TomAiello 25 #51 April 1, 2005 Quote...Pendulator...What is this device that was created and what does it do? It's a launch simulator. It allows you to practice launches (many of them, repeating a very short time). It's essentially a dynamic line run between two trees. The jumper exits one tree and holds body position as he falls/slides along the line. Then he is lowered to the ground. It's a great way of (a) learning what your launch position will do and correcting it, and (b) getting a little of the psychological effects of exiting, to reduce the potential for overload when you first do it for real. I'm a huge fan of pendulator training.-- Tom Aiello [email protected] SnakeRiverBASE.com Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vandev 0 #52 April 1, 2005 Ok, but if i came to you or any experianced mentor and told you my goal to wingsuit of kreg or simular within a year , what would you tell me i should do to prepair for the big one? Is that a unrealistic time frame .... I am just using a year as a gauge.. In the end...the universe has a way of working itself out.... "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle" Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vandev 0 #53 April 1, 2005 do you have a picture of one? i could put one in my backyard... launch riight into the lake.... on the serious side, did this girl use one of these to prepaiir for her jump? also Tom, if you exit unstable and are falling flat, when you start to pickup speed wouldnt you be able to get tracking as you would get more stable? i am talking about a large launch object.. In the end...the universe has a way of working itself out.... "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle" Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tfelber 0 #54 April 1, 2005 Quote you will encounter ice, snow, sand, rocks, funky handrails, chain link fences, police, wind, rain, ... And fear, and the shakes, and... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tfelber 0 #55 April 2, 2005 Quote yes i rember doing a heli jump...but i still felt in control to a very good degree... I have given this some thought recently. Before starting BASE jumping, I did 3-4 balloon jumps and 6-7 heli jumps (not in preparation for BASE jumping)and I felt I always had control. However, how would I know? There was no one else jumping with me. There was no object nearby for reference. I really wasn't thinking about whether I was stable or not in the first few seconds because I had lots of altitude to get stable. So maybe my perceptions were not necessarily reality. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tfelber 0 #56 April 2, 2005 Quote I'm a huge fan of pendulator training. It works quite well. I was much more afraid jumping out of that tree than I was leaving the bridge. It prepared me quite well! Well there was the slamming into the park bench that added a little to the stress... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JaapSuter 0 #57 April 2, 2005 QuoteI was much more afraid jumping out of that tree than I was leaving the bridge. Roflol! That ain't nothing! You should ask about the experimental contraption that a Twin Falls local put me in one day. Imagine a vertical-only pendulator and having all air pushed out of your lungs in less than a nanosecond and the girly sound that might make. And then I was stupid enough to volunteer and do it again. Talk about fear. We had a great laugh though. My first rope-jumps.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
leroydb 0 #58 April 2, 2005 Quote having all air pushed out of your lungs in less than a nanosecond and the girly sound that might make Yea... for a short moment in time, in a previous life, I was known as screetch monkey... My first Base jump.. I jumped (after a loooong wait) and after I realized I was really falling, not flaoting... I let out a multilevel pitch capable of breaking glass made of crystal....Leroy ..I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw my bath toys were a toaster and a radio... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vandev 0 #59 April 2, 2005 Hey Tom, I have been watching the jumps from the good stuff dvd of Dave Barlia in Baffin Island and the Snow board jumps in Norway. He seems to get great clearance from the wall. Does anyone care to comment ?/ and is the guy a top base jumper? i see him in warrem miller movies and stuff... and yes, i saw the cutaway.... does anyone else skysurf or snow board the walls? In the end...the universe has a way of working itself out.... "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle" Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TomAiello 25 #60 April 2, 2005 Quote...Dave Barlia...is the guy a top base jumper? Yes. He's pretty low key, but very skillful, and a super cool guy. He's also been doing this for quite a longish while. There have been several other people skysurfing and snowboarding off big walls (and skiing). Dave was definitely one of (if not the) first, though. If you want to see some cool skysurf BASE footage, check out Beyond Extreme.-- Tom Aiello [email protected] SnakeRiverBASE.com Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hexadecimal 0 #61 December 1, 2005 Is there any more info available on the pendulator, and possibly info on how to go about building one? I searched the web and this forum a bit but didn't find much. Sounds very interesting either way. