Nick Batch swoops 665 feet

[Spizzzarko 0]

Paul is spot on with his argument here. Canopy technology is leaping ahead of those who can fly it by leaps and bounds. So if some one breaks 1,000' by just the canopy then this is not a testament to their skill. Hell what is to keep some one from putting a slider on a paraglider wing, exiting an aircraft and swooping that in a distance competition? I'm sure the paraglider canopy would fly pretty damn far.

[AggieDave 6]

Quote

Hell what is to keep some one from putting a slider on a paraglider wing, exiting an aircraft and swooping that in a distance competition? I'm sure the paraglider canopy would fly pretty damn far.

I've thought about that and what it would do to swooping. Perhaps in the future we'll not only see wingloading restrictions but aspect ratio restrictions. Or maybe a limit on the number of cells (not divided by bracing, but actual traditional cell counting).

Honestly I see us having a nearly "anything goes" unlimited class then a number of "stock" classes that are divided by weight, jumping a "production" canopy that you can modify (lines, RDS, etc) and a non-x-braced class.

Hell, I'd love to see a sport class that used Sabre2s, Safire2s, etc. Completely stock with full deployment systems, etc.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Spizzzarko 0]

"HMA was really the only difference in the stock velocity to the one the factory pilots were using"

You honestly believe that? Were you there when Jay broke the record? Did you ask him if you could go and measure his lines? I'm sure if you did that he said "Sure, go right ahead dude." Those guys keep their gear fairly tight, and don't let people snoop around it very much.

"so you have all the power to do what you will to make your canopy fly better."

Yea you do, but is it ethical? Does it go against the spirit of the competition? I say it goes against the spirit of the competition, and in the future should be regulated somehow.

"that said most of my comments were about marketing and how to sit in your arm chair and think you know the marketing of a canopy manufacturer and when is the right time to release a new canopy is silly."

What the fuck does it matter whether or not I speculate about PD's marketing strategy. All I was saying is that it doesn't make good business sense to me.

[Spizzzarko 0]

"Hell, I'd love to see a sport class that used Sabre2s, Safire2s, etc. Completely stock with full deployment systems, etc."

Now that is what I'm talking about. That get's down to the purest level of competition. This way people are measured on their skill instead of what kind of wing they can afford. Paul even said that his performance increased by leaps and bounds by just changing wings. I think a class of competition like this would do more to sell canopies to the average skydiver than seeing velocities going close to 700'.

[chachi 0]

Quote

"HMA was really the only difference in the stock velocity to the one the factory pilots were using"

You honestly believe that? Were you there when Jay broke the record? Did you ask him if you could go and measure his lines? I'm sure if you did that he said "Sure, go right ahead dude." Those guys keep their gear fairly tight, and don't let people snoop around it very much.

no i was not there when he broke the record but his amazing feet of distance was much more a feat of skill and additional weight than a canopy. this i know. to sit back and comment about how it was all gear belittles his amazing accomplishment. lots of guys again had all of the exact same options open to them whether it be HMA lines, or your other little things. i doubt no birdal attachment point got Jay M and extra 300 feet. to be truthful that whole team is at a disadvantage with the aspect ratio of the canopy to begin with. do they argue that?

"so you have all the power to do what you will to make your canopy fly better."

Yea you do, but is it ethical? Does it go against the spirit of the competition? I say it goes against the spirit of the competition, and in the future should be regulated somehow.

of course it is ethical. it is so far past ethical it is ingenious. you should always be looking for competitive advantages within the rules to be an elite athlete.

"that said most of my comments were about marketing and how to sit in your arm chair and think you know the marketing of a canopy manufacturer and when is the right time to release a new canopy is silly."

What the fuck does it matter whether or not I speculate about PD's marketing strategy. All I was saying is that it doesn't make good business sense to me.

i don't care. i was making a point that to take the opposite opinion of the most successful canopy manufacturer ever is sort if silly.

[GQ_jumper 4]

no offense but it always amazes me when some average dude

Quote

Alright hold the f'in phone, and go wash your damn mouth out with soap, before this goes any further I'm gonna put my foot down. My dear Mr. chachi, Spizzzarko is no AVERAGE DUDE, he's not just your everyday run of the mill dirtbag. NO no no my friend, Spizzarko is an all new special kind of dirt bag, and don't you forget it. psst, I got ur back Grant

on to the non cross braced category though, oh hell yeah i'd be all about that, i'll be cleaning up every local event in the Iraqi CPC next year

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Quote

[LouDiamond 1]

Quote

Hell what is to keep some one from putting a slider on a paraglider wing, exiting an aircraft and swooping that in a distance competition? I'm sure the paraglider canopy would fly pretty damn far.

