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Dd0g

BASE without skydives

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Skydiving is a pastime. BASE is life and death.



This seems to indicate that you don't think skydiving is life and death. IF you really think that way, it's probably a good thing you don't skydive much.



Nail me on this one, but I think skydiving is less dangerous than driving to the DZ. Well, in fact, I am sure the fatality statistics back this up.

Look, skydiving is fun and people that are good at it have totally stunning skills. I couldn't freefly if my life depended on it! But it's about as dangerous as sport climbing. In fact, part of the whole point of skydiving (and sport climbing) is that it is NOT supposed to be dangerous and we work hard to minimize danger. That's the whole idea. I mean, who really works hard to make skydives really scary? Apart from certain dearly-departed Aussies, I mean.

Not everything we do in life has to be wildly dangerous to be "cool." My primary other sports outside of BASE are pretty much zero fatality zones. I love them just as much as BASE. But BASE is about danger, at least it used to be or it is for some of us or whatever.

Someday maybe BASE technology will be good enough that it's safe like skydiving. Even today, our gear is about a billion times safer than 15 years ago. But, no matter how trick the canopy with today's gear, jumping off something slider-down with a hard object behind you is fucking dangerous. Do it a reasonable amount of times (say, 100) and you'll have a 180 and if you don't respond exactly right you will die or be badly maimed.

Many folks have made interesting comments on this thread, much more interesting than anything I've said. I hope it continues - it is good to sometimes look at those old sacred cows and see if the gods still smile on them anymore.

As to my own BASE experience, everyone knows I made the whole thing up. I've never jumped off anything taller than a kitchen table and when I did that I twisted my ankle really bad. Actually, I pretend to be a BASE jumper in the hopes that I can meet the boyfriend of my dreams and retire rich. I mean, doesn't everyone?

D-d0g
+~+~+~+~
But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

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You are wrong with climbing. We had five fatalities in our small (+-100) club during last seven years. Skydiving is much safer than climbing.

Fido

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DdOg, I'm honestly not trying to be mean, but I read your original post like this:

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I find many people who are at the DZ to be insufferable social butterflies



read: I can't seem to fit in at the dz or no one at the dz wants to hang out with me

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I find that BASE folks who hang out at DZs are often scary, untalented, and insecure.



read: I am jealous of the BASE folks who are liked by the dz people therefore I will insult them

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Skydiving is a pastime. BASE is life and death.
Skydiving is sport climbing in the gym; BASE is sketchy mixed climbing at altitude.



read: I will snub the unfriendly dz people by illustrating that their sport is trivial as compared to my real sport.


There have been some posters in this forum that have serious "BASEgod" mentality and that keeps me from coming in here very often. This website is dropzone.com for gods sake. You do realize skydivers read this forum too right?

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Skydiving is a pastime. BASE is life and death.



This seems to indicate that you don't think skydiving is life and death. IF you really think that way, it's probably a good thing you don't skydive much.



Do you think driving your car is life and death?

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Yes and no.

Does it sometimes occur to me while I am driving that, "wow, my ass is 18" off the road and I am doing 80mph right next to a truck that could squash the shit out of me of the driver fucks up."

Yes it does.

Do I find it to be highly manageable risk. Yes.

If you think hard enuff, life itself is "life and death".

My point was that I don't care how on top of it you are in the BASE world, complacency will kill the living shit out of you on a skydive. I am not sure DDog is really that complacent, but it sounded like he was.

Tommy Piras and other lesser known but "on it" dead guys would attest to my statement.

Is BASE more dangerous than skydiving? Hell yes! I would never detract from the BASE communities "extreme - MT Dew Drinking - danger people" reputation.

Just be careful in all your aeronautic adventures. MMkay?

__________________________________________________
What would Vic Mackey do?

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It's true, everyone at the DZ hates me and I only wish it wasn't so. I pretend to be a BASE jumper so that I can make friends, but all my friends keep dying in this "sport." Something isn't working so well.

The jealousy I feel towards BASE gurus who hang out at DZs is really hard to quantify. Suffice to say that it's huge beyond words, beyond numbers even. When I grow up, I want to hang out with cool people.

D-d0g
+~+~+~+~
But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

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Edited for personal attacks. Come on people, play the ball, not the players. ~Tom Aiello

In regards to base jumping without any prior skydiving experience let me float this idea out there. I think that when you are comparing the two sports (if you call them a sport) you have to compare apples to apples. There is a big difference between comparing base jumps with 0 – 5 sec delays to skydiving or base jumps with 5 sec + delays to skydiving. The environment of a sub terminal base jump is very different than anything you’ll do out of a plane, but what about balloon jumps or helicopter jumps. Those can be very beneficial to learning about a sub terminal environment and like it or not you must have more than a couple of jumps under your belt before they’ll let you out of a balloon or helicopter.

