A Scientific Analysis Of The Best And Biggest Airs

March 31, 2024 James Royce

‘You stomped that!’ your friend is saying while you’re paddling back out after chipping one off the inside closeout section and yes, sure. They are right.

You did stomp that. However, you had scarecrow arms and were airborne for one, maybe two seconds with a six-inch vertical and that’s about it. Not all airs are created equal, is the thing. In fact, the prospect of airs as a determiner of good surfing is as brilliant as it is absurd. We spend so much time and, just, day after day after day, trying to be part of the wave. I mean, the whole purpose of getting barreled is to be as deep into a wave as possible. And then you have airs and you’re like: Just forget that. In a way, airs are a very complicated way to get as far from a wave as possible, on purpose.

Now, I am not good at airs. I’m sorry, but I did not put the focus and dedication you might assign to a silence-vow monk trying to do something a 12-year-old with an avian skeletal system will always do better than me on the next peak over. And I'm quite past the point of visiting Westminster Abbey, firing up an iPhone clip recorded from the beach in front of Isaac Newton’s tomb, and saying, ‘Okay, but check this out.’ I am also extremely shit at them and cannot fucking believe how many great waves I’ve blown in my life trying to be a hero.

Those who can’t do teach, however. That’s the purpose of this exercise today. That, and I’ve been to too many contests, seen too many videos, and watched too many clips in my life to not have an opinion on what is and what is not a good air.

As an air’s value may remain constant (you go off the wave and then you land back on the wave) an air’s worth is determined by several things, not least, height. Now, the relationship between the ‘insanity’ of an air and height doesn’t correlate in a totally straight line. Up to a point, yes, the higher the air is the cooler it looks. But after reaching a certain level of the stratosphere, no. Your ACLs tense up. The wind starts taking you. Ninety-nine times out of ten, you’re breaking your board and you don’t want that to happen. When Nathan Fletcher went 15-plus feet high at Pipeline? He made a business decision back-flopping into the flats. It looked great at the apex and the cover shot lives on with his knees but, sadly, it was not a make.

Around the six-to-ten-foot mark, that’s the sweet spot. That’s where the magic happens. Up there you can do a 180. You can be bombastic and do two 180s. Or even 540, if you’re feeling frisky. The best surfers, when they hit that particular altitude, you can see them start to freestyle. An alley-oop, a no-grab, and anything else that makes you give a rising ‘oooOOO’ while you rewatch it behind a computer screen.

Using a very-specific scale, we decided to figure out just when exactly an air goes from, ‘Nice,’ to, ‘You’re joking.’ First, we eyeball the height. Then, we add 15 points for each 180-degree rotation, 30 points for an alley-oop (they’re harder, sorry), 20 points for a clean landing, 10 points per extra move if it’s a combo, 20 points for a no-grab, and an extra 10 points for any intangibles (scary looking wave, or it just looks cool because you know when it’s one of those). And that, right there, is the ‘insanity’ factor. If you don’t land, then it doesn’t count. Sorry, but basketball games don’t give you two points for bricking one off the backboard. It doesn’t matter if you did a fadeaway pirouette from the half-court line over a defender, because if you miss the score still remains the same: zero. So, how big of an air can an air be before it’s all just gone to the wind? Well, glean some info from some of the best of all time above and see for yourself.

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01. Kolohe Andino in Portugal — 2014

Only time I’ve felt patriotic about something.

Height: 10 feet

Score: 60