It's already been done. Someone just needs to jump one in a comp. With a 6 to 1 GR I get pretty nice landings under a 380sq ft wing, I can only imagine what it would be like if it was smaller.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[Spizzzarko 0]

"no i was not there when he broke the record but his amazing feet of distance was much more a feat of skill and additional weight than a canopy. this i know. to sit back and comment about how it was all gear belittles his amazing accomplishment. lots of guys again had all of the exact same options open to them whether it be HMA lines, or your other little things. i doubt no birdal attachment point got Jay M and extra 300 feet. to be truthful that whole team is at a disadvantage with the aspect ratio of the canopy to begin with. do they argue that?"

Nobody here is discounting the fact that Jay Moledski is tallented, and I'm sure that the bridle attchment point maybe gave him a foot or four more. I'm not going to delve into the aspect ratio argument, because the other side of the coin is the argument of the seven cell vs nine cell planform debate and the drag reduction from less lines. We can discus that in a different thread if you like.

"of course it is ethical. it is so far past ethical it is ingenious. you should always be looking for competitive advantages within the rules to be an elite athlete."

This is where I dissagree with you. Taking advantage of loopholes in the rules doesn't mean it is right. There had to be an instance where people did something that gave them what most of the other competitors felt to be an unfair advantage for rules to be made to curb that practice. Just look at teh weight regulations this season. Appearantly people were thinking that some competitors were taking advantage of this loophole in the rules a little to liberally. You say it yourself "more a feat of skill and additional weight than a canopy". Yes, people can and will take full advantage of loopholes and try to bend the rules to make it fit their needs or interpretations, but it goes against the whole spirit of the competition. In the end you have to ask yourself "Did I win because I was the best, or did I win because I was able to bend the rules in my favor?"

"i don't care. i was making a point that to take the opposite opinion of the most successful canopy manufacturer ever is sort if silly."

Point taken, but if I were the king of PD, I personally would not be releasing the rumored new canopy, and that is all it is just a rumor. Let's not get all huffy and puffy about whethor you are right and I am silly, let's just continue discussing the ethics of swooping.

signed
Grant
Your special dirtbag

[Spizzzarko 0]

"It's already been done. Someone just needs to jump one in a comp. With a 6 to 1 GR"

You see... This is what I mean. Doing stuff like this because the rules don't say that you can't makes having the world record like earning your SCR or SCS award. Hell, people just getting their a licenses are getting these awards. No one with a skydiving canopy would be able to come anywhere near the distance that a paraglider could go. It just de-values the importance of a world record.

[Spizzzarko 0]

"NO no no my friend, Spizzarko is an all new special kind of dirt bag, and don't you forget it. psst, I got ur back Grant"

Dan, I alway knew I could count on you for any thing! Thanks brotha!

[chachi 0]

Quote

"of course it is ethical. it is so far past ethical it is ingenious. you should always be looking for competitive advantages within the rules to be an elite athlete."

This is where I dissagree with you. Taking advantage of loopholes in the rules doesn't mean it is right. There had to be an instance where people did something that gave them what most of the other competitors felt to be an unfair advantage for rules to be made to curb that practice. Just look at teh weight regulations this season. Appearantly people were thinking that some competitors were taking advantage of this loophole in the rules a little to liberally. You say it yourself "more a feat of skill and additional weight than a canopy". Yes, people can and will take full advantage of loopholes and try to bend the rules to make it fit their needs or interpretations, but it goes against the whole spirit of the competition. In the end you have to ask yourself "Did I win because I was the best, or did I win because I was able to bend the rules in my favor?"

let's just continue discussing the ethics of swooping.

cool. but if we are to take your specific example of stock cars then you should know that while there are a million and one parameters that nascar checks after a succesful win there are an equal number of things that teams can work on. it is all about finding a winning combination that works. in Jay's case while he had small details on the canopy i think he found the winning combination of weight to his specific canopy. while you think it may be "skirting the rules" i think it is doing what it takes. he did not cheat nor break a rule, and all other competitiors had the exact same parameters.

on a side note while you think PD is silly for releasing a next big canopy know this. with nick setting what is only a few feet off a record while weighting himself only slightly and on a 79 sq. foot canopy at sea level that shows the real story. he is also not a fully sponsored pilot that is paid to jump and compete for a living.velocities will not continue to be on top for much longer if you put JVX's in the hands of great pilots to work on.

signed
Rob
Your typical dirtbag

[Spizzzarko 0]

"he did not cheat nor break a rule, and all other competitiors had the exact same parameters."

