NickDG

I remember Chris is engaged while at Lake Elsinore, and SHE says, is it Vickie or Nancy?, I'm not sure . . . ? "Lose twenty pounds before the wedding . . . or no wedding," so he's going around the DZ saying, "I can't get the munchies, I can't get the munchies . . ." Nick

What Space said and . . . The dictionary says “Nimbus” is: “A radiant light that usually appears in the form of a circle or halo about or over the head.” The Nimbus, built by ParaFlite, came out in 1984, and in three sizes. Nimbus Beta, 184 sq ft. Nimbus, 223 sq ft. (Sounds like the one you have.) Nimbus XL, 265 sq ft. It’s all F-111 and the lines are 600 lb Dacron. I remember the Nimbus opened hard, then ParaFlite did something to the slider. Some people used a side-pocket for line deployment. These looked like tail-pockets except they are mounted on a stabilizer. I’m pretty sure this didn’t do any good. At sixty feet water and concrete are about the same thing . . . so you still want a good canopy over your head. The aspect ratio of 9-cells, like the Nimbus, make symmetrical openings more difficult to achieve. The Nimbus was used for BASE jumping back in the day when there wasn’t any BASE gear. Now, is there a nice vintage round reserve in the container that Nimbus came in? Nick

>>Of course a dummy was dropped....did you really think it was Burt Lancaster? LOL

I'll never forget . . . My shift as staff member at Bridge Day (1986) when the first jumper climbs the rail, stops, looks down at me and says, "okay, how do I do this?" I'm glad times have changed . . . Nick

>>Actually it says he jumped from a crane attached to the tower>Bex

This has been a long time "dream" of many. Some have come pretty close. The Kockelman brothers had a 260-foot crane (they used it in their bungee jumping business) that we BASE jumped a number of times. Mike Allen sent me a magazine called, "Radio Engineer" back in the 80s. In the classified section there were many towers for sale. They are the result of radio stations going out of business, or upgrading their equipment. They ranged from 500 to 2000-feet and the deal is you hired a company to come take it down and remove it. They weren't really that expensive to buy, but the removing, moving, and re-erecting is quite expensive. If you do hit the lottery (or better, put a business prospectus together and get the right people to invest in it) there's no reason it wouldn't fly, so to speak. There are companies that will build you a new tower to your specifications, elevator and everything. Here’s a company that builds freestanding towers to 500-feet: http://www.glenmartin.com/hstowers.html And some more links to manufactures are here: http://www.dxzone.com/catalog/Manufacturers/Towers_and_Accessories The FAA or FCC couldn’t stop you as not being an actual radio transmitter should have little to do with it. It would be a legitimate business that uses a tower. I almost had Ben Conaster talked into erecting a thousand footer at Perris. He lit up like a bulb when he suddenly realized he could sell jumps without using an airplane. (I suppose he went with the wind tunnel instead

You're right Space, I wasn't trying to be sequential, but now I realize that's the way I made it look . . . Nick

Okay Bex, I'm going out to dinner, we'll figure this out when I come back . . . Nick BASE 194

There will never be a WTC Towers #7. Owen Quinn, WTC #1 Van Refuse, WTC #2 Nic Feteris, WTC #3 Thor Alex, WTC # 4 John Vincent, WTC# 5 I know who it is, but I can't I tell you, WTC #6 If there is ever a Number 7, it'll have an asterisk after it . . . Nick

#41 Thor Alex Kappfjell, July 7, 1999 Age: 32 Cliff Jump Norway Cliff Strike Thor is reported to have jumped into a fog bank and may have lost his bearings once under canopy and hit the wall. Thor is a popular BASE jumper and is one of six known people to jump from the World Trade Center Towers in New York City. (The other five are Owen Quinn, Van Refuse, Nick Feteris and John Vincent. The sixth is a jumper who chooses to remain anonymous). There will never be a WTC Towers #7. http://www.basefatalities.info/ Nick

When Ritchie made his 300th BASE jump (back in the day) I asked him what it felt like and he said, "I’m not sure I know, except, this is my 300th and I'm scared . . . so all I know for sure is when you make your 300th BASE jump you'll still be scared." Nick

>We're all freaks just trying to find our way, hopefully learning as we go.< Yes, Karin, that's right. We are only hampered by those who don't realize the future is just history in reverse . . . Nick D

>I believe we are TOO EASY on the newbie punks that infiltrate our small sport.< Too Carl Boenish, Jimmy Tyler is a newbie punk. Too Jimmy Tyler, Phil Smith is a newbie punk. Too Phil Smith, Mark Hewitt is a newbie punk. Too Mark Hewitt, Moe Viletto is a newbie punk. Too , is a newbie punk. This sport is bigger and more important than anyone of us, it’s bigger and more important than any particular object, BASE jumping cannot be rented, owned, or sold, and no one has the right to refer to it, even temporarily as, “ours.” BASE jumping is nothing more than humankind’s practical manifestation of its burning desire to fly, to be free, to be more than we are now. And the only thing any of us are local to is planet Earth . . . Nick D

>Got it! BASE#892.< Congratulations, Brother!!! Nick

Just a note to any loners out there. San Diego is hot so chill . . . NickD BASE 194

Hi Tony, Long time no see, Bro . . . Sure, Smitty and Tiny, and the rest are true pioneers, I just put what I could into one post while being general and not thinking about it too much . . . Where are you? Nick

