Flying Kilometre death, Les Arcs

A snowHead

Not a good season so far, for fans of the "White Fear" in Les Arcs. Heavy snow led to the cancellation of the annual event, the Red Rock Cup last weekend. Just one more big event this season in the resort, the World Championships, taking place between April 18th and 23rd - but conditions are not ideal.

Far worse - at the end of last month some of the club kids were in the Varet gondolas on their way up to the Aiguille Rouge when they saw one of the KL racers, in full gear, take a horrific tumble. Not on the course itself, but making his way across the top of the Lanches black to the intermediate start point. Carrying his 2m40 speed skis on his shoulder, he lost his grip as he hit a rock and the bindings on his short skis ejected. It was an extremely warm day, and he was only wearing his aerodynamic speed ski gear - a very slippery, plastic-coated, skin-tight catsuit. With little that could act as a brake on the snow, he continued to accelerate as he bounced through the mogul field. Not the steepest of blacks, but once you start falling, it's very hard to stop. He eventually slid off the side of the piste - then it's a long, rocky way down.

The Italian racer, Marco Salvaggio, died of his injuries - severe brain trauma. The event - the French Championships - was cancelled immediately. The gendarmerie is investigating - concerns have been voiced about access to the intermediate start, via the difficult Lanches black, before.

Ricardo, a fellow racer, present that day, wrote:

A snowHead

You don't have to be a pro to try this sport. At relatively 'reduced' speeds of 70 to 80 mph, accidents are extremely rare. However for racers on the World Pro circuit, attempting to break the mythical 150mph+ barrier on specialised equipment, the dangers are far higher. The surface of the piste is prepared to resemble a skating rink. From around 130 mph a tiny air cushion begins to form under the skis - racers are in contact with the snow only every 50 or 100 metres. The sensation has been described as resembling free fall! Few long-term participants in the pro circuit escape without broken ribs, legs, friction burns at some point. Not for the faint-hearted!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Fatalities in speed skiing are thankfully rare, and particularly rare on the track, or diverting from the track itself. Over the years the FIS have had a love/hate relationship with the sport, on one hand expressing safety concerns but probably more mindful of the problems televising it. The speed can only really be appreciated at first hand - which is a phenomenal thing to spectate.

I used to report the Flying Kilometre at Les Arcs, including the historic world record of the British skier Graham Wilkie in 1987 - completely ignored by the mainstream UK media!

It's true that the Arcs 'KL' track is accessed from a traverse across a steep and often deeply mogulled piste. The weight of 240cm KL skis is substantial - not only because they are that much longer, they contain a lot of heavy material to stop them bouncing around and to provide general strength/stability. They could seriously cramp your control as you're carrying them around, which sounds like the tragic circumstances here.

PG, with respect I'd query a couple of technical points:

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David Goldsmith, in the sense of (OED) [Late L mythicus f. Gk muthikus, f. muthos MYTH: see -IC] Mythical; widely idealized, fantastic, bizarre.

Only a very few racers have ever exceeded this speed "barrier".

As for the 'air cushion', this is a summary of a description of the mechanics of speed racing by a racer, that has appeared on the Web. I would be interested in hearing whether his comments are strictly accurate, although I could well imagine that the tiniest irregularity in the piste, at those sort of speeds, would cause the racer to barely be in touch with the snow - if at all - for a considerable distance, until the piste begins to flatten out significantly.

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OK, 150mph isn't fantastic or bizarre - it's a reality, though it is true that back in the 1930s (when speed skiing got going in Europe) the idea of anyone skiing above 80-90 mph would have been considered impossible. There was an article by Arnold Lunn with a bold claim on that (viewing it with the benefit of hindsight). I'll try and locate it.

150 mph would certainly be a threshold (certainly not a barrier) for racers who measure their speeds in mph, rather than km/h, but that threshold was crossed 10 years ago.
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No, I don't think the linking of "130 mph", "air cushion" and "every 50 or 100 metres" are linked. What is your source?