True that! He didn't cheat and far be it for me to call the dude a cheater, but I feel he took advatage of the situation and it is giving him lasting glory. I bet Nick will crush the record soon, but I don't think with the weight restrictions that we will see the huge leaps in distance like we were seeing in the past. As far as the modded canopies go, I think we are not hearing that much flack about it because the of the weight restrictions leveling the playing field. I think the weight restrictions did a lot more to check the distances of swoops than people realize. Now if people make huge changes in their canopy that is not readily available to the market then we may see some enforcment of new rules, but I don't see that happening for a little while. I know Jim mentioned something like that on his sight when they were talking about instituting a weight restriction rule. Maybe we will never see this come to a head.

PD may feel that their pilots have maxed the velocity out, so they may be releasing their canopy. I do not have the insider information on cool things such as that. News about stuff get's here to Colorado about one year after it happens. Hell we just made the change from rounds to squares a year and a half ago! hahaha


The Special Dirtbag

[bob.dino 1]

Quote

Hell what is to keep some one from putting a slider on a paraglider wing, exiting an aircraft and swooping that in a distance competition? I'm sure the paraglider canopy would fly pretty damn far.

Make 'em fly the same wing (& same amount of weight) in each event. That paraglider may kick arse in distance, but it'll screw you in speed...

[proswooper 2]

Quote

HMA was really the only difference in the stock velocity to the one the factory pilots were using.

This is absolutely true and i had no problem with that.

What i had a problem with was in february 05 the PD factory team (who are all close friends of mine) received canopies that had more advanced changes that went into cell structure as well as lines.

I agree being on a factory team should have its advantages but not in competition where that technology is not available to ALL competitors.

Swoop competitions should be exactly that: an event to see who has flown better for that competition. If it comes down to who has better toys because of what factory team they fly for, then it really becomes a marketing event and not a "competition"

I think that the perks to being on a factory team should be limited to being able to travel around the world swooping on the company budget and making awesome videos. leave the developmental canopies to the test specific pilots or have an ultra class for that. my point is .. make it fair.

[polarbear 1]

Quote

I agree being on a factory team should have its advantages but not in competition where that technology is not available to ALL competitors.

Swoop competitions should be exactly that: an event to see who has flown better for that competition. If it comes down to who has better toys because of what factory team they fly for, then it really becomes a marketing event and not a "competition"

I think that the perks to being on a factory team should be limited to being able to travel around the world swooping on the company budget and making awesome videos. leave the developmental canopies to the test specific pilots or have an ultra class for that. my point is .. make it fair.

Right on. It's kind of a tough call to make...on the one hand, I like seeing the various manufacturers trying new things to improve parachute performance. On the other hand, I think it's unfair to have some competitiors using equipment that isn't available to the rest of the field. Even if all the mods are only worth 5% more performance, the guy with the modified canopy can be that much more conservative/sloppy and the guy with the stock canopy has to be that much more on his game to come out ahead.

"Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

[polarbear 1]

Quote

cool. but if we are to take your specific example of stock cars then you should know that while there are a million and one parameters that nascar checks after a succesful win there are an equal number of things that teams can work on. it is all about finding a winning combination that works. in Jay's case while he had small details on the canopy i think he found the winning combination of weight to his specific canopy. while you think it may be "skirting the rules" i think it is doing what it takes. he did not cheat nor break a rule, and all other competitiors had the exact same parameters.

This is true, but I still think there is a major unfair advantage to a factory team. Let's face it, the vast majority of us aren't really going to be able to modify our canopies. We wouldn't know how to modify a canopy for better performance, nor do we have the equipment or skills to make a change to a complex parachute like a cross-braced canopy, nor do we have the money to afford experimenting with changes. For most of us, if we go in and start cutting stuff up to modify it and screw up, how many of us can just shrug that off and start over with a new canopy? Not many.

It's a big advantage if you have a manufacturer backing you. They have the knowledge, they have the equipment, and they pay for it.

As I said in my previous post, it's a tough call...on the one hand I like seeing these manufacturers working on tweaking a wing for better performance. On the other hand, I think things have to be fair.

"Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

[Swooopa-x 0]

for all:
how much weight was j wearin when he set the current record???
Wasnt it befor the new weight restrictions???
just curious.

People dont care how much you know until they know how much you care.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

When I started this thread I never intended it to become a PD versus Dadeleus thing-a-ma-bob. I just wanted to spread the word about what Nick did (which in my pea sized brain is pretty bad-ass no matter what canopy he choose to fly). In fact all one needs to do is watch Nick throw down some freestyle moves to know how good he is and how good he will become in the years to come. Instead of comparing Velos to JVXs maybe some of you guys should be comparing some of the new PST blood to the old blood. The old blood is still very talented, but there are a number of new faces who are here to stay (well maybe not me, but new guys like Nick, John Z and of course many many others).

