags, smoke, etc. depending on what the situation has to offer. These can give me an idea what the current conditions are at a distance, and can tell me how quickly changes move from one place to another.

I also get a lot of information from the sound of the wind around me. Most often, this is helpful for understanding how variable the wind is. If I'm jumping in the mountains, it's been my experience that the column of air hundreds of feet from the cliff can give me a lot more trouble than the one I'm falling/opening in. A canopy that's collapsing all the time sucks.

Finally, I'll usually do some spit tests from the exit point, mainly to understand the bulk movement of the air I'm jumping into. On a cliff or building, usually this just helps me verify any crosswind I might feel, or determine if there is a headwind which is being ramped up the wall.

On a bridge or antenna, a spit test can help confirm what I already know about the wind speed, but honestly, in that situation it's more habitual than anything, and doesn't usually make or break my decision to jump.

So I guess what I'm thinking is, by the time I get to the spit test, I generally have many other sources of information which tell me what the conditions look like. There's often a huge amount of variability in the wind, so the kind of information I'm looking for isn't very precise. It's more like I'm trying to figure out if the huge mass of air I'm about to jump into is generally friendly. Even the best WDI is only giving you a limited amount of information about a very small spatial and temporal sample (i.e. the winds along the line of fall of the WDI during the time it fell).

It seems like some of you are putting a fair amount of effort into your WDI's. How is the extra effort is justified by the information you gain compared to spitting or throwing a wet piece of paper?

Michael

Mainly interested in headwinds of any magnitude off an urban object in low light conditions...

Unfortunately many of the visual clues you speak of are nullified in an urban setting due to low light (nightime), lack of big trees, interference from other objects etc.

In particular, I have come to be extremely wary of flags...especially single ones...in an urban setting. Too often I've seen a row of flags where some are humming while others aren't fluttering at all.

I'm not too keen at chucking glowsticks around...on a less than legal object you'd have to re-enter to gather your tools if the LZ is outside the perimeter. That's cool if you're double packed and the object permits...but I haven't found too many B's that you could jump all night with impunity. (Actually, only one)

If I see a row of flags doing that, I'm probably not jumping, no matter what the WDI tells me.

A WDI will tell me what the winds are doing in the column of air it falls through, but there's an excellent chance I won't be landing in that column of air. So unless I have some assurance that the conditions are stable, based on broader observations, I can't really extrapolate from WDI data to the big air mass I'll be flying through. In unstable conditions, a WDI can be worse than useless, because it can lead us to believe we know more than we do about the larger air mass.

On the flip side, if I do have a strong assurance of stability, then I can probably assume the results of my spit test at the top of the object hold for the entire air mass. In that case, more detailed WDI data doesn't really add anything new.

I can totally understand the need to assess headwinds, but I would have thought simply throwing a bit of wet napkin would take care of that. Some of the solutions posted here seem suited to much more detailed observations. That makes me wonder what these folks are observing, and how it weighs into their decisions at the top of the object.

Michael

although not readily accessible it easy to plan for picking up some helium baloons. Ground crew lets them go and up they come................