I've been dipping into this thread, off and on for a while, and getting more than a little bit jealous, if I'm honest.
When I saw John had posted the video my first thought was "why", when he had already posted the diagrams above, but when I watched it and he zoomed in to look at it from an individual pilots point of view, I got it, tucked in there in the crowd, the grid looks way more intimidating even as a plastic parachute man.
I don’t want to tread on John’s toes here but I would like to clarify a few points and leave a few tips for anyone intimidated by the grid. I hadn’t really thought of it before but having watched the video I realized that we are not dealing with one grid we are actually dealing with two, The Kite Grid and The Pilot’s Grid, and although they are connected by several mile of line, (John has already done that calculation), it does help to distinguish between the two.
The really important one is The Kite Grid. The zigzag in the pilot columns is an irritating but necessary complication to keep The Pilot Grid compact, by shortening the back to font size of columns, and keeping The Kite Grid flatter (more vertical) in the sky.
Once you have been assigned your position in The Grid and established your reference points, i.e. the pilot to your left, the pilot to your right, and your position relative to the pilots in front of you (in your zigzagged column). You need to think of this position as home. Whilst the kites are in he air, there may be a little bit of movement within The Pilot Grid, but only a very little and you should always be aiming to return home.
When I first flew The Grid, Stephen Hoath was running the show and he introduced me to the very experienced fliers who were to be my reference points, and the grid was built in the arena with kites. However if there are a lot of Grid Virgins, John may decide to rehearse The Pilot Grid without kites so that people can find there reference points. Either way, don’t let it stress you. From what I have read there are several days set aside for this so any grid virgins should have the opportunity to “Pop Their Cherry” on a smaller grid.
Having established your position on the ground you need to work out your kite’s position in The Kite Grid. You need to know the kite to your left, the kite to your right the one above and the on below. You then need to establish Row and Column numbers and weather they are odd or even, for the threads. “Odds Left, Evens Right” you need to know without thinking “am I odd or am I even?”
That, once upon a time that was the end of the pre mega-fly planning, but now it may well be worth looking at the John’s post #21 above where he talks of concentric balls and splitting the 10x10 grid into 4x 5x5 grids for smaller figures as these will require a complete re think of the whole “am I odd or even question”. But don’t let that scare you, by the time John gets to calling those moves he will have started to allow more thinking time as even the more experienced Team Fliers will require thinking time.
That is more or less the end of this latest, Stone in Shoe Massive Missive apart from to list my three big Mega-fly Obsevations :-
- It is not difficult, just scary.
- It is not quite so scary in there, as it looks from the outside.
- In this game, size really doesn’t matter (grid size that is). No matter how big the grid is the most you will have to worry about is yours and four other kites, the one above the one below, the one to your left and the one to your right, anything else is somebody else’s problem.