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NickDG 23 #62 December 1, 2005 I've been emailing back and forth with a writer preparing a BASE article for "Outside Magazine" for an upcoming issue. Maybe some of you have heard from him too. Anyway, at first he asked my help with some basic fact checking concerning the BASE Fatality List and I did that, but as we went along I started getting worried about some misconceptions (naturally enough on his part) that he had. I never hold out much hope a non-jumping writer is going to come even close to getting it right as even after all the years I've been writing about BASE jumping I'm sometimes not sure I'm getting it right. This morning's topic was "chute failure" and how many jumpers are victims of it. It's obvious he couldn’t make the distinction between jumper error and anything else. First off I told him a "chute" is something coal goes sliding down and what we use is a "parachute." That said I explained that to me "parachute failure" is when you deploy and your parachute blows up to the point it won't support you, or your harness comes apart. And to my knowledge that has never happened to any BASE jumper. Things like 180s not corrected in time, late or fumbled pulls, and striking objects in freefall are not gear failure, but jumper failure. Talk to most non-jumpers aware of Jan Davis' death in Yosemite and they will usually say her parachute didn’t work. The truth of it (and she was a dear friend of mine) is Jan didn’t work. At first I almost declined to help this writer. People often say to me that I write well so I should write about something besides parachuting, something that pays better. But the point they don’t get is it's not enough to write well, you have to know the subject inside and out to be effective. If I tried to write about snowboarding or surfing or mountain climbing I'd sound like an idiot to those who knew those subjects. I'm pretty sure I could get a BASE article published in one of the "extreme" magazines that are out there right now and make a few thousand dollars to boot. But what does that make me but a gloryhound like I often disparage. I don't mind things like writing for SKYDIVING or doing interviews on Skydive Radio as that is "in house" stuff. Anyway, the reason I decided to help him is "Outside" ran another BASE article back in about 1982 or so and it was pretty good. And in the end it's either let him founder along or help him, so I helped him. All this is my way of saying when the article appears, and if it blows chunks, don’t blame me . . . NickD BASE 194 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tenshi 0 #63 December 1, 2005 I know...I don't know jack shit. Still... Seems to me that #63 (with all due respect) is not a case of "everything done right so I dunno what went wrong". If you lose balance and strike a cliff, it's pretty obvious what went wrong. You lost balance More practice (more balloon, chopper, bridge jumps) might have avoided this. The only thing that would keep me from getting into BASE are total malfunctions (such as pilot chute/canopy not inflating, or canopy not coming out of bag) and possibly 180's. I've seen two movies on the net that made me wonder about the dangers of Base. One is a trailer on the Triax site of a guy jumping at BD. First his pilot chute refuses to inflate and when it finally did his canopy never fully opens. Dude gets away with it. The second movie is similar (also @ BD I believe...but earlier) but it ends in tragedy. A pilot chute inflates but for some reason the canopy never exits the container. The jumper fell to his death. This is the former http://www.triaxproductions.com/BD04_spot_03.wmv (Sorry if I'm out of line or stating the obvious when not appropriate) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
avenfoto 0 #64 December 2, 2005 well.... lets look at what should be obvious assuming you (or anyone else) is seriously considering base.... this is all in relation to the first video... wrong number one.. look at homeboys rig... wrong tools for the job... thats like hitting a baseball w/ a golf club... itll probably work, just not as well as the bat would.. (its a skydiving rig....) wrong number two... you see the way the bridle goes around his arm? hence the hesitation... and the gonthrow... pc is to small for that short of delay...look at all those oscillations...wrong number three.... the canopy is dbagged.... and id be willing to bet, given jumpers other gear choices, that it probably isnt a base canopy either.... how you determined that his canopy never fully opens is interesting, considering the clip ends with him flying under the bridge.. but .... the moral of the story is this... as long as you dont jump shit gear, you chances of survival greatly increase.... and a total on a base rig is a rare bird indeed....(dead as fuck, but rare nonetheless.... i can think of 2 off the top of my head however, one where the pullup was left in the closingloop, and one w/the bridle through the legstrap...) good luk Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tenshi 0 #65 December 2, 2005 Quotelook at homeboys rig I lol'd. Ok thx for pointing all that out. My point was that losing stability is probably not about bad luck. It's all about the skill bucket. (The second fatal vid...I've been checking the list but neither of the descriptions fit the picture. So nevermind...) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BlindBrick 0 #66 December 2, 2005 Quote pc is to small for that short of delay...look at all those oscillations... That's a standard 42 BASE PC. I took that same PC off the bridge this year attached to a 370. Marta assured me that it was more than adequate for a 370, and I know the canopy Alex jumped at BD 04 was way smaller. -Blind"If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NickDG 23 #67 December 2, 2005 >>The second movie is similar (also @ BD I believe...but earlier) but it ends in tragedy. A pilot chute inflates but for some reason the canopy never exits the container. The jumper fell to his death.