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From the Bridge Day Fatality thread - skydiving experience in BASE

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I believe this thread thoroughly explores this.
http://www.dropzone.com/..._reply;so=ASC;mh=25;

~J



That was the funniest thing I have read down here. Witty yet informative in an "in between the lines" sort of way. It makes me feel a small amount of shame for posting my question as a serious one when there was such a funnier way to do it:D

jason

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From the BD fatility thread, I took this quote to discuss how skydiving experience is an impediment to base:


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The skill sets for each sport are entirely different, and while an airplane can be used to practice certain things (i.e., canopy skills), skydiving is more of an impediment to a first-time base jumper than otherwise.

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I acknowledge the skill sets are different and these are different sports. Can anyone with any real insight explain why it is an impediment to know how to skydive and then try base jumping?
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Frankly, Brian never got a chance to use any skill sets he might have had, because he suffered from sensory overload on exit when encountering an environment he hadn't experienced for 30 years or so.

It's not just the skill sets your muscles learn, it's acclimatizing your brain to the environment it's going to encounter. Brian had too much experience to be a neophyte and too little to be comfortable, he probably fell into that category because of his own unique history, but here is someone who would have benefitted from a few practise jumps -- anywhere.
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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[replyAs homework I leave it up to you to see what percentage of active BASEjumpers regularly skydive a loaded crossbrace canopy and how their BASE landings compare to BASEjumpers who don't, as you obviously have too much free time.



From what I have seen there are many types of BASE jumpers and skydivers who BASE. From only BASE to every once in awhile jump an object. As a lot of people have said these are different ballgames, treat them as such.

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I don't want to sound like I'm making the conclusion just yet but I've been reading the input from all of you and it made me think....(thank you for replying BTW). It sounds like the "impediment" could be bringing the attitude that success in one sport automatically equates to success in another sport.



You see the same kind of thing when seasoned RW skydivers try to learn to freefly. However, it's by no means a universal attitude. With base jumping I would think it would be an even rarer occurrence considering the elevated stakes of "getting it wrong".

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I hadn't intended to post more about this, but I've since seen that there were additional comments in the Incidents thread, in addition to the comments in this thread, and the following seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle:

Brian Schubert did not die because he lacked canopy skills, and the context of all my comments in the incidents forum is Brian's death.

In that context, setting up canopy skills as the issue is a strawman.

On the other hand, I did not and do not dispute that good canopy skills are important--they're actually essential for most jumps--although I would say that for a water landing off NRGB during Bridge Day, even the most rudimentary canopy skills will do the job.

But it is also possible to learn canopy skills without ever making a single skydive, so if you're going to make the case that skydiving experience is essential to successful basejumping, you're going to have to get around all the paragliders who fly their wings a lot better than many of you.

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It's not just the skill sets your muscles learn, it's acclimatizing your brain to the environment it's going to encounter.



This puts it all into context. I hadn't thought of it that way before. This makes practical what was, until now, academic for me.

thanks,

jason

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But it is also possible to learn canopy skills without ever making a single skydive, so if you're going to make the case that skydiving experience is essential to successful basejumping, you're going to have to get around all the paragliders who fly their wings a lot better than many of you.



Now that is a strawman - your original post (on which this thread is based) said that skydiving is an impediment to base jumping, not merely that it wasn't essential.

I find it hard to believe that at least a few skydives would not have made Brians mind more able to react during his jump.
Do you want to have an ideagasm?

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It's not just the skill sets your muscles learn, it's acclimatizing your brain to the environment it's going to encounter.



This puts it all into context. I hadn't thought of it that way before. This makes practical what was, until now, academic for me.

thanks,

jason



Except it isn't true, unless you're doing balloon jumps.

Practicing off a diving board or even the side of a swimming pool is a whole lot closer to what it's like to make a base exit than is exiting from an airplane.
If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

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But it is also possible to learn canopy skills without ever making a single skydive, so if you're going to make the case that skydiving experience is essential to successful basejumping, you're going to have to get around all the paragliders who fly their wings a lot better than many of you.



Now that is a strawman - your original post (on which this thread is based) said that skydiving is an impediment to base jumping, not merely that it wasn't essential.



There are people who seem to be edging to the conclusion that Brian would not be dead if he had had some airplane jumps prior to Bridge Day. I don't think it gets more essential than that.

Nonetheless, your point is taken. The use of "essential" is not essential, however, so just roll it back to what I said originally.

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I find it hard to believe that at least a few skydives would not have made Brians mind more able to react during his jump.



