NickD

We've got a packing DVD too . . . NickD

It's kind of an old rig now, but if airworthy it's okay. If you get one made from Antron material they're cool, because if you spill beer on the rig it just beads up. Also if the Antron looks a little fuzzed up you can take an electric razor to it and it cleans right up. (You may want your rigger do this as it takes a light touch.) BTW, also go to the Rigging Innovations website and check to see if there are any outstanding service bulletins on the Flexon . . . NickD

There could be a wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends club too . . . NickD

One of my favorites from 1966. And it's over Elsinore . . . http://www.collectmad.com/madcoversite/index-covers.html NickD

Nothing, and I do it when ever the urge strikes . . . regardless of anyone else's whims . . . NickD

But, if we really wanted to, and if we had the gumption, we could take skydiving back . . . We actually don't need Ben and Larry and the others, they need us . . . NickD

Also, go back and look at the original title of this thread, he unintentionally got it right. "What Do Do." Our innocents are crying out for help . . . NickD

>>Do you think the five thousand bucks is important in that equation?

You did the right thing. Floating ripcord handles kill people. I would have just smiled and told the pilot to shut up and just drive the bus . . . NickD

I don't know, Tom. I run hot and cold on legal sites . . . There are many issues to be addressed, but the most important one is this; we are right now in the midst of a BASE fatality spike that coincides with the leap in BASE participation that began between 1999 and the year 2000. Why? If it's a simple matter of more BASE jumps equals more deaths, we are doomed. Or, is it more a product of our own actions over the last 15 years? By this I mean the mainstream advertising by BASE gear manufactures the availability of BASE first jump courses, the BASE competitions, and the airing of BASE videos once held very close to the vest. (BTW, I'm guilty as anyone of all those things). We are, in a way, sending the message to the uninitiated that BASE is an "everyman's" sport. Even as we know in our hearts it isn't and never will be. I'm trying to be careful here and weigh whether I'm an old fart lamenting past glory days, or someone capable of comparing then and now because I've been to both places in time. Regardless of what caused the upsurge in BASE participation (and I think it had a lot to do with Madison Avenue getting kids to buy into the whole "extreme" thing) we are handing out BASE like candy to children when it used to be the kids had to search out the candy for themselves. Those not resourceful enough, not self reliant enough, or not wanting it bad enough, were excluded right off the bat. In terms of progress and safety, I know our biggest leaps in those areas came long before the advent of their being so many legal sites. Bridge Day notwithstanding, tailgates, pin rigs, vents, and so forth were products of an earlier time. Since then we have become more spectacular with aerials, tards, and wing suits, but any safety advances are being cancelled out by people doing too much too fast. Of, course this could be one big growing pain that will pass in time, and I hope it is, but I also think we are paying a terrible price for access. I think legal sites have their place. I like the way the Go Fast Games are run. This is not a come one, come all event. In a sense it's a reward for those experienced jumpers who've paid their dues. The flip side is a legal bridge were you pay your money, make your jumps, promise to get a mentor once back home, and then get turned loose. Are we fooling ourselves into a believing a "skydiving" type of training program is even applicable to BASE jumping? In skydiving, student status used to be so difficult it weeded out those who couldn't hack the program. This was considered a good thing but it ended when we allowed profit to trump safety. Are we going down that same road? Then there is the chicken and egg thing. Do we jump so much in PotatoVille because its not so much allowed, but not disallowed? The current PotatoBridge was built around 1973. I remember someone showing me photos of it back in the late 1980s. When I asked that person if they jumped it, the response was no, as it was too exposed. There is no thought of whether it would be legal or not, it was more a matter the secret was not to be exposed. The big sea change in BASE is when we got away from that idea. Of course, this all makes for interesting discourse, but it's academic in the sense we can never go back to what was. BASE has grown to the point where it has a life of its own. However, we'd be remiss if we don’t figure out a way to take what worked in the past and blend it into what's happening now. BASE jumping is a priceless thing in my opinion. Now that the cat's totally out of the bag we need to make it harder to participate. Someone always says if we don’t teach they will go out and do it themselves. I find that wrong on many levels. After all you can’t automatically say that's a bad thing. It's the way an entire generation of BASE jumpers learned the sport. Second, I think the number of people willing to go it alone these days is smaller than in BASE's earlier days. So I have a bold suggestion. (And before you crap your pants, remember this is us jawing over a couple of beers.) Let's stop training 3 or 4 students at a time for free or for a few hundred bucks. If you want to be a true BASE mentor take one person at a time, charge them five thousand dollars, and take them all the way to a BASE number. Get them to the point where you can let go with a clear conscious. Make that commitment to the sport or stop doing it because it's not working . . . NickD

>>many won't trust it until it proves it's value. that won't happen unless it hits the street

He is . . . USPA is us NickD BASE 194

>>Do you know if the archives will still be available somewhere?