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Also, you state:

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David Goldsmith, you have a major, major problem with hair-splitting. 150 mph may be fantastic to some, in the broadly used sense of the term. It certainly seems so to me. It may well be "widely idealised" to others. Have you any idea how annoying and boring it is for readers to have threads disrupted in this manner? Without justification, as usual, in my case.

The source is on the net. A speed ski racer. Virtually a direct quote too. Find it yourself! It's there!

After all it is free · Last edited by After all it is free on Wed 13-04-05 9:40; edited 1 time in total

Nick, obviously it's best if we pin down the speed threshold on this. My understanding is that skis will experience a 'stone skimming' effect at speeds way below 130 mph (after all, at what speed does a stone skim across water? (albeit the stone is not loaded)). My recollection from talking to people on the Flying Kilometre is that this skimming can be experienced at around 90-100 mph, but I'll try and find out.

To free skis from suction (to varying degrees) it's not necessary for the ski to leave the surface. Structuring is used in most types of ski racing, as far as I'm aware, and wax geeks tend to recommend it for recreational skiing too, if the snow's wet.

Suction occurs due to a film of water between the base of the ski and the surface of the snow, generated due to the friction of the ski, surprisingly it is possible to obtain a higher speed on the flying k than it is by freefalling out of an aircraft, it is entirely possible that the skis could act like a wing generating lift and thus it would be theoretically possible to be skiing on air Shocked

however it is more likely that at the speeds these people are trravelling at that they will be skimming across the raised peeks of snow rather like a speed boat on water, they will be cushioned by air rather than really flying

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David Goldsmith

You won't be able to find it, as it's in French. So to avoid any more of this silliness, here's the link.

However, you'll have to translate it yourself! You will find that, as ever, I have been faithful to both the spirit and the detail of the original.

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I wonder how much skill is involved. With any given equipment and surface there's a terminal velocity, a speed you can't go beyond, unless you've had far too many beans for breakfast. Sure, it must take balls to go as fast as the equipment allows, but what else can you do?

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

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David Goldsmith, D G Orf, thanks.

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davidof, Goitschel's world KL record, set on the Les Arcs piste, stands at 155.8 mph (250.7 kph)

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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He probably was wearing his helmet - my recollection is that the racers usually carry their speed skis but wear their helmets on the way to the track. This sounds like the kind of head impact that a helmet couldn't deal with, sadly.

Again, speed is relevant here. I believe that tree-impact deaths, where the skier is wearing a helmet, can be sustained at relatively low speeds of head hitting tree. The helmet essentially protects from a range of head impact speeds (but probably quite a limited range).

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the ice perv, he may well have been dead before, but witnesses suggested that towards the end of his fall he fell off a small cliff onto some rocks. If it's the one that I'm thinking of, having skied that black a number of times, you would need more than your fair share of luck to survive, with or without a helmet.

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Helmets don't necessarily protect from spinal injuries.

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After all it is free

Separating myth from fact in speed skiing is quite an interesting science in itself. The sport grew from almost mythical roots - the miners of precious metals in California in the mid-19th century who started speed skiing on the Nevada mountains. One of the myths these guys locked into was that the longer the skis the faster they would go - skis of 3 to 6 metres long were used.

My experience of the racing circuit in the 1980s was that only the most elite performers had access to reliable scientific back-up. Lots of myths and beliefs about waxing, suits, skis and other gear would circulate. With a bit of negotiation racers could study aerodynamic drag in motor or aerospace wind tunnels, but some would hair around speed tracks clamped to the tops of cars, practising their tucks!

One interesting technique I've seen used to stabilise the skis at the highest speeds is to tilt the skis in broad parallel stance onto their inside edges. If the skis lie flat, particularly when they start skimming and floating, they can be seriously unstable.

