I just heard a guy say a person on skis could jump twice as far as a person on a snowboard.
Is this true?
If so what is the science?
Ski jumpers glide in a delta V position, using both their body and free-heel skis to get into an optimal shape for lift. I doubt if a boarder could do this, for their bodies do not face directly down the hill, their heels are not free, and their boards do not have as much surface area as jumping skis, which when taken together would prevent them from forming the delta V that ski jumpers find so effective.
To compare distances jumped, the record for ski jumpers is 809 feet, and the record for snowboarders is 187 feet. Where does gelandesprung (jumping in regular alpine gear) fit in? As far as I know, Wilson’s 359 feetis the record.
Here is a pic of Evensen in the delta V position. As you can see, within the limitations of the human body, the skis and the bindings, it tries to approximate a wing for lift. Compare this to a wingsuit.
Can a snowboarder approximate a wing as effectively? No. Here is a pic of Jonsson in his epic jump, in which he rotated 360 (not something that is possible on jumping skis).
I have a related question: regardless of technique, wings and deltas,…how the hell do you find the courage to make your first jump? 
Here’s a video of a 10 year old kid making his first run down a ski jump. You can hear the fear in his voice.That slope is scary!!!
Now, I’m no great skier . ( I enjoy the green and blue slopes, and can handle (gingerly!) a steeper black run if I take it slowly). But there’s no frickin’ way I’d ever get near a ski jump like the one in the video…
Do they have various levels of steepness for first-timers? Obviously, in this video, the adult saw no problem with letting the kid make his very first attempt on what looks to me like a dangerously steep slope, and it appears to be a much shorter run than the pro’s use… But is it less steep, too?
I’m still scared just thinking about it.
It starts with gentle slopes with slight fall-a-ways (what you are already skiing on), with lots of practice. If you get a chance, take an intro course; it’s a lot of fun. I am allergic to air time, but even I have had a blast at intro courses.
Then it moves to longer in-runs and longer jumps., again on fall-a-ways, and eventually on the K-90 and K-120 jumps that you see in major competitions. Training centres have jumps of various sizes. You can be sure that kid had a lot of training on fall-a-ways before making that jump.
When it comes to steepness, remember that falling onto a steep slope down which you can bleed off speed hurts a lot less than SPLAT coming to a dead stop on a horizontal surface – for a given speed, the longer it takes to come to a stop, the better, and the quicker it takes to come to a stop the worse.
That being said, when I walk up the 120 jump at the end of my street, I always wonder how the hell jumpers sail off into space without shitting themselves. A few of the guys I ski with were (and one still is) into jumping in a big way, but they are sane enough and are no more thrill seekers than typical lift area skiers. It’s just a matter of skill development and getting used to it.
Start small on the jumps and start young in age.
The Utah Olympic park is just around the corner from where I live
http://utaholympiclegacy.com/park-sports/
In the winter they have a lot of jumps, they start very small and just get bigger and bigger to the full size Olympic terror thing.
In the summer they also use the same jumps and you see a lot of people training in the summer.
http://utaholympiclegacy.com/pcnsc/
In that pic you can see a group of people in winter gear wondering along. Behind them you can see the artificial grass on the landing area and the natural grass as the long run out, it is slightly odd to see people gliding across the grass in full winter ski gear.
here you can see a little kid gliding down one of the small slopes in summer.
http://utaholympiclegacy.com/program/summer-youth-ski-jumping-nordic-combined/
They also have a big swimming pool that the freestyle people launch themselves off of ramps into and do all the twizzles in the air and that comedy.