<< This sounds like Steve at Bridge Day '87. BASE pilot chutes and longer bridles weren't mandatory at that time but they were strongly recommended. Steve was jumping a skydiving rig and hand holding his stock pilot chute. It was his third jump on the same setup that day. His girlfriend was standing by the rail. He did a good stable three second delay and pitched. The pilot chute went to the end of the bridle, came over his back, but never inflated. At between five to six seconds Steve pulled his reserve ripcord and his reserve pilot chute launched cleanly and pulled the reserve free bag to line stretch but impact with the river came at that point. I wish we would have been more forceful with Steve. The staff did tell him he wasn't using the right gear, but it was a different world in those days. While no self respecting BASE jumper of that day would have used the same setup, the problem with telling skydivers that was they would come back with look at how many others are doing the same thing. I recall one fellow who accused me of trying to profit by suggesting he pay fifty bucks for a BASE pilot chute. Sadly, it took this fatality to get the point across about using BASE pilot chutes to the skydiving community. Steve's last words as he climbed over the rail were in rebuffing comments about his small pilot chute, "It's always worked before . . ." After Steve's body was retrieved jumping resumed and about 15 jumpers later another guy did almost the same thing. He towed his skydiving pilot chute for a good while after he pitched but it finally inflated. BTW, in the case of what Tom is saying about doing everything right and still getting killed. You're right, there isn’t one report on the fatality list that says that, but here's the point Tom is making, we damn well know its possible . . . so don't wait until it happens to believe it . . . NickD BASE 194 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skypuppy 1 #68 December 2, 2005 QuoteQuote you will encounter ice, snow, sand, rocks, funky handrails, chain link fences, police, wind, rain, ... And fear, and the shakes, and... And beer, wine, whisky, and funky tobacco.....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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skypuppy 1 #69 December 2, 2005 And one where the pilot chute was not attached to the canopy...... and one where the tree the static line was attached to came out of the ground and went over the cliff with the jumper...... and one where the static line broke cause it was attached to a pc which was left in the pc pouch for the jump.....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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hexadecimal 0 #70 December 2, 2005 QuoteIs there any more info available on the pendulator, and possibly info on how to go about building one? I searched the web and this forum a bit but didn't find much. Sounds very interesting either way. Nobody? Guess I asked about a well-guarded secret Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DexterBase 0 #71 December 2, 2005 There's no secret to it really. Come to Twin Falls and you can jump one. I actually get quite a kick out of watching people use the thing. It's very useful, and very entertaining. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hexadecimal 0 #72 December 2, 2005 I actually do hope to make it to Twin Falls next year to take a FJC once I'm more comfortable with my canopy skills... so I guess I'll just have to wait until then to see this thing Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manship 0 #73 December 3, 2005 Vandev wrote: QuoteMy only desire though would be to birdman off somewhere in Norway or Switerland I would just like to bring up that Kjerag and Lauterbrunnen are VERY DIFFERENT PLACES! Requiring very different attitudes and reactions to problems - well, specifically I have 180 openings in mind. To me, Lauterbrunnen tries to kill me more than Kjerag does. The jumps you do in LB are the type that are most critical - those in the 6 to 11 second range with slider up. This is potentially much more dangerous than a longer delay off Kjerag. It is more likely to get an off heading with a slider and you are not delaying as long so aren't as far from the wall. I don't wingsuit, but I sure would choose kjerag over LB to begin BASE wingsuiting. Don't read too much between these lines, I am not trying to stir up controversy or give advice to those who know much more. As usual it is just my 2 krone worth. Spelling ain't as important as communication! t========================================== I didn't invent skydiving, but I jumped with the guys who did. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JaapSuter 0 #74 December 3, 2005 QuoteAfter Steve's body was retrieved jumping resumed... Interesting, I've recently wondered about this after seeing the footage. Do you know anything about the decision making process that led to this? Is there a BD playbook that handles such a situation? How many people decided to stop jumping for the day? I'm not implying it was the wrong decision; I can see arguments either way. I'm just curious. Thanks, Jaap Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cesslon 0 #75 December 3, 2005 Quoteand one where the tree the static line was attached to came out of the ground and went over the cliff with the jumper...... did this really happen? And if it did/does and the tree hit the person during freefall is that considered a tree strike ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
