How far can people swoop?
Swooping is a spectacular sport to watch, and there are a few
parts of it that make it much more fun to watch than regular sky
diving. For one thing, the majority of the sport actually
happens near the ground. This makes it much easier for a normal
audience to experience a swooping competition - you don't have
to jump out of the plane with the swoopers to see what they are
doing in order to win the competition.
There are several different types of swooping competitions, and
one of the biggest events involves distance. While there are
several ways to determine the length of a swoop, most
competitions find it easier to do this event over a lake or pond
of some sort. As a result, the swooping distance is measured
from the point where the swooper's feet first hit the lake until
the moment when they finally land.
Like any distance sport, more and more swoopers will end up
breaking the distance record. This is especially likely in a
sport like swooping when the equipment can have such a large
effect on whether or not it is possible to swoop for long
distances.
The upper limit on distances for swooping now is the record that
was set by Shannon Pilcher. He managed to swoop an entire 418
feet, or about 125 meters. When you consider that a football
field is 300 ft, that's a long way!
In order to swoop that far, swoopers have to be going pretty
fast before they hit the ground - at least a little bit faster
than they would be if they were just sky diving normally.
Swoopers usually pick up speed again near the ground by making a
few turns near the ground. Going long distances is pretty
difficult, since these last turns are the hardest part of sky
diving.
It might be possible that there is a limit as to how far people
can swoop. However, until that limit is reached, swoopers will
continue to swoop farther and farther. As it is, however, the
distance you can count on somebody being able to swoop depends a
lot on their experience and the type of equipment that they're
using.