atair | WingsuitLearn https://wingsuitlearn.com WingsuitLearn Tue, 02 Feb 2021 15:21:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5 https://i1.wp.com/wingsuitlearn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-WingsuitLearn-Favicon.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 atair | WingsuitLearn https://wingsuitlearn.com 32 32 187115051 Line Twists https://wingsuitlearn.com/2020/12/02/line-twists/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=line-twists https://wingsuitlearn.com/2020/12/02/line-twists/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2020 06:44:53 +0000 https://wingsuitlearn.com/?p=104 Line twists are not a fun experience, perhaps a little exciting though. If you skydive long enough, you will end up in line twists eventually. With wingsuiting, line twists can be a bigger problem.

Today, we will learn how to get out of line twists under a stable canopy. I’ll show you a video and explain the step-by-step procedure for fixing the issue. This was explained to me when I started wingsuiting, and it has worked consistently for me. Shout out to Marie Clark for teaching me this one. I also hear this advice from others, and it seems to be fairly universal for wingsuiters. Those belly guys need to figure this one out, kicking out of line twists is just dumb once you learn the right way.

At the end, I will also show you some line twists that this technique won’t work for (i.e. cut it away!!).

  1. You’ll see in this video as I flare to my deployment, and I keep my gaze to the horizon, that my canopy opens with a twist already in it. By the time I see the lines, they are already twisted. This could be due to body position or a funky pack job. Most likely it’s a body position issue that caused my D-bag to twist during extraction. Either way, it’s my fault because I packed it.
  2. Then you may notice the canopy is slightly turned downward to one side while it fully inflates. This had me worried that it would turn down and begin a spiral. Luckily, it did not. Thank god (and Atair) that I’m flying a 7-cell. (check out the video below for 9-cell performance during line twists)
  3. As usually happens, the force of your body continues the spin a little bit. To stop this, put your arms out wide and make yourself big. I did this, and I stopped spinning.
  4. It looks like it wants to correct itself when it untwists a little bit. I thought it would go all the way at the time, but it apparently did not. My first mistake was thinking it would correct itself, and I didn’t unzip my arms right away.
  5. Second mistake happens immediately following, I only unzipped one arm. I try to reach my left hand through the risers and spin myself free. Instead, I put some input on that riser and turned the canopy, no bueno. I could have induced a dive, lucky again.
  6. You may notice the risers are offset by a decent amount, couple inches. Looking back, I am amazed that the canopy was flying straight and level. And my idiotic self pulled on the low riser, making it more likely it would dive, and it did a little bit. See that horizon, hear me say “Whoa!”? Bad sign when the canopy starts turning down.
  7. Now, we get to what I did correctly. After using one hand did not work, I turned on the risers to bring the twists from the lines to the risers. I then unzipped the other arm. This is the opposite order, and I should have done my arm first. The thought process was I wanted to stop that dive, even if I only had one hand to do it (wrong!)
  8. Magically, a second hand appears in the frame. After the twists are moved to the risers, instead of the lines, it becomes much easier to use the risers to turn your body.
  9. Pushing on the riser farthest from you will cause you to spin in the correct direction. This is the riser that is on the backside of the twist. Reach above the riser twist and push on the far riser. It worked so easy in this video, and this has been my experience every time using this technique.
  10. You will also notice that one push did not get me all the way around. I had to push on them again to keep myself spinning in the right direction.

This video shows this technique works with more than just a couple twists. This is a 9-cell canopy, which is never recommended for wingsuiting. As another tip, you may notice in this video that I am pulling on the close riser instead of pushing on the far riser. That is bad technique and can induce a dive because you are pulling on one of the risers, and you could put unintended inputs on the canopy, causing a downward spiral.

This was my first ever cutaway in August 2019. Spinning, diving, line twists.

There wasn’t much I could do but cut it away. I got totally luck and my cutaway handle stay attached to something. I sure as hell wasn’t holding it, as you can see. A 9-cell canopy will do this much more often than a 7-cell.

This was my second cutaway in May 2020. This was my last one. Total: 2 cutaways for me.

This one was much more violent than the first one, and it had many more twists. The only choice was to cutaway.

But, you can also choose to ride it for a little bit like I did. The uppers (i.e. winds aloft) were high that day, and I was at 3500ft. I rode it down to 2500ft before I cutaway. My canopy still ended up more than 2 miles from the DZ.

Another important aspect of wingsuiting: when you see your friend cutaway, follow his canopy to the ground! I couldn’t see the canopy because it was above me, and luckily my friend Ladd landed with it. I have followed a canopy before also. It’s the right thing to do.

That’s all folks. Hope you learned something, and that you will be prepared when line twists happen to you.

Blue Skies,

-WingsuitLearn

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