Now for terminal base jumps tell me how you’d explain to someone who has never done a skydive how to track, how to keep from backsliding, or the correct body position at pull time? If my memory serves me correctly there was a fatality in Norway because they held a head high attitude for too long and backslid into the wall. Think about all the little things like that, that carry over into terminal base-jumps from skydiving. What about body position at pull time? I would hate to have to try to figure that out on a base jump. It would be a lot better to learned these skills in a skydiving environment where if you make a mistake you won’t slide into the face of a cliff or tumble at pull time 400 ft from impact. Also by getting these skills built into your memory you don’t have to think about how to track or what’s the correct body position to pull from when you are on sensory overload.

Just my .02 cents.
Base # 942
The race is long and in the end, its only with yourself.

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If my memory serves me correctly there was a fatality in Norway because they held a head high attitude for too long and backslid into the wall.



I think you might be thinking of the Susan Oatly fatality in California. But the point is well taken. Terminal jumps require a very different (and much more similar to skydiving) set of skills than sub-terminal (especially slider down) jumps.
-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

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OK, quick qualification - I'm not a BASE jumper (although it was one of the reasons I began to skydive and when I feel ready, I probably will) - but I was wondering:

To me, the potential enjoyment from a BASE jump would come from:
- being able to do something few people could
- being in control, kinda like doing something you know you shouldn't, but surviving
- intense feelings

The trade-off is that the act of doing it is in some ways incredibly stressful - the consequences of something going wrong are serious, hence the bigger payback "buzz" :)
Personally, I'd rather have a certain familiarity with the situation before going through with it. Some nervousness is good, but too much would be bad? [:/]

So, the jump itself - they way I see it is that there's 3 important components:
- exit/freefall
- deployment
- landing

How can someone perform a stable exit if they've never been skydiving? If you muck that up... :o How many times have you had a bad skydive (for whatever reason) then found your canopy control and landing was also less than perfect? Similarly, how would you know what body position to hold? How would you track? In fact, how would you know how to track on heading? Same thing goes for correct deployment surely? And what about dealing with off-heading openings?

Personally, I've already stepped over the edge of a cliff (hang gliding). What is the opinion whether that would make any difference in terms of being more comfortable with the whole BASE idea? (and being better able to focus?)

As for landing, what makes anyone believe that they could land a canopy well in a tight spot with no real experience? Here, I'd like to know what kind of background is considered best? I suppose CReW/Accuracy jumping, but what about someone with serious paragliding experience?

Lastly, how much do you trust your mentor? I've been hang gliding before with a bloke who freaked me out. Dunno how... Anyway, I ended up doing downwind landings; all sorts of things. I was in a situation whereby I was stressed out by someone and lost focus in what was a learning situation for me. OK, a little extreme maybe, but it could be a contributory factor. Personally I wouldn't trust anyone who would chuck me off an object with little/no experience. Besides, I've seen people in all sorts of environments getting way too far out of their depth. Sure, they often survive, but that's not really the point. Most never want to go through the experience again...

I've probably rambled, but I'm curious as to whether "environmental familiarity" is considered as important as the more technical side, whever that may have been developed?
--
BASE #1182
Muff #3573
PFI #52; UK WSI #13

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How can someone perform a stable exit if they've never been skydiving?



How can someone perform a stable exit if they have been skydiving.

Airplane skydiving gives exactly zero preparation for BASE exits. Balloon jumps or helicopter jumps are pretty much the only way to practice BASE exits on a skydive.

I strongly believe that every BASE first jump student, regardless of skydiving experience, should be exit trained on a pendulator extensively before their first BASE jump. I've never seen a more effective training tool for avoiding perhaps the most common first jump errors. Thanks Ronny!
-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

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...I've already stepped over the edge of a cliff (hang gliding). What is the opinion whether that would make any difference in terms of being more comfortable with the whole BASE idea? (and being better able to focus?)



I think you have a definite advantage for that experience. I wouldn't rate it quite as high as the advantage from skydiving, but combine them both and you're going to do well.

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As for landing, what makes anyone believe that they could land a canopy well in a tight spot with no real experience?



No one is suggesting that. The idea would be that a student could be trained off an object with a huge wide open landing area. In one case that DdOg references, the object is such that it is actually physically impossible not to land in a giant grassy landing area (it's a city park, actually). This contrasts favorably with the skydiving environment. What skydiving instructor doesn't wish there was some way to make a student out landing absolutely impossible?

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Here, I'd like to know what kind of background is considered best? I suppose CReW/Accuracy jumping, but what about someone with serious paragliding experience?



As with the hanggliding, I think the paragliding will be a big help. While the canopy skills won't transfer particularly well (paragliders are much, much higher performance wings than BASE canopies), the knowledge of winds and turbulence shown by paragliders is fantastic, and this definitely gives them a huge advantage as intermediate and advanced BASE jumpers.