Buy it from Apex or some other BASE gear manufacturer. When Para-Gear was last asking for photo submissions for their new catalog cover they made a big stink out of saying, "We don't accept photographs depicting BASE jumping." NickD

1000 feet above the ground is "high" NickD

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Failure of a minor repair, on a BASE jump, can present a major problem . . . When I wrote an early article on constructing your own BASE gear, as was the style, at one time, Todd Shoebotham gave me a good kick in the butt by saying, "Yikes, what are doing?" I guess, I thought we are all going over the wall anyway, and anything is possible, and I'm thankful Todd reigned me in. You need to be (with all due respect to the Army) all the rigger you can be for BASE jumping, but nothing more than you are really sure about . . . Nick

>What pin tension do you feel is low enough, or too >low? An old rule of thumb. Pack, close the flaps, (pin(s) rig) and try to pick the rig up off the floor by its bridle. If the pins clear the loops without lifting the rig at all, it's too loose. If you pick the rig completely up off the floor without it opening, it’s too tight. Hit somewhere in the middle. Nick BASE 194

>blurring the lines by calling base jumpers "extreme >skydivers". I hate that. Not defending anything, but . . . In the very early eighties BASE jumping is mostly called fixed object jumping. The word BASE didn't really catch on until about 1982 - ‘83. But before that in the late seventies it is indeed widely called extreme skydiving. In fact I saw the sport of BASE jumping start that whole custom of calling certain things extreme. (By the way, I was sick of the "E" word about a year later). And for the record the second sport I ever heard called extreme is land luge in about 1986. The usage of the adjective eXtreme exploded after that. However, in the 1980s skydivers and BASE jumpers are like Clark Kent and Superman, they are one in the same person. We used to argue to USPA to run our BASE ads in PARACHUTIST Magazine because ignorance is death and their members are the ones who needed the information for general purposes and for Bridge Day. I’m glad to see they have finally come around almost twenty years later. There are few, if any, true BASE jumpers. To me that means someone who never skydives. Not even in the beginning. Ritchie’s one that made over a hundred BASE jumps before he made a first skydive. Some of his comments after the jump are, “Man, we opened so high,” and, “that was my first stowed jump.” There are a few more people like that, but not many. I began calling skydiving and BASE jumping nothing more than sister sports, at that time, as we learned through death and injury just how different the truly are. There are certainly more parachutist nowadays who have forgone skydiving for BASE jumping. And the divergence in gear and technique between the two is as large as it’s ever been, but we are still mostly the same people . . . There’s a lovely thought all BASE jumpers have at least once in their careers. It’s when they want the sport to freeze at whatever level it’s at. This usually occurs as they achieve the peak of their skills. But it’s never going to happen. We tried hiding, we tried keeping the jumps quite, we tried tar and feathering those who broke the code, but slowly but surely the Jolly Roger came fluttering down the flag pole and BASE jumping became (if you are old) unbelievably mainstream. In speaking to Bill Ottley I laughed after he saw Carl Boenish’s first films of El Cap and he said, “We’re never going to be able to put that Genie back in the lamp.” And for years the largest picture in his office at USPA is the jump he made off El Cap (legal) in the early eighties. Most (if not all) BASE jumpers come from the ranks of skydivers, that’s the way it’s always been, and probably the way it always will be. And here is a place they can come and ask questions. Carl Boenish believed BASE jumping is a birthright. It’s a spectacular achievement in the annals of human flight. If there is a God he must look down and say, “Look, the thing I made them the most afraid of, they went and turned into a friggen sport. “ Not even Carl knew how wildly accepted BASE jumping would become. When he started the first BASE magazine (called BASE Magazine) he says it’s somewhat because he feels a certain responsibility for popularizing the sport. (He would modestly never claim to have invented BASE jumping). Later, I also did a BASE magazine for awhile and still don’t mind e-mailing people who need a steer in the right direction. Brother and sister skydivers are always going to become BASE jumpers, and they need a place to come and ask questions. We are, after all, all still the same people. I can put up with the rest . . . Nick BASE 194

Frodo, When making that first BASE jump you are going to experience one more sensation not in your dream, Deja Vu. . . Nick BASE 194

