The Flight Log - Newletter May/Jun 2006

Written by: Brett Edlen	Jumping Higher, A Tutorial
	A trip out to the east coast made me re-look at the way some people are riding.... made me realize how influential those videos that Jake K made so long ago. The target here is "the stomp". I'm going to stick my neck out and say that the "stomp" as we know it is old school, and is/should be dead. There's a new kid in town, and it's called 'loading the line'...a.k.a. the darkside. I've seen people using the stomp, and walked them through going to line tension. The result, 100% of the time is more control in the air, and cleaner, higher jumps, which will lead to higher inverts, and also make them 100 times easier to learn because you will have the line to help you. I'm going to attempt a tutorial here. I'm sure others will pitch in, please do! I'll probably miss something typing in this little box. So here it is: Jumping Higher --- a tutorial The best way to get what I am about to tell you is to stop jumping altogether for a minute, and focus on your handle and line. For these first few steps, don't jump. Concentrate on your skiing. Concentrate on the pull of the handle. Learn the feel, learn how to lean against the pull, learn how to use the line to generate speed and power. The ultimate goal here is to have your line tight so you can use it to change the angle of your foil to point up as fast as you can. A quick change in foil wing direction to up = higher air. First, shorten your rope to 65', this will give you more control on the line, and you won't have to cut as hard in these beginning stages. Now, position yourself just outside the wake on the driver's side of the boat. begin with a slight pull and work on 'progressing' the cut as you get wider and wider. A progressive cut means you add more lean to the cut the longer you are cutting. What this gains you is that this puts you cutting the hardest and fastest at the end of your cut. If you don't use a progressive cut, your hardest and fastest is at the beginning, and you end up expending more energy and going slower by the time you finally jump. Repeat this, start from just outside the wake, and do it until you can cut under control with a progressive cut without thinking about it. Then, take it to the other side. Just cut.... no jumping! Feel the force of the line, use the line to generate more and more speed on your cuts. Once you get these down, swing to one side, and cut all the way through the wake to the other side. Again, PROGRESSIVE cut. You shouldn't be cutting that hard until your leaving the wake on the other side. By that time, you should be near 'full on'. Do this several times in both directions. Pay close attention to the force the boat is pulling on the line. This will show you the kind of line tension you will eventually be aiming for. You will have to lean away from the boat to counter the strong pull. Remember the feel of the pull on the line, you will be trying to attain that from here on out. The next step is to go back to just outside the wake. At this point, one side will be more comfortable than the other. It's ok to start with this side, but important to work on both sides. Use the progressive cut method to cut out. Get to 55-60 degrees from the wake. This doesn't have to be exact, but you should be more than 45. If you do the progressive cut correctly, you should have strong line tension at this 55 degree mark and moving fast. Without flattening, without turning into the boat, begin your jump. Don't "stomp" the board, but rather make the foil go down by pressing with your feet a little harder than you already are. Just as the board brushes the water, pull the handle down and in slightly (the "in" will straighten you so you don't get pulled over once in the air) and release the pressure on your feet. You no longer have to pull up on your knees. It will be tough not to flatten and let the line slacken before you jump, but if you do that, you will defeat the purpose of this exercise. The first few jumps, you will get pulled in to the boat. By this, I mean the tip of the board will begin turning in. This is actually good, and will teach you to use this tight line. IF the board turns in, you counter it by moving the handle in the same direction as the tip. Moving the handle in with a tight line will move the tip back out, and you will land straight and ski away nicely. Remember, jump with the loaded line. You will see that it doesn't take any work at all to get the foil out of the water. The stomp wastes a lot of energy on you, and the momentum when the board hits the water. A loaded line is your friend. Do this cut/jump over and over until you feel the difference in your jumps. You may/may not notice height immediately, but you will notice that they feel different... better... more in control. After you have gotten the air jumps down, cut at the wake. Have the line loaded at least as much as it just was on your air jumps, and jump at the wake. This will teach you how to load the line for those big air rolls, and how to time the wake. I've seen this work, over and over. At first, it will be scary, and you will want to flatten out before you jump. When you first jump with a loaded line, you'll know it. You'll also probably crash. Don't slow the boat down, stay at your normal speed. Learn it like you ski it. The crashing will stop soon enough. Remember to move your handle to straighten you back out. Take it big. We all have the potential for 60 frames. Unleash it.

Written by: Jake Bradley	The wingletLESS Revolution
	The date is early spring of the year 2006, the country is Australia. While brainstorming on possible way to make a foil ride better, a concept was brought back into the hydrofoil scene, calling into question the meaning of today’s wing designs. To me, it’s sort of a grey area when discussing the functionality of winglets. Many will say that they are used to create a sort of traction for the wing to set into while cutting or banking. Others will say that they are used to trap water between them, creating a sort of explosion of water, launching the rider harder out of the water, or something like that… Then you hear from different people that winglets serve none of these purposes and are only used today because some foiling technology hasn’t changed in a number of years. Are any of these people wrong? That’s hard to say. Are any of these people qualified to make these statements? Well…

