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mgregory

Swooping or BASE?

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I think drinking beer is more dangerous. Especially if you still have to drive home afterwards. :S

Swooping requires great skill but can be done relatively safe. BASE jumping requires great skill but can be done relatively safe. Neither will be as safe as staying in bed, but arguing with the wife is arguably even less safe than either swooping or BASE jumping.

Johan.
I am. I think.

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The only reason I ask is because the two skydivers that got me into skydiving were arguing over it one day. One swooped and didn't BASE. The other was the opposite.



Now I'm curious who took which side, were they each claiming their own actives to be more dangerous, or that the other ones were?

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I hadn't thought of that. The BASE jumper claimed that she didn't swoop because of how dangerous it was and the swooper claimed he didn't BASE jump because of how dangerous it was. I bet they were just hating on eachother because A) they were to scared to try it themselves or B) they just weren't interested.
AKA MG Hammer Flying Hellfish #834 Son's Of Bacon #1

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Dead is dead, but the question wasn't which is more fatal, it was which is more dangerous. I voted BASE because the consequences for making a mistake in the areas that make BASE unique from swooping (such as opening a canopy) are more dire than making a mistake in the areas they share (like canopy control).

You can live through plenty of botched swoops, but not that many no-pulls or total mals in BASE.

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What about the argument that the chances of being injured from swooping are greater due to having so many more attempts at it compared to the number of BASE attempts? So would it be fair to say that there is a greater chance of injury from swooping, but a greater chance of fatality in BASE?
AKA MG Hammer Flying Hellfish #834 Son's Of Bacon #1

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I think they are both equally as dangerous when compared on an equal platform.

You need to try to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges when possible. In this case it isn't....so we have to try.

There are different levels of danger with both swooping and base. For example someone can swoop a stilleto and someone can make a base jump off the perrine. Both are categorized as higher risk activity when compared to skydiving but arent as dangerous as they could be. More dangerous jumps would be the level of swooping that comes at the World Cup and people making proximity WS flights.

The reason i think they are similarly dangerous is this: They are BOTH geared towards pushing the envelope to the max and essentially making the margin or error zero. Sure...you dont have to work with a zero margin or error....but many base jumpers and swoopers do just that.

So...if you attempt to equalize both activities then you can see they are equally dangerous. As someone already said dead is dead, and when you are working with a zero safety margin a mistake in either sport will kill you. We could argue all day and try to compare different types of swoops to different types of base jumps but it wouldnt make a difference.
"If this post needs to be moderated I would prefer it to be completly removed and not edited and butchered into a disney movie" - DorkZone Hero

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BASE.



The number of people killed or seriously injured in BASE is most likely substantially higher based on the number of participants and jumps made a year compared to swooping.

On my DZ alone there are 10+ people who do some form of swooping and only 3ish base jumpers. We make hundreds more swoops a year than they do base jumps.

This comes back to the same old argument of driving vs. skydiving. Just cause only 20 some people are killed every year skydiving and thousands a year die in car crashes it doesn't make skydiving safer. (Many many many more people drive cars)
~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

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So...if you attempt to equalize both activities then you can see they are equally dangerous. As someone already said dead is dead, and when you are working with a zero safety margin a mistake in either sport will kill you. We could argue all day and try to compare different types of swoops to different types of BASE jumps but it wouldnt make a difference.



he put it better than i did
"Never grow a wishbone, where your backbone ought to be."

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So...if you attempt to equalize both activities then you can see they are equally dangerous.



No way man.

I'm a swooper, and I know what can go wrong on a swoop. It's not that hard, really. Turn the canopy, don't hit the ground. The only thing that can go wrong is that you fly yourself into the ground (or another canopy). If you're a good canopy pilot, and have good traffic management, you have a good deal of control over your situation.

BASE jumpers give up control over their situation during the deployment. You can pack and rig everything correctly, and still have a problem. Even if you get a good canopy, BASE jumping LZs are often small, dark, and full of obstacles.

That's why the opening sets BASE jumping apart from swooping. Swooping starts with an open, fully functioning parachute, and that really is the #1 concern for every skydive or BASE jump. Having that already in the bag makes swooping the safer bet.

Neither one is really that 'safe'.

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Dave, come on man, you're a smart guy here as I read your posts a lot. You're not following me here and doing what most jumpers do: You are comparing a best case swoop to a worst case base jump. That's not fair. Sure, a lot of times base jumps dont have the best landing area, but its not fair to say most of the time. There are hundreds of jumpers that will disagree with you there.