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[justchrisdsp 0]

does anyone here watch formula 1 racing. this same debate has been going on in formula 1 for the last 5 or so years. little background
the big team in formula 1 is ferrari, they have big bucks to shove at their race team so they always have the best toys and they always win. michael shumacher won like 5 championships in a row. noone denied that he was a good driver, what people were mad about was that the team he drove for had so much more money and development than the other teams in the circuit that noone could even come close to winning. so what did the formula 1 rules committee do? they leveled the playing field. not in the design of the cars but in some of the little details, namely the fact that you have to run the same tires through practice and the race and a few other tiny changes, shumacher still wins but now its cause he is the best driver, the great thing is that everyone else has the same chance to win and you know what happened? the driving got better, the fans got back into it, and the whole sport was renewed with a newfound excitement

so what does this have to do with swooping? the pd factory pilots are the best, everyone will agree to that, but i have to admit that it makes someone like me who wants to come up in the sport of swooping a little cautious because i know that i will never be able to get to the same playing field as those guys for a very fundamental reason and that is that i will never be given the chance to fly the same wings. i will never get to compete on the same playing field. so what did swooping do. they leveled the playing field with the weight restrictions.
now as far as what the pd factory team does to their factory pilots canopies, thats up to them, make no mistake guys, this is a business, and these guys are akin to a race team, they are constantly trying to win, and i cannot and will not fault them for that, i will say that i feel left out by pd by the fact that i know i can never fly what they consider their best wing, but guess what, if i want fly someone's best wing i will go for daedelus or precision or maybe even aerodyne's future stuff, as for right now i havent made the leap for the crossbraced stuff so i can jump what i think is the best non-crossbraced canopy on the market, the mamba,
if aerodyne came to me and said " hey, we have this suped up mamba for you to jump and win with" i would take it in a heart beat

i guess what i am trying to say here is that pd has the right to modify their canopies and give that modified canopy to whoever they want, i think it is in no way the responsibility of the swooping rules committee to tell a manufacturer what and how to manufacter a canopy. at the same time i feel that the manufacturers have a responsibility to their consumers to give the consumer the absolute best possible product for the money.

oh yeah, to nick, sick distance,one day i hope to be able to do half that and i'm sorry that the thread intended to honor your accomplishment has been reduced to this

The only bad skydive is your last!
chris "sonic wookie" harwell
Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

[Spizzzarko 0]

I don't think this is becoming a PD V Daudelous thread (unless you want to make it one and piss off the moderator). I think it is a good discussion of current situation with modified canopies. We all know that the Velocity is a bad ass canopy. The jvx seems to be doing pretty well and is showing a lot of promise. Maybe PD will start to offer the velocity in sail material if they find that the thicker material gives a performance advantage or if JVX's start winning a lot more.

[jurgencamps 0]

And never forget that a swoop competition is distance, speed and accuracy. So even if one canopy has the ability to swoop further than the other one, ...

[Wharewaka 0]

oh yeah, to nick, sick distance,one day i hope to be able to do half that and i'm sorry that the thread intended to honor your accomplishment has been reduced to this

[marks 0]

Quote

oh yeah, to nick, sick distance,one day i hope to be able to do half that and i'm sorry that the thread intended to honor your accomplishment has been reduced to this

Aii! Agree, the man swooped longer than everyone except one! Fucking awesome! CONGRATULATIONS! And we can all buy a canopy just like it and a canopy just like(or atleast very, very close to) the one that swooped a tiny bit longer. We are all in envy of the talent, not the canopies.

[Spizzzarko 0]

You are absolutley correct, but there is also no rule in place preventing you from changing canopies for every event either. What is to keep someone from putting on a paraglider with a slider for distance? A 75 Velocity for speed and a 135 Sabre 2 for accuracy?

Jim Slaton has recomended that you use different canopies for the different events. Most of us do not have the luxury of having event specific canopies so we suffice with one. I think that if a competition limited competitors to one canopy throughout the entire event it would be a better indicator of competitor skill, but that's just me.

[ntacfreefly 0]

I like the idea of one canopy per competition. To me, it adds an additiona strategical element to it. I believe in F1 the tires (type) you qualify for a race on are the ones you have to race on - regardless of how the conditions change.

It requires a little planning, etc but I think it's a cool idea.

Blues,
Ian

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. ~ Lao-Tzu

It's all good, they're my brothers ~ Mariann Kramer