Swooping

Festival Location: Worldwide

Festival Type(s): Extreme Sports Events, Bizarre Sports Events, Air Shows

Swooping Media:

Swooping

By: © Michael J. Rosen 2010

"Swooping Is Like Combining NASCAR With Aviation."

- the Pro Swooping Tour Web site

When one is high in the air, the idea is normally to do what you went all the way up there to do - dunk your basketball; fly to Oslo for the A-Ha reunion concert; reach the tin of almond bark hidden in the top cupboard so you won't eat it all in one sitting - and get back on the ground as quickly as possible. But not in the sport of swooping.

Also known as canopy piloting, swooping has competitors jump from a plane (upon learning there was no A-Ha concert after all?), release a small "performance" parachute, and navigate upon or just above the surface of a body of water at speeds of 90 miles per hour. If executed incorrectly, swooping becomes indistinguishable from the 60s B-movie Journey to the Bottom of the Sea.

Real pilots fly 747s, cut ahead in the security lines, and get to have free cocktails with the flight attendants. Swooping pilots compete in three types of competitions:

In the speed event, pilots must finish a straightaway as quickly as possible, never touching the water's surface, but swooping just it.
In the distance event, pilots fly as far as possible over the water's surface without making the slightest contact.
The accuracy event has pilots negotiate a series of gates above the water and land within a specific zone at the course's end.

As if the sport weren't hardcore enough, giving swooping a freestyle competition is like giving a rapper more ego or an audiophile another one of those velvet album cleaners. Points are based on approach, time on the water, execution of acrobatic and creative maneuvers, and the landing. Pilots on the Pro Swooping Tour execute a series of spins, jumps, and grabs, often backwards, one-footed, or on their knees, in tricks that are named after superheroes-Ghost Rider, Superman, and Lazy Boy.

Swooping is also practiced on land and in the mountains, where it's known as blade running and often takes place on ski slopes, where competitors, launch themselves either from mountain tops or planes, in order to weave among vertical flags known as airblades.

You can have almost as much fun at home! Make your own performance 'chute out of a handkerchief, tie it to an Army man, and toss him out a second-floor window. This version is also a lot safer.

Looking for more spectator-friendly skydiving? Everything happens at ground level at www.proswoopingtour.tv.

No Dribbling the Squid

The above article is just one of a collection of off-beat articles on 2camels from Michael J. Rosen's wonderful No Dribbling the Squid - your front-row seat to 70 of the world's most mind-blowing feats of strength, endurance, and eccentricity.

For more info check out the No Dribbling the Squid website, Facebook fan page or Michael's very own website.

Purchase No Dribbling the Squid now from Amazon.com
Purchase No Dribbling the Squid now from Amazon.co.uk

Swooping Photos: