Fly, fly a “kiik”; huh?!
Remember when you were a little kid on the playground. You would get on the swings and start to push and pull your way to what seemed like dizzying heights. And then you would go higher and you imagined that if you could just get a little higher, a little faster, a little more power. Voom! You would feel the gravity slip away and then you would look up at the ground as you completed the arc and swung a complete circle. Two brothers in Huntingburg have built a swing that allow you to do just that.
Be aware there is an expletive during the video. Video courtesy of Daniel and Daryl Huff
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Daryl and Daniel Huff are engineers that haven’t lost their sense of adventure and discovery. This swing is just one of many interesting projects that litter their property.
According to Daryl, he got the idea from a Youtube video approximately two months ago. The video was about the Estonian sport of Kiiking. Kiik (pronounced keek) the Estonian word for swing and kiiking is a national sport.
“I showed it to Dan,” Daryl explained, “and we both agreed we could build one.”
Now a steel tower rises in their backyard held in place by steel cables attached to anchors driven into the ground. It stands about 19 feet tall; two trailer wheel hubs are welded into the towers opposing trunks supporting an axle that has two long arms made from steel pipe holding the swing in place.
“When you are at the top of the arc,” Daniel explained, “you’re about 34 feet off the ground with the swing extended to this length.”
The swing is a foreboding bullet-proof structure. Constructed of triple layer steel tubing and held in place with 600 lbs of tension on each of the 4 steel cables, it is a monument to solidity, but with the amount of force produced when a person traveling at about 34 mph, it is necessary.
“I was in a hurry to just try it after we got the main structure up,” Daniel said, “so we attached the cables to the front end of that tractor and to that car trailer. I wasn’t going to wait to put the anchors in the ground. But when I got high enough it was raising the front end of the tractor and moving the trailer with the tension”
Daniel and Daryl had to wait to bury the anchors and set the tension on the cables to really try out the swing.
“Now a bulldozer couldn’t pull that (anchor) out of the ground.” Daniel motioned toward the steel jutting out of the ground.
Kiiking is a recognized sport in Estonia. Its most recent incarnation was in 1996 by Ado Kosk, but the sport may have been around at the turn of the 20th century. The sport is based on the person’s ability to move the swing in a complete 360 degree arc around the spindle it is attached to. What makes it increasingly difficult is the length of the arms. The longer the arms, the greater the circumference of the arc, the more energy and skill it takes to break the plane at the 180 degree mark. The person who does the longest arms the fastest is the winner.
But this is not your average playground swing. It is estimated that you will experience force on your body equivalent to 2.5 gravities during the swing. As an example, the space shuttle taking off exerts approximately 3 g’s. The rider has to complete a squat to make the swing accelerate; try to stand up when your weight essentially doubles.
Because of the forces and the position you may find yourself in, your feet are strapped onto the swing and your hands are held in place on the bars.
After putting the swing up it took Daniel a week to actually complete the first trip over the top. “It’s hard to last 2 minutes on that thing. Its a tremendous workout.” He said still out of breath ten minutes after his most recent trip.
Although there is a trick to getting the swing to work well with each rider it is basically a free form. “You just kinda figure out what works for you.” Daryl said.
Regardless it’s a great ride.
Here is a link to the USA Kiiking Team Facebook page.
