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StreetScooby

'Bird Dream' by Matt Higgins - wondering about public outcry?

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This is an article in the 27-Jul-2014 weekend WSJ. This guy apparently followed Jeb Corliss around. It's not a flattering portrait of base jumping/wingsuiting. Wonder what the public will think, and if there will be an "outcry".

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Wingsuit Insanity
Book Review: 'Bird Dream' by Matt Higgins
Wingsuit-wearing daredevils slash through the sky like flying squirrels, at more than 100 miles per hour—without a parachute.
By
Gregory Couch
July 25, 2014 4:33 p.m. ET

In dreams we soar, not like the Wright Brothers harnessed to mechanical contrivances, but like birds, swooping and gliding on the wings of whim and imagination. To fly like that in waking reality became the holy grail of hyper-adventurous BASE jumpers in recent years, as advances in "wingsuits"—with aerodynamic fabric stretched between arms and legs—made the dream seem possible. The quest to glide through the sky and land without using a parachute became known as the Wingsuit Landing Project, and cutting-edge practitioners around the world raced to be the first person to make it happen.

Gary Connery leaps from Monte Brento in Italy in 2012 while preparing for his parachuteless landing on a stack of cardboard boxes later that year. Getty Images

BASE jumping, parachuting from fixed objects, is likely the world's most extreme sport. Buildings, Antennas, Spans (bridges) and Earth (cliffs) make up the BASE quadfecta. Jumpers leap with no reserve parachute, from so close to the ground that second chances are irrelevant, fighting off the ever-present fear of "going in," as the discipline's nonchalant patois describes unplanned impact. The sport became even more outrageous with the advent, in the 1990s, of modern wingsuits, which make human gliders of skydivers and BASE jumpers. They slash through the sky like flying squirrels—at more than 100 miles per hour.

In "Bird Dream," Matt Higgins cracks open this astonishingly dangerous sport and captures the spectacular adrenaline surges it delivers. He tells this riveting tale primarily perched on the shoulders of jet-setting Southern California rich kid Jeb Corliss, one of the sport's rock stars. Mr. Corliss, Mr. Higgins writes, was an angry, awkward youth who felt rejected at all turns. His life "lacked a plot" until he began BASE jumping in the late 1990s. The sport gave him purpose and direction, and "by risking his life he knew he would win something else: psychic relief and a growing sense of self-awareness and self-confidence."

In the coming years, Mr. Corliss would make more than a thousand jumps from some of the world's most famous landmarks, including Venezuela's Angel Falls, the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as from a jimmied window on the 50th floor of New York's Palace Hotel. He grew into a brash, abrasive BASE-jumping advocate so obsessed with the color black that a girlfriend once had to talk him out of painting his bedroom walls black—to match his clothes, sunglasses, helmet, wingsuit, parachutes, furniture.

Developed in the 1960s and '70s by secretive skydiving enthusiasts looking to push back the frontiers of the possible, BASE jumping has skyrocketed in popularity due to the spread of social media, the invention of wearable point-of-view cameras, and especially the development of high-performance wingsuits. Mr. Corliss has proved particularly successful at publicizing his spectacular stunts online. His gobsmacking video "Grinding the Crack" has received more than 27 million views.

Inevitably, there is also graphic carnage, the dark side of the often graceful flights. And there is no episode in "Bird Dream" more stomach-churning than a wingsuit flight that Mr. Corliss made with pioneer BASE jumper Dwain Weston at the suspension bridge that spans Colorado's Royal Gorge. Their plan called for Weston to soar over the bridge's suspension cables in his bright yellow wingsuit while Mr. Corliss, wearing characteristic black, flew beneath the bridge deck. They jumped from a plane and angled out of the sky toward hundreds of spectators crowding the bridge. Mr. Corliss aimed underneath, as planned, but Weston, rather than flying over both bridge cables, decided to shoot over the near cable and duck under the far one. Instead, he hit the far guardrail at well above 100 miles per hour. His body exploded, and his parachute opened directly in Mr. Corliss's flight path. Mr. Corliss "swerved hard to avoid a collision and passed through a shower of debris," Mr. Higgins writes. Deploying his 'chute, Mr. Corliss landed next to the river below the bridge, not yet comprehending events. He "spotted a severed leg not far from where he stood. Recoiling, he touched his wingsuit and noticed it was wet. Looking down, he saw that it was drenched in a dark liquid. That's when it hit him that he was covered in Weston's blood."