Besides, i could use the reverse logic:

"I am a base jumper, and i know what can go wrong on a jump. It's not that hard, really. Turn the canopy, don't hit the object."

People think base is this super hard sport. Guess what, it's not! The difference in base and skydiving is that in skydiving you have time to be reactive and in base you have to be proactive. (Borrowed from another base jumper.)

My point is this: It is not fair to compare a normal low stress swoop to an abnormal stressful extreme base jump. You need to compare a videot doing a lazy 270 to land after shooting a tandem to someone taking a handheld off the perrine. It wouldn't be fair for me to compare a world class swooper doing a 720 and scooting 60 mph inches across the ground to someone jumping the perrine....because in that case i would say the base jumper was safer...and that wouldn't be fair.
"If this post needs to be moderated I would prefer it to be completly removed and not edited and butchered into a disney movie" - DorkZone Hero

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Do you think swooping or BASE jumping is more dangerous?



You're ALL fuckig wrong, I'm the most dangerous! Rawrghhhhhhhhh (thats my alpha male roar)

Apples and Crab Apples... or is it oranges...
1338

People aint made of nothin' but water and shit.

Until morale improves, the beatings will continue.

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It wouldn't be fair for me to compare a world class swooper doing a 720 and scooting 60 mph inches across the ground to someone jumping the perrine....because in that case i would say the BASE jumper was safer...and that wouldn't be fair.



I am a smart guy, which is why you should start paying attention.

The difference in your above example is that it takes a world class swooper to do what you said. The skill of the swooper determines how 'big' the swoop will be. Every BASE jump, if it's the jumpers first or 1001st involves the successful deployment of the main canopy, followed by making a safe landing.

A swoop only requires the safe landing, the successful deployment has already occured.

Compare going handheld off the Perrine to a simple 180 with no traffic. The BASE jumper could go in clean, the swooper is already under an open canopy.

Compare the top level swooper in an actual competition jump to any of the BASE jumpers in "Ready To Go", and the swooper still has an open canopy to begin with (not to mention the skill set of a top level swooper). No matter how good the BASE jumper is, he still has to survive the 'unknown' of a parachute deployment.

I'm telling you something you should already know - in any freefall (or static line) descent, the real turning point is getting an open canopy over head. Being in freefall is one level, and being under an open canopy is way, way under that, figuratively speaking (and literally sometimes too).

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It wouldn't be fair for me to compare a world class swooper doing a 720 and scooting 60 mph inches across the ground to someone jumping the perrine....because in that case i would say the BASE jumper was safer...and that wouldn't be fair.



I am a smart guy, which is why you should start paying attention.

The difference in your above example is that it takes a world class swooper to do what you said. The skill of the swooper determines how 'big' the swoop will be. Every BASE jump, if it's the jumpers first or 1001st involves the successful deployment of the main canopy, followed by making a safe landing.

A swoop only requires the safe landing, the successful deployment has already occured.

Compare going handheld off the Perrine to a simple 180 with no traffic. The BASE jumper could go in clean, the swooper is already under an open canopy.

Compare the top level swooper in an actual competition jump to any of the BASE jumpers in "Ready To Go", and the swooper still has an open canopy to begin with (not to mention the skill set of a top level swooper). No matter how good the BASE jumper is, he still has to survive the 'unknown' of a parachute deployment.

I'm telling you something you should already know - in any freefall (or static line) descent, the real turning point is getting an open canopy over head. Being in freefall is one level, and being under an open canopy is way, way under that, figuratively speaking (and literally sometimes too).



Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

I never have any worries about a BASE canopy not opening. I always tend to worry when on something elliptical though.

This whole thread is poppycock, poppycock I say.
1338

People aint made of nothin' but water and shit.

Until morale improves, the beatings will continue.

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The difference in your above example is that it takes a world class swooper to do what you said. The skill of the swooper determines how 'big' the swoop will be.



No, it takes a world class jumper to pull off what i described above, anybody could try it, but if they dont have the skills they will die. That is my point.

I see what you are saying with the open canopy i just dont agree. In base an opening malfunction is pretty much going to be a rigging error. That's why we have better technology and a better understanding of how it works than most skydivers. We have a common friend that had an issue with opening but that was a rigging error, not performance.
"If this post needs to be moderated I would prefer it to be completly removed and not edited and butchered into a disney movie" - DorkZone Hero

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