	During the period of testing this wingletless wing in Australia, a lot of good feedback surfaced about the numerous characteristics it had. From the pictures that we saw, it looked like it didn’t affect the ride too much, but who knows, anyone can make pictures look good. After weeks of hearing about this new design, I knew I had to get in on the action. I wondered if anyone in the States had messed with this sort of ‘retro’ design on their foils. After calling Sky Ski and finding out they had a couple of them shelved, thankfully they sent me B-Flat Wing and Bat Wing, both without their winglets bent. Something everyone should know about the rider Darth Bradley is that he knows pretty much the good, bad, and ugly about a foil setup just about right off the bat, if not before he gets on it. Excuse the third person talkage, but I felt it sounded better that way. So anyways, after receiving the two test wings, we headed out to see what the jive was all about with the wingletless technology. Now me and my fellow tester have been riding different setups for about the last six months. He came off a composite foil setup right to mine, so he had to overcome that difference, as well as the difference in wings. \| So here we go, testing this new wing set up with a lot of assumptions on our minds. I was the first one out on the B-Flat wingletless to test against the B-Flat that I had been on for a number of weeks.

	Now, like I stated before, I can tell how a setup rides pretty much out of the gate, so I was confident that it would be a quick test. I got up and did my pre-rip cuts across the wakes, eventually finding no glitching or hunting at all. After this, I took the foil out into the flats and started thinking about doing drift jumps, cutting as hard as I could into the flats, jumping, and then sinking the board into the water as hard as I could. Now, here is where things got interesting. The first time I cut out, I noticed that the foil was much easier to take in and out of my cuts. To translate some, I felt that the wing would not set into a cut and stay there. I could cut and let off the line and immediately feel the foil ease off the cut without me having to kill the banking of the wing. Once I got the ease of cutting dialed in, I started doing my drift jumping. So there I went, cutting across the wakes as hard as I could then popped a big line-loaded jump. As I exited the water, I felt a ton of pop and great exit angle from the front wing. Upon landing, the foil took a totally different approach to clearing the water. As I landed, I expected the board to hit as usual and take the 1-2 clearing hits that it normally does. However, on this particular jump, I landed and NO delay from the time the board touched the water till I regained flight. As this happened, I looked at the boat and shrugged my shoulders, wondering if he had noticed what I did. So again, I cut, popped and WHAM, foil cleared up immediately again. After this, it was apparent that this was the way the wing acted landing jumps. I continued riding this wing, doing wake and air jumps as big as I could, still getting the same reaction after landings. I was pretty shocked at what was happening under me, having no board slap after any jump. Soon after getting done with my jumping, I took the wing upside down. I didn’t really want to start with little rolls or front flips, so I took the thing vertical on my first inverts. Cutting hard across both wakes, I popped a fairly big air roll, came around, and WHAM, foil cleared as fast as I landed. I was still in amazement after this, so I switched up my landings a bit, trying to get this thing to stick down or do something funky like slip-out. The next rolls that I did, I landed with a really long delay in the time I brought the board around, and when I did this, I noticed that the wing wouldn’t have to have the board help it clear the air off the wing. The wing would land a hair nose heavy, the wing would clear up and you’d be halfway up the t-bar. So in conclusion with jumping and flipping, it doesn’t matter how you land with these wingletless wings, the board / foil WILL clear up much faster than with winglets. I'm not going to say every wingletless wing, but I can say that the 3 I’ve ridden, from 2 different makers, clear up 100% better and faster than any winglet wing I've ridden in 6 years. My testing partner jumped on this same setup and enjoyed it even more than I did. After riding for twice as long as he has in many months, he got into the boat and said, ‘wow, unbelievable!’ We also rode the Bat Wingletless wing and saw many of the same characteristics shown with the B-Flat, landed awesome and cut great, as well as having substantial pop and control. For more info on the characteristics of the Bat Wingletless, contact Ben Ferney at ben@airjunky.com

	So someone reading this might think of what this all means to them. For me to answer for you would be wrong. All I can say is that I'm glad for that foggy day in Australia (I don’t know if it was foggy, but let’s pretend) early this year. I'm glad that someone was thinking outside the current ‘box’ that we are foiling in. Not only this, I’m glad that they spent the time on it to see ALL the angles of what the wing does without being quick to judge and conclude. I want to advise people who are after a smoother cutting and landing machine to find someone harboring this new design and get some time on it. I put as many people on it at the event at Cypress Gardens, and got very good feedback. If you wish to contact me about these people, or if you are willing to speak up about your experiences, please do so. As time rolls on and more people experience what I feel is a great riding wing for virtually all riding levels, there will be much more input on this. As with any change comes drawbacks, and once I find a drawback from this new ride, Ill be sure to let you know. Until then, happy flying.
	http://www.skyski.com http://www.cinchmax.com http://www.dragonoptical.com http://www.pridehomesinc.com http://www.h2oclothing.net http://www.airsling.com

Upcoming Events

Riga Fly-In -- June 2nd - 4th, 2006 -- Ivars Ildens
Riga, Latvia -- www.rigaflyin.lv or www.udensklubs.lv

Tennessee Fly-In (7th Annual) -- June 22nd - 26th, 2006 -- Steve McCrary
Byrdstown, Tennessee -- www.tnflyin.com

Pacific Northwest Fly-In (3rd Annual) -- July 29th - 30th, 2006 -- Chris Parrish
Lake Mayfield, Washington -- www.nwflyin.com

Idaho Fly-In (3rd Annual) -- August 27th - 29th, 2005 -- Tracie Szybuski
Priest Lake, Idaho -- www.elkinsresort.com

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