In the wake of the fatality, Mr. Corliss spent many hours wondering if jumping "was worth dying for." He decided it was. He created another Internet sensation flying a wingsuit through a hole in a mountain in China for a Red Bull promotion. "The Wingsuit Landing Project," a term coined by Mr. Corliss, seemed the logical "next step." He envisioned a multi-million-dollar stunt in which he would land a wingsuit without any parachute at all, on a ramp mounted to the side of a Las Vegas casino.

Unbeknownst to him, an unheralded English BASE jumper and wingsuit pilot named Gary Connery harbored a similar dream. Driven to make his own mark, Mr. Connery had imagined a totally different, low-budget, low-tech solution. Mr. Connery scraped together a living as a stuntman, and in his world it was routine to take six- and eight-story falls into big stacks of cardboard boxes, which prove excellent at absorbing impact forces. He envisioned simply landing his wingsuit on a much bigger pile.

According to Mr. Connery's calculations, he needed 18,600 cardboard boxes to be confident his fall would safely be broken. After many anxious weeks trying to keep his boxes dry while waiting out a long spell of horrid English weather, Mr. Connery used mass emails to mobilize a barn-raising-style work force that assembled the boxes into a 12-foot-high, 40-foot-wide, 350-foot-long pile in a farmer's field. On the afternoon of May 23, 2012, with his wife and children watching, Mr. Connery jumped from a helicopter 2,400 feet over the English countryside and swooped down to a flawless landing. He emerged from his cardboard aircraft carrier unscathed, beaming, having fulfilled a dream—he had done something no human being had ever done before. Gracious in defeat, Jeb Corliss called Mr. Connery's feat "the greatest stunt ever performed."

Little wealth accrued to Mr. Connery in the aftermath, although he did parachute into the opening ceremonies of the London Olympics beneath a Union Jack canopy dressed as Queen Elizabeth, an feat witnessed by millions. Mr. Connery's great friend Mark Sutton —who had done much to help him land his wingsuit—jumped as James Bond. Tragically, Sutton was killed while wingsuit flying in Italy the following year.

—Mr. Crouch is the author of "China's Wings: War, Intrigue, Romance, and Adventure in the Middle Kingdom During the Golden Age of Flight."
We are all engines of karma

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Seems like the review ends quite abruptly. I was waiting for the unflattering part.
Skydivers don't knock on Death's door. They ring the bell and runaway... It really pisses him off.
-The World Famous Tink. (I never heard of you either!!)
AA #2069 ASA#33 POPS#8808 Swooo 1717

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If there is an unflattering part, it is the graphic description of Weston's bridge strike fatality, with the whole "covered in blood" and "severed leg lying nearby".

Not the image WSJ weekend subscribers want to dwell on with their morning coffee, but nothing that will cause a measurable backlash.

Now if that sort of fatality happened today, it would create a bigger impact than it did back then, with more video and higher fidelity available...
It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

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Quote

If there is an unflattering part, it is the graphic description of Weston's bridge strike fatality, with the whole "covered in blood" and "severed leg lying nearby".

Not the image WSJ weekend subscribers want to dwell on with their morning coffee,.......



