Basejumper.com - archive

not this dude...
http://www.youtube.com/...amp;feature=youtu.be

funny cause i was reading a discussion about the most efficient track position and experimenting with my track in the sky environment lately.............

you can see when they do that slow-mo flyby that he is slightly bent at the waist and his arms are elevated, this seems to be the most efficient tracking position (at terminal airspeeds)........
my track got much faster and more efficient when i started to bend at the hips slightly............

amazing skills in that video

i dont think he's going for max efficiency, the slight changes in body position in a proximity flight would be different than going for max glide/speed or whatever it is that you consider efficient, you are placing yourself in a position to pass by the rock or ledge , sometimes this position will be dirty, sometimes clean.

yea totally sweet awesome vid but needs more go pros!

In all seriousness, beautiful video and nicely done track by a skilled jumper, but it's ironic in that someone that just died on that very same cliff (ITW) doing nearly the same thing (low fly by of videographer) on likely the exact same slope.

This needs to go in the incidents forum... because I just had an incident in my undies.

arms elevated is for diving and speedjust like wingsuiting you never want to be flying over a ledge in max glide because if you come up short you have no better glide angle to go to, Max glide will be more arms down by hips. Very nice track with some room for error, nicely done.

If you were French you would be a much better tracker!

The most efficient arm position would be the one that offers the least amount of frontal area to surface area ie. arms by your sides. I do not believe that is what he is trying to achieve here.

For sure a slight de-arch helps. Not hard to achieve, just takes discipline. I think the biggest mistake people make in regards to tracking is thinking they are de-arched (or possibly even de-arching their lower body) but are still plowing a lot of air off of their chest. The old school teaching of simply tucking your chin down does not guarantee you will be de-arching your upper body. It takes discipline to critic yourself and ensure that your technique is actually effective.

.......you can see when they do that slow-mo flyby that he is slightly bent at the waist and his arms are elevated, this seems to be the most efficient tracking position (at terminal airspeeds)........
my track got much faster and more efficient when i started to bend at the hips slightly............

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Maybe I missed something that may have changed through the years, but here's how we did it back in my days:

Reverse your arch, bend slightly forward at the hips, legs somewhat straight, shoulders forward and arms at your side or slightly flared with hands pronated and cupped. I learned that in the early '60s. Has it somehow become a lost art since the advent of wingsuits? You guys may remember that I'm one of the two guys who supposedly base jumped from the El Capitan before tracking was invented. I've been away from parachuting for a while, but that's how we did it back in my day.

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Those of you who have Karr on facebook might have heard that he tracked the course for WWL race in China ;) Way to go :)

so if i understand what you are saying, tracking efficiently but NOT in max glide will leave you a tiny margin for error in case you are coming up slightly short, to where you could then max it out and hope to clear a ledge?

also Jbag, (not that i have/will ever even consider proximity flying in this life), are you saying that throughout the different changes in terrain in proximity flying, people are changing their body positions and glide angles throughout the flight?

this is an interesting conversation

absolutly had a conversation with karr himself in moab about this for tracking and wingsuits

Yes, the extra speed from being steeper than max glide can be used to flare out to a high but temporary glide. You will see a lot of trackers do this before deployment, trade the forward speed for lift and pitch just before the stall. Tracking suits are basically small wingsuits, the range of gilde is more limited but potential for speed is high as you can see in this video.