I have known people with many thousands of jumps (skydives) to brainlock. So why do you think that experience is the cure for brainlock?

rl
If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

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Except it isn't true, unless you're doing balloon jumps.

Practicing off a diving board or even the side of a swimming pool is a whole lot closer to what it's like to make a base exit than is exiting from an airplane.



I know I'm going to be too literal here but aren't the things you describe actions to get the appropriate "skill sets?"

I'm not saying one should NOT do those things for the purposes of this discussion.

I'm wondering why the person who does those things and has NEVER jumped from a plane are less "impeded" than a person who DOES those things and has jumped from a plane in your opinion?

Maybe I'm reading too much into it. The only thing I know about BASE is what I've read on this site. And that means I really don't know anything. I haven't jumped in 2yrs and it's turned me into a sad non-jumping dork who cannot stop looking at this site every day. Maybe one day I will get a life and take it to the sky and be able to contribute something useful here.

jason

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I have known people with many thousands of jumps (skydives) to brainlock. So why do you think that experience is the cure for brainlock?



I don't think it would have guaranteed a safe jump, I think it would have made brainlock less likely.
Do you want to have an ideagasm?

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Some people have said that due to the skydiving gear that Brian used to jump, he might have valued a stable deployment much more than we do now, due to the unreliability of that gear.

IF the cause of Brian's fatality was overdelay to get stable, due to a fear of unstable deployment, then being current on modern skydiving and/or BASE gear COULD have made him more comfortable with deploying unstable due to the better reliability of gear now.

Being a current skydiver (but inexperienced or low-experience BASEjumper) will also have the effect of making you used to having a flying parachute above 2000 ft. Therefore stepping off a bridge at 876 ft will have you nervous about being low already and therefore way more likely to under delay (even if pulling unstable) than overdelay.

All you need to do to verify this statement is surf the bridgeday pics to see many unstable deployments from short delays that worked out just fine.

As for those zero-skydive paraglider BASE jumpers who have mad canopy skills, I have this to say: Scott Watwood

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Some people have said that due to the skydiving gear that Brian used to jump, he might have valued a stable deployment much more than we do now, due to the unreliability of that gear.



I think that's pretty wild speculation myself. He did train for this jump, and I'm sure that the need to pull on time was made quite clear to him. Unless he were made to go out of an airplane and deliberately pull unstable, I don't see how it would matter.

How long a delay did Mike and Brian take from El Cap, I wonder.

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IF the cause of Brian's fatality was overdelay to get stable, due to a fear of unstable deployment, then being current on modern skydiving and/or BASE gear COULD have made him more comfortable with deploying unstable due to the better reliability of gear now.

Being a current skydiver (but inexperienced or low-experience BASEjumper) will also have the effect of making you used to having a flying parachute above 2000 ft. Therefore stepping off a bridge at 876 ft will have you nervous about being low already and therefore way more likely to under delay (even if pulling unstable) than overdelay.

All you need to do to verify this statement is surf the bridgeday pics to see many unstable deployments from short delays that worked out just fine.



No disagreement there. My friend Marc had a couple thousand skydives and he'd done at least 12 jumps the weekend before. He counted very fast and ended up tangled up, but he lived.

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As for those zero-skydive paraglider BASE jumpers who have mad canopy skills, I have this to say: Scott Watwood



I didn't even have to click the link, Sam. :) I stand by the position I took in that thread. I have two different friends, one dead (Hoover) and one no longer jumping (a close friend and colleague of Dr. Death) who had much the same experience as Scott. They were both current skydivers at the time. Anyone can have an off-heading opening, and Nick's list makes it clear that sometimes there's not much one can do about it.

Having said I didn't need to read the thread, I did it anyway, and I concede the fact that there's probably no convenient way to deal with the issue of learning how to handle deployment short of a skydive. Of course, if one had a legal bridge in the neighborhood, then I suppose one could learn to handle deployment issues that way just as easily as from an airplane.

Then again, I remember spending some time in a hanging harness. I believe the stated purpose was to train me to deal with malfunctions and to teach me to cutaway. So that's another option.

Still, it's important to note that the idea of "deployment is the most dangerous part of the base jump" is irrelevant with respect to NRGB and thus, inapplicable to what happened to Brian.
If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

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Practicing off a diving board or even the side of a swimming pool is a whole lot closer to what it's like to make a base exit than is exiting from an airplane.



And exiting from an airplane more closely simulates (and thus aids one in acclimating to) the fear factor and sensory overload experienced by an uncurrent jumper at the instant of a real BASE exit than practicing off a diving board or even the side of a swimming pool does.

