Would your DZ let you use a Baser system to skydive.

[diablopilot 2]

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I think it's great he's making a BASE rig that can be jumped legally from aircraft.

Point of order:

Jump Shack is making it.

Sonic is selling it.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[diablopilot 2]

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Site evaluation for one.

Ethics for two.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[lifewithoutanet 0]

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Coming entirely from an uninformed perspective;
Other than the lack of teaching zero wind exits (and I understand the importance of that critical component), what part of the course is considered "wrong/inappropriate/lacking?"

Canopy skills: Excellent. I feel Sonic is fully qualified to teach those where skydiving is concerned.

Object avoidance drills out of a plane...incomplete. There's a method to determining whether or not you actually got it turned around in time that you can't cover without reference-able objects. It's habit-forming/muscle memory, so that's a good foundation, but it's not complete.

Site evaluation: What can you really know about site evaluation from 11 jumps off 2 objects? This is part of the reason you ground crew with local jumpers. In my mind, this should be left to a true BASE FJC or the *qualified* local jumpers that are willing to mentor. Lack of experience in this respect makes me worry that it will also be quite simplistic in the lessons.

Packing: Well, he certainly knows how to pack. How well can he answer questions about various packing methods? Why one jumper wraps the tail and another buries the tail in the center of the packjob with A/B (sometimes even C) reduction folds on top of the centercell of the tail? Is he going to teach multiple methods of packing? Can he answer why some jumpers use one over another?

Anything beyond a basic packjob and what I wrote above is suspect to me. In my conversation with Sonic, I heard far too many "it's not that hard" statements. You know what, a PCA in and of itself probably isn't. But BASE is complex. The sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Sonic says he places an importance on getting a mentor after his course. I asked that he place an importance on getting a *QUALIFIED* mentor after the course. That is, now that you have "BASE gear", don't go running off to that other new jumper on the DZ with 11 jumps and ask him to take you off a local object. Oh...wait, why not go to the guy with 11 jumps if you were just taught by someone with 11 jumps? Beyond that request, he had little concern over whether or not they do. And yeah, you can't protect stupid people from themselves. He's' got Miles and he'll guide them to him, but he should really be clear with his students that he's giving them an incomplete BASE gear course in a skydiving environment and that his course does not make them ready for a BASE jump.

DSE, in your interview, he thought Twin and Moab had only been legal for a few years. Not picking on Sonic, here, but how much else does he not know? How many and what questions will he take a stab at, thinking he knows the answer, when a student asks? And again, his repeated "it's not that hard" statements leave me to believe he has a very simplistic approach to BASE jumping.

Look, the root of this for me keeps coming back to 11 jumps. Bill, you started teaching when you had 100 skydives. 9 times the amount of BASE jumps Sonic has. I don't know what arbitrary number would make him seem a bit more prepared to teach anything about BASE, but it sure as shit isn't 11 jumps. The fact that anyone can defend that as a good idea is fucking ridiculous. But, Sonic owns a gear shop, is the BMOC at The Ranch, so he must know what he's doing.

In closing once more, "Why would you want to learn about BASE from someone with 11 BASE jumps?" There are far better, more qualified options.

-C.

[billvon 2,382]

>Jump Shack is making it. Sonic is selling it.

Yes, you're right. I should have said ". . . . that he talked Nancy into building it."

[DSE 3]

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Coming entirely from an uninformed perspective;
Other than the lack of teaching zero wind exits (and I understand the importance of that critical component), what part of the course is considered "wrong/inappropriate/lacking?"

Canopy skills: Excellent. I feel Sonic is fully qualified to teach those where skydiving is concerned.

Object avoidance drills out of a plane...incomplete. There's a method to determining whether or not you actually got it turned around in time that you can't cover without reference-able objects. It's habit-forming/muscle memory, so that's a good foundation, but it's not complete.

Site evaluation: What can you really know about site evaluation from 11 jumps off 2 objects? This is part of the reason you ground crew with local jumpers. In my mind, this should be left to a true BASE FJC or the *qualified* local jumpers that are willing to mentor. Lack of experience in this respect makes me worry that it will also be quite simplistic in the lessons.

Packing: Well, he certainly knows how to pack. How well can he answer questions about various packing methods? Why one jumper wraps the tail and another buries the tail in the center of the packjob with A/B (sometimes even C) reduction folds on top of the centercell of the tail? Is he going to teach multiple methods of packing? Can he answer why some jumpers use one over another?

Anything beyond a basic packjob and what I wrote above is suspect to me. In my conversation with Sonic, I heard far too many "it's not that hard" statements. You know what, a PCA in and of itself probably isn't. But BASE is complex. The sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Sonic says he places an importance on getting a mentor after his course. I asked that he place an importance on getting a *QUALIFIED* mentor after the course. That is, now that you have "BASE gear", don't go running off to that other new jumper on the DZ with 11 jumps and ask him to take you off a local object. Oh...wait, why not go to the guy with 11 jumps if you were just taught by someone with 11 jumps? Beyond that request, he had little concern over whether or not they do. And yeah, you can't protect stupid people from themselves. He's' got Miles and he'll guide them to him, but he should really be clear with his students that he's giving them an incomplete BASE gear course in a skydiving environment and that his course does not make them ready for a BASE jump.

DSE, in your interview, he thought Twin and Moab had only been legal for a few years. Not picking on Sonic, here, but how much else does he not know? How many and what questions will he take a stab at, thinking he knows the answer, when a student asks? And again, his repeated "it's not that hard" statements leave me to believe he has a very simplistic approach to BASE jumping.

Look, the root of this for me keeps coming back to 11 jumps. Bill, you started teaching when you had 100 skydives. 9 times the amount of BASE jumps Sonic has. I don't know what arbitrary number would make him seem a bit more prepared to teach anything about BASE, but it sure as shit isn't 11 jumps. The fact that anyone can defend that as a good idea is fucking ridiculous. But, Sonic owns a gear shop, is the BMOC at The Ranch, so he must know what he's doing.

In closing once more, "Why would you want to learn about BASE from someone with 11 BASE jumps?" There are far better, more qualified options.

-C.

That is the sort of response I was looking for, Collin. Thanks.
I could have corrected Sonic on the Moab/Twin comment, living in Utah, was well aware they've always been legal, but that would have taken a short interview into an unrelated direction. I've taken a lot of flak for not correcting those comments, but they weren't germaine to PIA and what the point of the over 60 interviews we did were for. It's funny that this interview is the only one that has received HUNDREDS of negative comments for any number of reasons.
I don't know much about BASE at all, but I know that there are more qualified people out there to teach, but the most important aspect (I suppose) is that the interview has given birth to a dialog that skydivers looking at BASE need to witness. That said, BASE guys taking the negative perspective and pissing on skydivers, suggesting that skydivers are "lesser than" and generally picking at skydiving doesn't help that dialog remain productive.
Receiving a PM from someone saying "Hey dumbfuck faggot, you don't know shit about BASE-jumping so why are you interviewing someone about BASE" doesn't make anyone want to have a dialog. I don't know much about deploying 2000lbs of weight between a soldier's legs, either, but that didn't stop me from having a great interview with Frank from Spelko, and I knew nothing about Skyhooks either until having an interview with Bill Booth.
The point is that dialogs do help, do provide opportunities to learn and more importantly, to dispel myths.
As Bill put it, Sonic is willing to take the time to teach. There is a tremendous value in that one aspect.
However, after reading your response, I have a change in my view.
People that teach with an incentive to sell product can be dangerous, IMO. I fully believe that's why we've seen some issues in wingsuiting.
This isn't much different. But I hadn't thought about it this way until your response.