Air Site Design

Site Location
Sites should be built where they are easily accessible to non-sking/boarding spectators.

Stadium Site
Digging a site into the hill and sheltering it with trees, rather than building it on top of a hillside, would reduce the chances of competitions being delayed or canceled due to the negative effects of wind. Less wind would also reduce the number of injuries and increase performance levels.

A stadium site design would provide a far superior viewing experience for spectators. Most sites put spectators at the bottom of the landing hill beyond the stopping area where they can only see the back of the jumps and the landing hill. Many people often miss the action because it is impossible to anticipate when someone is about to ski off the jump without an audible signal that is often missed. They are unnecessarily far from the athletes. The most shocking and intimidating views are from the top of the in-run. Watching the takeoff from the side provides a remarkable view of one of the most unique actions in live sports. Spectators should be free to see the event from all angles and from much closer especially when the view from the bottom forces them to stare straight into the sun at barely visible tiny black silhouettes who would otherwise look like super heroes from another angle.

Safer Site Design
Aerialists must clear up to 8-meters (over 26-feet), or more when measured carelessly, of the flat table in order to reach the landing hill. Too often serious and sometimes career ending injuries occur either when the jump becomes too steep or when aerialists do not have enough speed to clear the flat spot. Shortening that distance by extending the landing hill up beyond the height of the table and existing knoll by two or more meters would reduce the risk of injuries. Aerialists heading for this flat spot have less airtime and must work harder to get to their feet and they would have their air time shortened further if the landing hill was extended upwards to cover the traditional knoll line. However, most aerialists posses the skills necessary to get the flips done when airtime is unexpectedly shorter. Even for those who don't, I would argue that it is safer to land on a steep 37 degree slope in any position than on a flat surface.

Efficient Site Construction
Kickers are currently built using heavy, cumbersome, wooden forms that must be transported, pieced together properly, awkwardly set up, carefully taken down, taken apart, maintained, transported again and stored. These forms are up to 17-feet tall (over 4-meters) and extremely difficult to move once set up. If the bottom 2-meters of each jump were included in the dirt foundation, the size of the largest forms could be cut in half and no forms would be needed to make kickers up to 2-meters tall. In addition, reducing the amount of snow needed by 50% or more would save a significant amount of the time, effort and expense associated with making snow and/or mixing, blowing and packing the snow into each form.

The bottom 2-meters of the kickers and the extended landing hill could meet to form a table-top in the dirt foundation which would be especially helpful when there is limited snow.

Foundations for new sites could be built in this manner without requiring existing sites to upgrade their facilities because the critical dimensions, such as the distance from the takeoffs to the landing hill, would remain the same. The top of the landing hill would be closer to the takeoffs but the spot of the old knoll would remain the same. For visual cues, a "phantom knoll" could still be marked on the landing hill exactly where the old knoll would have been.

It may seem as if changing snow levels would interfere with the accuracy of the  placement of the dirt table top. With excess snow build up, the distance between the front of the table top (single kicker face) and the landing hill could change but this fact remains the same with traditional sites. For example, if a site is used all season snow accumulates on the in-run, table and landing hill. In order to maintain critical measurements, such as the distance from the takeoff to the top of the landing hill, snow must be removed or the kickers destroyed and rebuilt closer to the landing hill. The table top will be designed for minimal snow. If there is lots of snow, the general shape of a dirt foundation covered in snow will still aid in constructing a finished snow site.

If you or someone you know is planning to build an aerial site please consider contacting the FIS to request that this site design, built into the dirt foundation, be a sanctioned FIS site suitable for all levels of competition. Extending the landing hill to bring the knoll closer to the jumps is becoming more common but the snow is added after the site is built.

2003 Good Knoll in China
Photos by EB

2003 Good Knoll - Deer Valley
Photo by EB

Some say that reducing the back side of the 4-meter tall kicker to only 2-meters would take away some of the grandeur of our impressively big kickers. However, intimidating kickers keep kids from joining our sport because they can’t imagine they will ever have the guts to ski off a jump that looks more like an office building than the smooth sweet ride it is.

2002 Snowbowl Doubles Site
Photo by EB

Site Design for More Airtime
Eventually, takeoff points could even be slightly lower than the knoll in order to allow for more airtime with the same or less impact. We currently go up about 20-feet and fall about 40-ft. Reversing those numbers would not affect the airtime but the impact on landing would be greatly reduced. However, the amount of speed into the jump and consistency of takeoff required to safely launch 40-feet up makes that scenario impractical, at least for now but the ratio should be shifted in that direction as much as possible to something like 30-feet up and 40-ft down. By increasing the up-time alone, we increase the overall airtime without increasing the drop-time or the impact on landing.

The up-time can be increased by taking more speed into the kicker and to keep the drop-time the same, the takeoff point of the kicker can be lowered as far as about one meter below the top of the landing hill. It may be challenging to hit a consistent takeoff with the increased speed but this can be overcome by extending the length of the curve so that the time spent in the curve is not increased. By lengthening the curve, I mean making the triple kicker about 2-meters taller and 4-meters longer horizontally. More airtime will not only make it easier to perform better triple flips with more twists but it will also make doing quad flips more practical.