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...I'm curious as to whether "environmental familiarity" is considered as important as the more technical side, whever that may have been developed?



Certainly. I'd say one of the biggest problems students have is freaking out because of the unfamiliar environment. In this regard, the more different (hopefully similar to BASE in some way) environments you have exposed yourself to, the better you'll keep your head in the BASE environment. This is exactly why Dwain used to train aerials by teaching in belts, then moving to trampolines and pools--each time, you had to conquer the same type of environmental shifts that you'd face when you moved to a BASE exit point. In essence, he was teaching his students to face their fear of the exit before they ever got to the exit (the same principle applies to the pendulator, or to BR's bungee training jumps).
-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

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How can someone perform a stable exit if they have been skydiving.

Airplane skydiving gives exactly zero preparation for BASE exits. Balloon jumps or helicopter jumps are pretty much the only way to practice BASE exits on a skydive.



I was implicitly including helicoper/balloon jumps, but I take your point. I'm looking forward to doing some of those! ;)

But I'm also curious as to awareness: if you haven't been around long enough, you don't know what questions to ask, how to react etc? Isn't this in part why it is suggested that an aspirant groundcrews first? Views anyone?

Having read Tom's latest post, I believe we're thinking along similar lines... ;)
--
BASE #1182
Muff #3573
PFI #52; UK WSI #13

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This morning I got up at 5:00, thru two Rigs, and my hard gear in the truck.
Flew by coffee people and picked up a Canadian immigrant BASE jumper who is trying to scam his way into U.S. Citizenship. Then we hauled ass up north to one of our local, Mountains to bang two jumps out.
While stuffing my gear in my stash bag, to do the climb out of the canyon on the second jump It become so clear to me that I was -Wrong !
>The first jump was a fast tail wind. I pitched early to give me a good extra second or two to do a tight flat turn 180 deg. approach. As I was setting up in very deep brakes, there was a strong left side rotor that pushed me hard, but it was no big deal really and I flared it, Planed out the canopy and ran like hell to a stop. All was good except The Canadian/American who was laughing at me.
>When we shuffled out to do the second jump the wind had done a complete 180 and we had a steady head wind.
The Canadian got the bright idea for a two way. I said what the hell and 1-2-3 lets go. Nice head wind and a on heading opening for both of us. I slammed it into deep brakes to set up on the tight approach, and about 75 feet above the deck, I got a down-push of Air from somwhere in the tight canyon. I instinctively let up on the toggles to let it fly, got the little bit of speed and lift I needed to Plane out and land safely. Nice jumps fun times.

It became so clear to me then after that Jump.
The Minority obviously is right and the Majority is Wrong
The 11 years of Skydiving I did was a total waste of time and energy.
The 1000 Skydives I did before my first BASE jump "97... what a joke.
>The person who has never made a Skydive exiting that object with no flight time in training.
Under Canopy. Has the same chance of a safe landing safely and a easy hike out,
to do Another jump, Another day, as the BASE Jumper who has had a several Skydives.
Canopy experience means nothing in the big picture.
The People who trained me to BASE jump. Why would they Lie to me ?
In my opinion they are Dumb Ass's, they were obviously wrong and no nothing of
what it take to a safe BASE Jump.

I am sorry and I was wrong.
;) Be Safe :)thanks...Ray Losli

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Airplane skydiving gives exactly zero preparation for BASE exits. Balloon jumps or helicopter jumps are pretty much the only way to practice BASE exits on a skydive.


How about Mr Bill jumps - probably cheaper than balloon or heli jumps? Of course you probably need a few more than the minimum # of skydives to do them - just like in serious CRW.
If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

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I don't believe that - frankly I don't generally consider someone with less then 1000, or at least 700, to have lots of skydives - and, as Ray said back in the old days before BASE went mainstream, most people had quite a few skydives before starting to BASE jump anyways... You'd have to narrow your search down to relatively modern fatalities, say early to mid '90's.

------------------------------------------------------------

Not a question of "belief," really. It's just a fact. How we interpret that fact is the real question.

Also, the majority of the List entries date from the early to mid 90s. So it's not really "narrowing the search" much to discuss the correlation on the list between skydives and fatalities. I'm thinking of 1000+ as, roughly speaking, "lots of skydives."

________________________________________________

I'm curious as to where you got your facts? I just looked at the BASE fatality list and the majority of the entries do not list either BASE experience or Skydiving experience (note to self - I meant to contact Nick a couple of years ago that we needed a generic form for incident/fatality reporting that would answer such questions as approx BASE and skydiving experience, years in sport, type of gear, specifically so we would have such information).

