There is no doubt that the birth of Dynamic Flying has been a major new development in freeflying and looks like it will be a huge factor in the future of tunnel flying and freeflying in general. As a competitive sport it is more enjoyable and pleasing for spectators to watch than the more technically difficult VFS. Combined with goldfish-bowl type wind tunnels with viewing areas, it has the potential to grab the public’s eye, thus expanding our sport.

4 Way Dynamic (4WD)

Many of the current 4-Way Dynamic flying moves have been practiced in wind tunnels over the past few years by various groups. The streamlining, description and more formal structure has arisen from a collaboration of skydivers culminating in D4W, a group of individuals who are responsible for the high profile 4 Way Dynamic Competitions. The leaders in this field have been Filip Crnjakovik, Håvard Flaat, Fabian Ramsmeyer, Martin Kristensen and Scott Plammer amongst others. Recent events were the Battle of Bottrop, Voss Vallhalla and the Knights of Prague.

Stepping Stone

4-Way Dynamic is a fantastic event when practiced by skilled individuals. Unfortunately ,there are very few people in the world who currently have the ability to perform at this level. The challenge for Windoor Realfly at the Wind Games 2014, the first tunnel competition in Empuriabrava, was to stage a dynamic competition that would be a stepping stone for teams who would eventually like to compete in 4 Way Dynamic…

2 Way Dynamic

The logical decision was to create a 2 Way Dynamic competition that would open up dynamic competition to more teams. It is always exciting creating something new, but very often the expected problems become minor and the unexpected ones can be daunting. This is an insight into the lead up to the Wind Games 2014 2 Way Dynamic Competition.

Development

One of the most important decisions when trying to develop anything new is to have expert advice. We have been particularly fortunate to already have a solid Dynamic flying community who regularly fly in our tunnel. In addition there is a wealth of people with recent competition experience, as the Windoor Team took second at the Knights of Prague. Adam Mattacola and Josh O´Donoghue have also lent their expertise to clarify rules and moves: they will also be judging the 2 Way Competition at our upcoming event. Gregor Van Eyden was invaluable help with the making of the video (the second flyer is Arnaud Mille).

Wind Games 2014 – 2 Way Dynamic – Demonstration of all the moves in the 2-way Dynamic Dive Pool

Head-to-Head Drama

One of the unique parts of this competition is the format. The 4 Way Dynamic has an exciting element with head to head battles. The unfortunate side effect however, is that a team can be eliminated from the competition in as little as 2 rounds. After spending a lot of money on training, one poor round can prove disastrous. On the other hand, the classic format of 10 straight rounds of competition based on a cumulative score can lose the excitement factor if there is a big ability difference and the outcome is obvious before the final rounds.

Divisions

At the Wind Games 2014 we decided to try and combine both elements to have an exciting yet fair competition. We decided to use football or basketball as a model and create one or two divisions based on the number of entries. Each team would meet every other team in their division in a head to head battle based on a compulsory round draw. We would have teams perform 3 compulsory moves as fast as possible with the winning team in each head to head being decided by who completed the moves 4 times through without busts, in the shortest time. Win – 2 points, Lose – 0 points.

The compulsory round draws for the semis and finals are done 45 minutes before the rounds to keep everything fresh and interesting

Free Round

The final round in each division would comprise all teams for a free round. The judges would score all free round performances and scores would be awarded to the top 3 teams to be added to the previously accumulated scores from the compulsory rounds. If there were 2 divisions, the top 2 teams from one division would meet the top 2 teams from the second division in the semi finals (Division A top team, would meet Division B second place and vice versa). If only 1 division, the top 4 teams would go through, teams 1 and 4 and teams 2 and 3 meeting each other in the semi finals. Each semi final would consist of 1 free and 1 compulsory round, the same for the final. In this way, the top teams would be selected over a reasonable number of rounds that would accurately reflect the level of competition. Once through to the semis and finals, each team would be back to a level playing field and performances on the day would determine overall placings. The compulsory round draws for the semis and finals are done 45 minutes before the rounds to keep everything fresh and interesting.

Sudden Death

There is one aspect of the 4 Way Dynamic that is very exciting that we decided to keep for our event. Where there is a tie-breaker, there is a ‘sudden death’ compulsory round. Teams are separated and kept in different locations. Team 1 is brought to the flying chamber, they are shown their compulsory round and have 1 minute to visualize and practice before entering the chamber to perform the moves as fast as possible. The second team is not allowed to observe. The second team is then brought to the chamber and they go through the same procedure. It is an exciting way to determine the winning team, which could easily be used in other disciplines. It also seems perhaps a fairer way to determine an overall winner than going back to see which team scored highest on a round. Especially if this round was done days earlier it can leave the finish of the competition a bit flat, particularly where teams have been close enough to finish on equal scores.

Learning Points

Some interesting observations that we have discovered along the way…
1. We chose only to include 3 lines, layouts and moves from the dive pool to keep the competition simpler, opening it up to more teams and easier to train.
2. It is very hard to describe dynamic moves accurately as they are difficult to visualize solely based on a written description. (Verbal gymnastics is another way to describe it).
3. Video is essential to provide a visual description of each move, since the written description can be so convoluted or open to interpretation. It takes a lot of time to make a ‘How-to’ video – and it is very easy to make a how-to video with lots of mistakes!
4. Since there is far more room in the tunnel in 2 Way Dynamic than 4 Way, there are far more cheats that can be done to make moves faster. Therefore, it is necessary to try to include specific instructions to force teams to complete full moves. Eg, for Head up and Head down circles. it would be easy for teams to simply do 360° turns in place rather than full circles. For this reason, we have added that teams must pass through the line 3 times to complete the move.
5. As an organizer, you need a very patient and open-minded pool of competing teams. The learning curve is steep, but as teams train and questions arise, the competition requires constant small adjustments that can be frustrating for everyone. No one wants to waste their training time,and no one wants to incur unnecessary busts.
6. The very notion of 2 Way Dynamic flying means that the competition will be beautiful to watch, spectator friendly and a lot of fun.
7. Everything is constantly evolving as we work and play with this new discipline. Next year is bound to be easier!

Highlights of the Knights of Prague competition, Edit by Alex Aimard