I guess 30 years in the fire dept renders me oblivious to things like blood and body parts in public. Not a big deal to me. I've sen much worse than that on any given saturday night in Baltimore County. :P
Skydivers don't knock on Death's door. They ring the bell and runaway... It really pisses him off.
-The World Famous Tink. (I never heard of you either!!)
AA #2069 ASA#33 POPS#8808 Swooo 1717

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The worst part of the weston bridge tragedy Is there were a significant number of tourists with their kids on the bridge watching the demo that witnessed the bridge strike up close and personal.

The red mist and other gory stuff is available on U tube right out of jebs mouth.
One Jump Wonder

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grimmie

The public doesn't give a rat's ass about skydivers, BASE jumpers, wingsuiters or any other stupid things we do to ourselves.



This. I can't imagine 90% of average WSJ readers even reading the article to the end, much less giving a shit (much less contributing to public outcry) about anything "extreme sporsters" do that goes south.

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SethInMI

If there is an unflattering part, it is the graphic description of Weston's bridge strike fatality, with the whole "covered in blood" and "severed leg lying nearby".

Not the image WSJ weekend subscribers want to dwell on with their morning coffee, but nothing that will cause a measurable backlash.

Now if that sort of fatality happened today, it would create a bigger impact than it did back then, with more video and higher fidelity available...




That's not really unflattering... That's the reality of playing on the pointy side of the blade.

I sometimes wonder if the psych dynamic hasn't changed some in the time I've been jumping because newer jumpers are more removed from the reality that seeing an impact fatality cements in you brain.

A femur from a turn is a warning to heed or not but scraping a buddy off the Tarmac is a lesson one never forgets and takes pains to avoid after seeing it.

No... From what's posted it looks like a well written article from an outside perspective.

If we feel it's unflattering - that's on us because the author didn't make up bullshit for sales reasons. He told it like it is and if that creates public outcry we have no one else to blame.










~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

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I'd also add that this (albeit rather graphic) depiction of a wuffo's interpretation of BASE and wingsuiting just might keep those run-of-the-mill knuckleheads from getting a hold of a BASE rig and trying it themselves. How many of us have heard wuffos ask of our skydiving accomplishments: "you're just falling. How hard can that be?" :S Take it up a notch to the AFF student who says (s)he wants to start skydiving because the next step is wingsuit BASE because they saw it on YouTube and thought it looked cool.

Bottom line: if nothing else, it's a reality check for those who see Jeb's (and others') videos and think it looks easy.

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TriGirl

I'd also add that this (albeit rather graphic) depiction of a wuffo's interpretation of BASE and wingsuiting just might keep those run-of-the-mill knuckleheads from getting a hold of a BASE rig and trying it themselves. How many of us have heard wuffos ask of our skydiving accomplishments: "you're just falling. How hard can that be?" :S Take it up a notch to the AFF student who says (s)he wants to start skydiving because the next step is wingsuit BASE because they saw it on YouTube and thought it looked cool.

Bottom line: if nothing else, it's a reality check for those who see Jeb's (and
others') videos and think it looks easy.



I've already ran into a couple of young stud muffin wanna be future base jumping wing suitors.

I just :D and tell them they can't afford it in a $$ way.

AFF, gear, 200 jumps before the wing suit etc etc,

It may look B| but it takes a lot of $, time, work and luck.
One Jump Wonder

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airtwardo

***

It may look B| but it takes a lot of $, time, work and luck.



You mean to do it TWICE! ;)

Hi Mr T

Oh that :(

I did tell them about the 100 jump wonder that got to make one wing suit jump successfully and fell out of his harness on the second wingsuit jump. B|

There are some things you never forget:(

The kid was young, dumb, wanted it all now. And will stay young forever [:/]

Skymonkey one told the kid no, but some of the youngs ones think they know better. :(
One Jump Wonder

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Krip


Skymonkey one told the kid no, but some of the youngs ones think they know better. :(



Let this be a lesson: ALWAYS listen when Chuck tells you NO!! [:/]

He may have "ruint" a few lives, but definitely NOT through skydiving. ;)
See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus

Shut Up & Jump!

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