I saw the video of Brian's exit off the Bridge. Presumably you saw it, too. Was that poor exit position evidence of a lack of muscle-memory training; or was it evidence of his level of physical conditioning, or was it evidence of fear factor and sensory overload? Obviously there's no way to know for sure, but it's a reasonable inquiry.

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Practicing off a diving board or even the side of a swimming pool is a whole lot closer to what it's like to make a base exit than is exiting from an airplane.



And exiting from an airplane more closely simulates (and thus aids one in acclimating to) the fear factor and sensory overload experienced by an uncurrent jumper at the instant of a real BASE exit than practicing off a diving board or even the side of a swimming pool does.



My first jump off that bridge felt nothing like jumping out of an airplane.

It felt very much like jumping from a high board, something I have not done since I was very young.

But it may be different for me than for anyone else in that regard. I'm extremely sensitive to noise--it stresses me out a lot--so my jumps off that bridge and the single balloon jump I made were much less stressful for me than any of my airplane jumps.

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I saw the video of Brian's exit off the Bridge. Presumably you saw it, too. Was that poor exit position evidence of a lack of muscle-memory training; or was it evidence of his level of physical conditioning, or was it evidence of fear factor and sensory overload? Obviously there's no way to know for sure, but it's a reasonable inquiry.



It seems to me that Brian's exit was about normal until he started kicking his feet. I believe that if you check with people who have watched fatalities (of the "nothing out" variety), you will find that kicking is not uncommon somewhere between 1000 and 500 feet.

If I had to point to anything that makes me believe he brainlocked, the kicking would be it.
If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

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My first jump off that bridge felt nothing like jumping out of an airplane.

It felt very much like jumping from a high board, something I have not done since I was very young.



Sorry, but that still misses my point, as well as the points of several other people who've said the same or similar thing. We're not referring to the physical feel or skill; we're referring to fear factor, sensory overload and brainlock in someone who was decades uncurrent.

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I acknowledge the skill sets are different and these are different sports. Can anyone with any real insight explain why it is an impediment to know how to skydive and then try base jumping?



by now you should understand there are vastly differing opinions...

why do you trust the original quote? might it be wrong?
DON'T PANIC
The lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
sloppy habits -> sloppy jumps -> injury or worse

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My first jump off that bridge felt nothing like jumping out of an airplane.

It felt very much like jumping from a high board, something I have not done since I was very young.



Sorry, but that still misses my point, as well as the points of several other people who've said the same or similar thing. We're not referring to the physical feel or skill; we're referring to fear factor, sensory overload and brainlock in someone who was decades uncurrent.



You're trying to say that currency lessens the fear factor, sensory overload and brainlock.

I don't agree. I don't think currency has anything to do with it.

Clair's input would be valuable in this thread. There are others whose input would be useful, as well, but she's the only person who has actually posted here who I know has had the experience of making a base jump with no prior experience.

I don't recall that Clair ever had an issue with fear, sensory overload or brainlock.
If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

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by now you should understand there are vastly differing opinions...

why do you trust the original quote? might it be wrong?



I definitely understand now. When I read that quote originally I must admit that it did not seem right to me. With just a few jumps I didn't want to jump on board or against it.

jason

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You're trying to say that currency lessens the fear factor, sensory overload and brainlock. I don't agree.



I mean you no offense, but I simply cannot fathom how you arrive at that conclusion.

We'll have to just agree to disagree.

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You're trying to say that currency lessens the fear factor, sensory overload and brainlock.

I don't agree. I don't think currency has anything to do with it.
.



i must say, that in ANY situation, (ANY), currency just may be the most Important factor. ESPECIALY parachuting. period ( . )

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It seems to me that Brian's exit was about normal until he started kicking his feet. I believe that if you check with people who have watched fatalities (of the "nothing out" variety), you will find that kicking is not uncommon somewhere between 1000 and 500 feet.



That may be but it's very uncommon for an experienced jumper to transfer the pilot chute from one hand to the other, a very dangerous maneuver in any jump particularly a base jump. That's the thing that really distinguishes this from the normal "freezing up" of brain lock and highly suggests that sensory overload was involved.

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Skill?

How about an inborn ability to deal with unknown in a millisecond?

It is the calmness of not having any fear.

It is the peace of mind at the exit.

Relax,

Everything is going to be alright!

C Ya!
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. Helen Keller

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"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared."
Eddie Rickenbacker
;)

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