Foundations of Flight | Glide, Part 2 – Lift-to-Drag Ratio
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Category Archives: Flocking / CReW
Foundations of Flight | Glide, Part 1
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2021 Chicks Rock Boogie recap
On September 30th – October 3rd, Skydive Elsinore hosted its annual Chicks Rock Boogie. 2021 marked the event’s 20th anniversary, which had a space odyssey theme. Over the weekend Brianne and Nik of AXIS Fight School organized a variety of jumps including belly, free-fly, tracking, angle flying, canopy flocking, and even an 11-way hybrid with an orbiting wing-suiter. Jumping form Caravans, Otters, and a Skyvan, there was something for everyone. At night there were festivities, live music, and many opportunities to socialize. Brianne and Nik also participated in the night swoops event. Check out the recap video below. Looking forward to next year!
Skydive Radio Photo of the Week Show #253!
I would like to thank Dave at Skydive Radio for making my image below their pic of the week! Skydive Radio is the world’s leading internet radio show dedicated to the sport of skydiving. Weekly episodes include commentary, feature interviews with industry insiders, listener-contributed photos, and e-mails from an audience that spans the globe.
To watch the video of the intensional cutaways, click here.
SKYHOOK Video
Check out our latest YouTube video where we deep dive the differences between a regular RSL (reserve static line) and a Skyhook equipped RSL. Brianne interviews UPT rep/rigger Greg Rau in the AXIS Flight School studio, as well as enjoying a weekend of intensional cutaways.
Greg Rau: “In an emergency there is a lot of other things involved, and the lower you take it, you’re just buttering up your disaster cake.”
Skyhook Deployment Video
I would like to thank UPT‘s Riley Marshall, and Lesley Gale at SkydiveMag for showing off some of my photos and videos in a feature article about the Skyhook (MARD). To learn more about the Main-Assisted Reserve Deployment system, and how it differs from a Reserve Static Line (RSL), check out the full article MARDginal Analysis.
Brianne Thompson cuts away with the Skyhook, filmed by Niklas Daniel over Skydive Arizona, Video by AXIS Flight School.
New Video: Wind Indicators
XF Dive Pool and Rules Updated
On January 4th, 2015 AXIS Flight School created an experimental dive pool for what was then referred to as XRW (Extreme Relative Work). This is a still developing discipline where canopy and wing-suit pilots build formations. In essence, an XRW skydive is a dissimilar formation flight.
Photo courtesy of Dan Dupuis.
The first dive pool developed by AXIS was called XF. The name change from XRW was proposed similar to how RW (Relative Work) was changed to FS (Formation Skydiving); and since CF (Canopy Formation) is already taken, the XF abbreviation was introduced for “Cross” Formation. The first draft only had 3 Randoms and 6 blocks.
Dive pool images from 2015
Since wing-suit technology has dramatically increased flight performance over the past few years, new formations have become possible. The updated 2020 version now features 8 randoms and 10 blocks dispersed over three classes: intermediate, advanced, and open. In addition, the XF rules have been updated to evolve with the times and practitioners can even make use of the AXIS DrawGenerator. There are now two orientations for the wing suit pilot to fly in:
- Normal (belly to earth) – indicated in gray, and
- Inverted (back to earth) – indicated in red.
Back in the day 🙂
AXIS coach Niklas Daniel started experimenting with XF back in April 2010, and has posted videos and written articles about the subject.
2010 – Nik’s first few attempts at Skydive Elsinore.
2011 – Training Camp at Skydive Arizona
2011 – MOAB Boogie.
Photo by Taya Weiss.
2014 – Getting a bit braver. Post by Blue Skies Magazine.
2015 – XF gets some exposure on Discovery Canada with first 3-way Night Formation.
Continued fun, experimentation, and introducing the discipline to others.
Wing-suit pilot and photo by Alex Swindle.
60000 and counting
AXIS Flight School instructor Brianne Thompson is featured on the latest Performance Designs advertisement flying the PDR.
Fly Smart. Train Hard.
Photo by Samantha Schwann
Being competitors at heart, Niklas and Brianne do their best to improve on a daily basis. This applies not only to competitions, but also their business and life’s work – AXIS Flight School. AXIS has gone through an incredible online transformation, which could be called a “Cyber Grand Re-opening”. These changes have been taking place behind the scenes for over two years.
The AXIS website has always been packed with lots of useful tools and information. In order to make the site more user friendly and to keep up with the times more than a facelift was needed. In fact, we started over. Major improvements include a color coded menu system which is easy to navigate, condensed information on every page, and not to be overlooked – The AXIS Skydiving Repository. Here we developed a digital sorting system that categorizes all or our articles and reference materials for faster recall. Now users can search for categories such as solo skills, canopy, camera, and much more to find what you are looking for.
In addition, AXIS Flight School now uses sig.ma, a platform on which you can keep track of accomplishments, IDs, licenses, merits, etc. in a digital form. This allows us to send merits to students who have demonstrated their proficiency to our AXIS Coaches™ and acknowledge their achievements. Available Merits are displayed at the top of each web page, and their colors correspond to the new menu system.
Our online tools are still available to all for free. All AXIS dive pool images, Draw Generator, and ChronoPrism have all been updated with the new 2019 formations.
AXIS Flight School 