Looking at the 77 fatalities, 21 occurred in the '80's (>25% so it narrows it down a bit) but even looking at all the entries I find 9 or 10 I know had more than 1000 and maybe 25 or so who may have had. There's at least 8 who definitely had < 2-300, and 32 I just don't know, although I do remember several from past issues of skydiving magazine or BASEline and several of them would have bettween 300-700 jumps. So unless you have access to more statistics then are on the current List, I don't see how you can support that claim...

Admittedly it is too bad that the list doesn't support that information even the cases of guys like Nick, Skypunk or Rob Tompkins where numbers are available, but I still don't see where you got your numbers?
If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

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Edited for personal attacks. Come on people, play the ball, not the players. ~Tom Aiello



Oh... Come on, if he can dish it he should be able to take it. >:( Why don't you sensor Dd0g when he makes rude, sweeping generalizations?? And if you are going to do that then you might as well sensor anything that might be offensive to anyone. WTF?? >:( Plus, that was worded in a very eloquent manner and I wasn’t attempting to detract from the discussion, I was just making an observation. >:(
Base # 942
The race is long and in the end, its only with yourself.

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Please feel free to email directly to me any and all personal attacks. I love them - they make me feel important.

edit: Come on guys. The topic is a good one for discussion. Let's move your personal differences to email, PM, or in-person confrontation. ~Tom Aiello

Say "cheese,"

D-d0g
+~+~+~+~
But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

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(no time to proofread, my laptop battery is going fast)
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I guess it's lucky I've always avoided those dodgy jumps and technical landing areas. Oh, well, I'm just not cut out for hero status anyway.



I'm pretty sure no one is saying you can't fly a parachute.

I think the point about canopy control considers the fact that it's obviously needed to land safely in many situations.

That 330 foot jump with mandatory 2 plus delay sounds rather exiting. I'm sure it requires a good amount of skill to perform. I have no doubt that you wouldn't put a newbie off it either. In fact it sounds like it's a jump for only a few. (pick me, pick me... maybe).

I jump a small parachute in the skydiving realm. My first jump on a BASE canopy was ok, but I flew it like a stiletto. The next morning, I didn't, I grabbed the toggles and sunk it in like the large seven cell canopies I've flown before.

Honestly, High performance flying has been detrimental to me a couple times. However that was only in big areas and I was trying to do a hook turns with the slider tied down :$. When it comes to tight landing, it's a different story. I've over controlled when it counts before. Thanks to body armor it didn't cost me my walking ability. Many changes were made after that. Lowered my toggle settings, (where the toggles are tied on, not the brake settings), converted my toggles to big grabs. I'd have never thought about that with out enough parachute experience. Instead, I would have just tried less toggle input, and been wondering if I could snatch the toggles off the velcro quickly when it counted most. Neither is a good thing when your looking down into a counstruction site with rebar and pipes layed out along much of the landing zone.

So, where does a person learn initial flying, survival skills and instincts? Can he learn it from a bridge in potatoville? Not really. I have to agree that learning to fly in a stall (especially without over reacting) comes from practice. Using a plane to gain altitude is a great way to practice. Object avoidance requires not only luck but reaction time, and a certain amount of skill.

Terminal jumps. Hmmm... if a person ever wants to fly terminal, it's tough to learn that from an object. Planes seem to be the way to go. After taking many students on their very first freefall and subsequent dives, I have a hard time believing that the body will know what to do if he's never experienced freefall of more than a couple seconds.

Tom, I like what you said about the brake settings and modifying them with the slider off. That's something I never thought of.

What is a pendulator?
My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

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...generalizations??



I believe that is the point. A generalization is a generalization, even if it's a generalized attack on a group of people (have you read the talkback threads lately?). A pointed attack on one person is a personal attack.

A personal attack is two things. Personal and an attack. Make generalizations about groups of people all you want. Make your comments specific to a person and I'll edit them.
-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

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What is a pendulator?



A pendulator is a BASE training device, intended primarily for first jump students. It was invented (I believe) by Ronny Risvik (sp?) of the Stavanger BASE Klubb. Basically, it's a bunch of ropes that allow you to launch from 30 feet up a tree without cratering. That way you can practice repeated dead air launches without the consequences of screwing one up for real. It's virtually eliminated bad student exits at the popular big wall in Southern Norway.
-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

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Let's face it if it was not for skydiving none of us would be BASE jumping.



Although i dont base jump and no longer skydive (where i was a very new student) i tend to disagree with this
as by my belief the first ever parachute design in theory was designed for jumping from tall buildings as planes were non existent

this being leonardo's parachute design
so say planes some reason wernt around today but the world still had todays technologie i think by now some1 would have tried to fullfill leonardo's idea and jump off a tall structure of sorts

M@

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as for the d00d asking how long a sore tail bone takes to heal

well ive had some sore tail bones before and not anything suvere
and it was still sore for about 18 months
its a strange bone
id hate to ever break it

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Thanks...I'll find the video of the device. It sounds simple but brilliant.
My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

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