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As described to me by a plastics engineer who worked for a Swiss co. making base materials. We All float on a cushion of gas dependent on snow temperature, ski base pressure, the base structure and speed. At high speed the water molecules encounter the reduced pressure in the structured groove and separate into gasses (cavitation) and expand, increasing the pressure. as the ski moves forward past this point the pressure in the groove is released/reduced and the cycle repeats. Multiply this millions of times and the ski is riding on a layer of gas in millions of tiny explosions. (apparently it can be heard with special microphones). That’s why base prep. and wax removal is even more important than the type of wax you use.
As for speed, a falling body will continue to accelerate until friction balances that and the object will continue at a fixed speed. If someone fell out of a plane head first they’d easily achieve speeds in excess of 200mph even at 1Bar.

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Very interesting point. Did the bouncing bomb spin? What speed did it go?

The gyroscopic effect keeps the stone in the plane that it is launched. Not sure how this would relate to skiing

You know it makes sense.

David Goldsmith, as far as I know the bouncing bomb did spin. I can't give you a source for that piece of information though. wink

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Kramer, here on snowHeads we not only require details of the source(s) for any information provided, but cross references, comprehensive caveats, and the full unabridged version of the OED for those that are not aware of some of the more obscure uses of the English language wink

.

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Kramer, it span in a verticle plane while a stone spins in the horizontal plane (as opposed to being carried by an aero plane).

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PG, shirley you mean 'obtuse' Little Angel

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Whatever we chat about here, I'd urge everyone to get to Arc 2000 when the Olympic KL track has the world's fastest skiers on it. They tend to run the big events after the main ski racing season is over, because the snow in April can thaw to a perfect speed. Despite the fact that it's considered a fringe event by the powers-that-be, this is the form of ski racing with the longest history. When the skis are running at high speeds they generate a unique sound - a kind of angry roar. Speed skiers have written some very evocative stuff about their exploits - they have a kind of 'pioneer spirit' culture about them, because no one really knows where the speed graph is going to peak.

It's also essential to go to the top of the track and see the racers'-eye view of the fall-line. Utterly terrifying. And when these racers fall - as this horrible accident shows - they just fall and fall, sometimes as if they'll never stop. The suits are so thin that any protection from bruising and friction burns is marginal.

The track is, incidentally, a lot longer than a kilometre (the critical section is the 50 or 100 metres of the timing trap), partly because the run-out has to be enormous. The skis don't understand the meaning of 'turning'.

The ultimate speeds on skis would clearly be obtained on a perfect slope in the Himalayas, but the resources needed to get a track groomed and raced up there would be formidable.

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OK I might be out of date with my info but I know at one time that the fastest method of travelling unpropelled by other sources used to be the flying k and at the time it was faster than free fall, however since then I hear that the record is between 614MPH and 714MPH (accounts varry as to which is more accurate) however this was done by jumping at the edge of space 102,800 ft up dropping to 90,000 ft, however if we are looking at the unassisted requirement (i.e you can walk up a mountain but you need assistance to fly) then I believe it compares very favorably to base jumping which can achive a theoretical maximum of 320ish mph but in reality is closer to 200 or so mph

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[sorry, going back a couple of posts...]

A pedant says something spins on an axis not in a plane. <ducks for cover> Wink

A skimming stone spins about a verticle axis, the bouncing bomb spun arout a horizontal axis perpendicular to the direction of travel. It also spun 'backwards', that is if it was dropped without any forward velocity the spin would have moved it backwards on contact with water.

I believe the spin was to stabilise the bomb (i.e. to make it more accurate), not to generate bounce per se.

Source: I seen/read it a few times, don't ask where.

... Back to skiing ...

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Pete Horn, fair point, I was coming at it from the point of view of visualising the ecliptic plane in the earth's rotation. If all points on the rotating surface of the object are mapped over time (ignoring any velocity of the object) then they will all be on the same plane. Probably wrong formally, but it's one way I visualise spinning.

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Stone skimming article from newscientist to explain stone skimming formula

After all it is free

Pete Horn, Russell's article gives the same reason for spinning the stone that you want to skip.

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The spinning helped reduce the stress to the bomb on impact with the water. we will all have seen the impact that a non-revolving aircraft landing wheel suffers when it hits a runway at 170 mph.

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Flying Kilometre death, Les Arcs

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