Aerodynamics of sky surfing and the principles of flight standing on the sky board and flying with the sky board overhead.

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When the body is inverted, both the body and the sky board catches the relative wind. The asymmetrical foot position causes a spinning action, often referred to as a helicopter spin. While standing on the board, the board catches most of the relative wind. A similar effect can be experienced while standing on a partner's belly.

To bring the sky board under you from the inverted orientation, your goal is to "knife" the edge of the sky board into the wind. The sky board presents much less drag when its edge is presented into the windflow. (The sky board catches much more wind if one if its flat sides is presented to the windflow.) It is easier to knife the sky board under yourself with a sideways rotation. While trying to bring it forward or backward while knifing it into the wind, the sky surfer must accomedate the long length of the board. You will be fighting the tail of the sky board if you are bringing it under yourself

from a rocking front loop action and you will be fighting the nose of the sky board if your are bringing it under yourself from a rocking back loop action. A cartwheel action is the best rotational movement for bringing the sky board back under yourself. If it is a left cartwheel with the left foot forward, your chest will twist to the right as you stand up again. Relaxing the legs as you pass side into the wind position will allow the sky board to find the optimum knife edge presentation to the wind.

Sky boards have an aluminum honeycomb core material and have 4 layers of Kevlar and graphite on top and bottom. As for aerodynamics, not much to it just a "plank". The tip and tail are modified to make it lighter for the swing weight when doing tricks. TS Skyboards are made with a dense foam core and have fiberglass skins, that aren't as stong and tend to weigh more because all of the resin soaks into the foam.

It is 1/2 of a 2 part mix. You have epoxy and resin, when mixed together they form a really strong glue. Seperate they are in a thick liquid form but when mixed they react and become one. Some take 20 minutes to "cook off" some require oven cures. They are lighter (Surf Flite boards are 1-3 pounds lighter depending on length) They are also stronger due to the aluminum honeycomb core material as compared to foam. The advantages of using foam is it is easier to shape and sand but other than that I see no advantage.

I would have to say that aerodynamically speaking they perform nearly the same. But if you talk to the pro surfers they say that 6 extra ounces of weight make a big difference in the handling. While sky surfing you have a lot of centrifugal force happening when you perform the tricks so that extra weight builds up inertia. Too much surface area is too hard to control so a snowboard shape was the safest and easiest to control.