Luke, If you'd like to have a little fun in your own backyard try this. Go down to your nearest general aviation airport and purchase a sectional map. These charts cover a large area and have all major towers marked with height in both AGL and MSL. These are neat little treasure maps to towers but remember you are only looking and not jumping. (Yet.) There’s a lot more you need to know, and accept, about towers before you ever go near one. Nick BASE 194

Mini_Risers Suck . . . Jimmy is right, of course, as there is a time in BASE jumping when no one really knows which direction to follow, as skydiving and BASE jumping gear starts to become more jump specific. The story of mini-risers being used for BASE jumping is the very story of mini-risers themselves. Mini-risers appeared on the scene when skydivers are still faced with canopies that are too big too land well. Weight was everything in those days and you emptied the change from your pockets before every jump. So while mini rings (the hardware itself) is fine for BASE jumping the weak sister is the Type 17 risers that went along with them. These one inch risers would hold 2500 pounds per leg until you drilled a hole in one to facilitate the grommet for the Three Ring. Now there’s just a ¼ inch on either side of the grommet (really a hole in the riser) that holds you. Mini rings are fine as long as they are installed on type eight risers. Poynter’s Manual states opening shocks can attain 15 g’s for a nano second (especially slider removed) and you can ask, “The Pick,” who busted a mini riser (type 17 riser) when he whistled in off Hal Dome. BASE rigs are subject to lots of abuse, they get slammed in car doors, left in the bushes overnight, and generally they need to be over built especially when considering it all has to work, the first time, every time. Pure Mini-Risers Suck . . . Nick BASE 194

After years of battles with the NPS regarding BASE jumping in National Parks there's the beginnings of compromise in the wind. I believe it’s only a matter of time now before a jumper with a BASE rig slung over a shoulder will be able to stand in line for lunch along with the climbers, hikers, and campers of Yosemite Valley. On another front there is Lake Powell and the renewed calls for the dismantling of the Dam that formed it. In August of 1869 an explorer named John Wesley Powell journeys through the Glen Canyon area on the Colorado river and reports back east that he’s found what he calls a, "vertical desert.” There are sheer walls a thousand feet high everywhere you look. In 1956 the Glen Canyon Dam is built (a big government make-work project) and over the next ten years what is now Lake Powell is formed. Nowadays because of the drought conditions in the west Lake Powell is about as low as it’s ever been and the famous, “bath tub ring,” is as big as I’ve ever seen it. The lower water levels are beginning to uncover archeological sites that are intriguing to scientists and may tell the story of humans who lived in this area thousands of years ago. Some environmentalists are calling for the draining of the lake in order to restore the balance of the ecosystem down river. Removing the water from Lake Powell would uncover a BASE wonderland. It would add as much as 500-feet to cliffs that are already very jumpable. A place where you can spend a year and never do the same cliff twice. There are two power generation plants that feed off the lake. One is owned by a national consortium of power companies and the other by the U.S. Government. Both these plants would cease operation if the water was drained. The town of Page is naturally against any changes in Lake Powell as the lake is the only reason the town exists. They live off tourist dollars (buy your supplies before getting there) but it’s a relatively new town that began as a place to house the Dam workers in the late fifties. Locals fear Page becoming a ghost town if the lake is drained. However, towns do come and go, and that’s the way of things. Keeping the Colorado river bottled up is a poor excuse to keep a small tourist trap going. I’m not smart enough to know which side is right (the, “Keep the Lake” side makes very dire predictions of water shortages and other catastrophes occurring if the Glen Canyon Dam is removed) but from a purely BASE view, I say, pull the plug. Nick BASE 194

Jean, Carl's former wife, still has the rights to all of Carl's stuff and was for awhile selling copies of it. Jean, however, seems to have put BASE jumping behind her (for now) and she's hard to pin down on what's happening with those films. I visited Carl's house a year or so after he died and was amazed at what Carl had in his studio-garage. The wing suit from the MGM movie, The Gypsy Moths (they called it the Cape) is there. All his cameras, helmets and lenses are there. And the first two Velcro closed BASE rigs that Carl had built for him in 1983 are there. I mentioned to Jean that this stuff should be preserved for a museum. I have video copies of almost all of Carl's films and I'm sure there are many other copies floating around. Unfortunately, one by one my VCR is eating those tapes so I'm afraid to look at them anymore. Finding a way to put these movies on some type of archival media is something that's way overdue. If you can find a copy of Carl's film "SKYDIVE" there are a few shots of the early El Cap jumps in there. I’d check with any jumpers on your DZ who’ve been around since the late seventies or early eighties, and I’ll bet you can find some copies of these films as they were very popular and sold well. Carl was working on a pure BASE film at the time of death, and I would sure like to see someone gather that stuff and finish that project for him . . . Nick BASE 194