Hello Tonto, Generally the “sport” of skydiving began after WW II when returning Airborne GI’s found the tedium of civilian life too much for them to handle. They realized that while getting shot at sucked, the jumping part was kinda fun, and when the U.S. Government began dumping surplus parachute equipment onto the civilian market in the 50’s, bingo, a spot is born. Here began the idea of jumping for fun (a concept still lost on most people). At first (late 40’s, early 50’s) these guys would just show up at small crop duster airports and beg for rides. The state of freefall parachuting at the time is tumble, tumble, tumble, dump, spill, spill, spill, crash . . . ! At the time they needed no one to teach them, simply because there wasn’t anything to teach. Real controlled freefall began with the French and is brought to the U.S. by Jacque Istel in the late 50’s. (What morphed into the “Box Man” is originally called the “French Frog” position). Istel, along with Lew Sanborn, are the first to introduce the idea that you didn’t have to do push-ups for three weeks (military airborne training) in order to make a parachute jump and introduced the 3-hour first jump course for civilians in about 1957. This is called the “Telsan” method. However, right up until about the mid-60’s, many people, some who are still jumping today, got hold of parachutes and just did it without any training at all. (Ask Lupe Gonzales how he started . . .) After that, and a bit hard to understand in light of nowaday's training methods, most senior jumpers of today learned on their own. It is called static line training and it was a solo journey through terminal velocity that anyone who did it will never forget. When done with it you felt as if you had truly earned your place in the sky. I’m sure others will chime in here, but that’s it in a nutshell. Of course, the very first parachute jumpers are BASE jumpers long before airplanes are invented, but don’t get me started on that . . . Here’s some links . . . http://projectpi.skydiveworld.com/ http://www.airtrash.com/ This seems funny to say without a radio in my hand but, welcome to skydiving! NickD

Thanks . . . NickD

Would anyone with contact with Iiro Seppanen please ask him to contact me at [email protected] Thanks, NickD BASE 194

Tom, if you edit this again, I'm gone from here . . . I stayed out of the moderator fray because I think sites like this should be peer regulated. In that vein, and although I understand your intent, I chose to post where I did (within another thread) for a reason. If I wanted to start a new thread on site burning I would have. I don’t want my posts manipulated in that fashion. I now have to defend an off the cuff remark, and if that’s going to be the way of it here, I’m gone. I don’t want to go into the whole thing right now, but I think we are guilty of taking ourselves and what we are doing too seriously. Very few sites, if any, get burned to the point where they are never jumped again. Time passes, people forget. I really believe we are too paranoid in general, and a more in your face approach to BASE jumping would benefit the sport in the long run. We, all of us, are rebels in the first place, and the best thing to say when cornered is, “Yes, I jumped off that, and if that bothers you, you can go F yourself . . . !” Site protection is not reason enough to eat our young. Nick D BASE 194

I also loved how easy a Piglet II was to pack. Instead of walking up and down flaking the gores, you could just stay down at the skirt and flip, flip, flip, and you’re done. Before I cut the stabilizers off mine for BASE jumping I jumped it in an early knockoff (sorry Bill) Wonderhog in 1978 and this combination was generally known as a, “Texas Low Pull Rig.” With a low hook turn you could even get a bit of flair out of it. Although you had to be careful as in those days hook turning a round would get you grounded . . . Nick D

Not sure if anyone has BASE jumped the towers, but there's certainly been tens of thousands of McConkeys made there. If you want to do this, skip all that security, and go to that OTHER place . . . Nick

QuoteComeon Nick your mind is going Lyle Cameron was jumping 16mm in the early 60's but my guess would be Bob Sinclair. reply] Hi Dad, Yes, of course, you're right . . . Ripcord (never missed it, I'd sit in front of our b&w Zenith with a big bowl of cereal when I was 8 years old) aired from 1961 to about 1964, and Bob Sinclair was doing much of the air to air stuff. http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-2772/ Nick

He did ask about video, not film. In 1982 I was jumping a JVC video system (the first that used a smaller than standard size VHS tape). This was the first (non-professional) unit that separated the camera from the recording deck. I remember the cost was a whopping $1800. Although prior to this some are jumping the larger Sony Betamax systems. The recording unit on the JVC was worn up front like a belly wart reserve. This was the first true compact consumer video system. I believe it was the only time, a very young Tom Sanders, was impressed with my equipment. If talking about film, the first to carry a helmet mounted camera in freefall was probably Bob Buquor in 1966 filming the first eight-way. Bob drowned off Malibu while shooting the freefall footage for the feature film, "Don’t Make Waves," starring Tony Curtis and Sharon Tate (yes, the Manson Family victim, Sharon Tate). Bob is found on the bottom of the sea with his camera helmet in his hands. The film does include the freefall sequences, but I’m not sure if they recovered Bob’s film, or re-shot the footage. Who actually shot the first air to air “video” is probably lost to history . . . Nick D

Get On, Get Up, Get Off . . . The 10-foot wooden plank used on our local 700-footer stayed on the roof of a small one-story maintenance shed next to the tower. It sat up there for years. The plank is shoved out to within a few feet of the tower and you’d only get as close as you had other jumpers to counterbalance the plank. It’s always fun when a new jumper is on the load, and an unseen last drag on a cigarette (or whatever) produces a nice cloud of smoke as you landed on the tower. With this system the last person, usually the most fit, has to jump across without the plank. This AM tower is (still is) very hot and pumping out mega-watts of electro magnetic radiation. The deal here is get on, get up, get off. Most BASE jumps have factors to be considered outside the actual jump and doing AM towers means making an informed decision about dealing with the EMR aspects. I will say, most unscientifically, the jumps we made began there almost twenty years ago and among that group there isn’t an out of range cancer cluster. The science otherwise, on EMR, is split. Some research (most sponsored by companies that own power lines) show no long term damage from EMR. Other studies (done by Universities and the like) conclude there is molecular damage right down to the gene level. Yikes . . . Nick