cesslon

HI Thijs Have you read TOM or Dwains articles about wanting to get into BASE? First of all I'll say no need to rush, skydiving should be able to hold your attention for a fair while, I loved my 3 jumps

I think this could only truely be answerd by someone who has been in the sport a long time and met all the different personality types. as someone may say its fairly safe if you were to only do certain kind of jump. People may go into a sport with safety on there mind and say they will do the only the safest jumps but then as there skills progress they will see more advanced jumps safer and keep pushing the limits. so the main issue with working out how safe it is would be by what % of people will eventually push the limits as far as they can, putting them self at greater risk. Sure someone might think" i'll only do PCA's into water from 30 foot bridges" which would be safe but how likely are they to get sick of it and want a bigger kick etc. Dunno if this post made sense but I hope so.

Hi Hondarider. I hang in here a fair bit, and I don't BASE jump (except in the GTA video game ) I done 3 skydives but thats it, anyone is allowed in here, just remember most basic questions you may have you may be able to find by searching the forum, people will generally get sick of people asking the same questions, but everyone here is usually friendly

I agree 100% with the head honcho as the bandwidth expenses involved to keep this site running must be huge. so if someone is to make money out of this site then they should be willing to help out the site financially and advertise on it. I'm sure its more about cost of running the site then HH thinking since he has put 10 billion hours into the site and probably had the site save many lives then he thinks he should earn some green stuff I say earn as much as you can from it.

Hi Holly I wasn't meaning to kick the bee's nest by my questions, was just asking out of curiosity, I don't BASE but like to learn as much as possible about it without being able to do it. few more questions, you originally said you took a hand held 3 second delay, how high was the bridge ? 1 question for the other BASE jumpers here, having not seen any first time jumps in person but having seen..... a few on video I'm wondering why some first time jumps are static lines and some multiple second delays ? is it that the beginner jumps I see on tape are from aussie land where objects are usually quite low (bridges below 200 feet), so low skilled jumpers shouldnt free fall them or is it different teaching techniques of different mentors ? thanks

HI, 2 questions. 1. are your details correct, that you have had 40 odd skydives ? 2. what kinda object was your jump from ?

Hi Russel, can you free fall for very long? or does your body end up going head down/on back ?

hahaha crazy stuff, would be funny to see 150 people jump. what would be smart would be if there is a town close by, then ya's could get some kind of current affair show to cover the few days and ram it down into 15 minutes of tv. first of al;l 150 jumpers could all stay in the near by town and all spend $200 each that way the show can say that by having jumpers there just 1 day it brought $30k to the small community. this would show that everyone is better off by this jumping. How ever if some1 got hurt on the jump this would be the worse case ya's could ever put forward. is there a law against walking around in the park with a parachute out of a container if you arnt jumping? cos if not then ya's could have about 1,000 skydivers at the landing area all with there canopys out ready to pack away. that way if 150 BASE jumpers land amongst one thousend people with there canopys out no one will be able to tell who jumped and who didn't and no1 could get charged because there would be a large ammount of reasonable doubt of who jumped. and when everyone gets questioned they could simply say "no I never jumped I was just here for the visual colour display, we set all the canopys up for a bright colour photo, then someone said cameras arnt allowed so we ended up not taking any photos at all and as we were about to pack up someone said some jumpers landed amongst us but by the time I looked around all I could see was other people with there canopys out for the Visual Colour DIsplay" now that would be funny. and are camera's really not allowed ? or is it just video filming equipment or what ?

guestimates on how high it is ?? I always see images like that and wonder how well you guys can guess the height, from that pic how high is where that guy is standing compared to say the valley that can be seen ?

http://www.basecamp.com/ same logo style as dropzone.com's logo and links to DZ.com anyone know whats the go with this site ?

I bought the game "battlefield2" yesty was playing it last night it also has BASE in it. quite a few A's and B's only found 1 B so far, and am yet to find a E is pretty dodgey BASE though, ya cant even see ya self falling like in GTA, all ya see is the view from your eyes, and nothing is high enough to track from. but I guess its a start ya could also BASE in battlefield vietnam, but in that ya only had round canopys where as in battlefield 2 ya have new canpoys and can fly them (kinda). Hopefully they'll make the next game in afghanistan or somewhere with big cliffs and have BASE more like GTA. they add these to games cos they know it makes the game more exciteing and feature rich, eventually there will be a fully dedicated BASE game regardless of what ya think, odd's are ya will be a criminal or something exciteing.

The mountain is the best place to jump I aint jumped off a building since I jumped off the mountain the mountain has to be between 2000 to 3000 feet high if you want to clear all the steps of the mountain and make it all the way to the bottom ya gotta track hard, ya will clear the last step and must deply instantly, you'll be about 20 feet above the road, quick turn and land. for the mountain ya must run off the ramp. if ya only run though ya will have trouble tracking all the way to the road most likely ya will only go a thousend feet (if ya lucky) and willl need to deploy or you'll hit a ledge. but if ya cool (like me) grab the mountain bike ride it flat out off the ramp, jump off it straight away and track like mad. I aint played the game in yonks as it aint mine, but if you can go off the ramp on the pushy and track throw in a 360 then continue tracking and still make it to the road ya have done well if ya aint jumped the mountain yet do it, way better then any building or plane in the game as it gives a challenge

hi dexter have you played the GTA game ? its a good start ya could get a good base game made for about $5million lol seriously though a BASE game wouldnt be aimed at just BASE jumpers, I've played tony hawk pro skater but was a roller blader when younger and actually hated skate boards, how ever I liked the video game. when I used to skydive in pilot wings when I was 10 I had never skydived but I loved the game. most people who play the highly successfull flight simulators will never fly a plane. video game industry is a massive industry, exactly twice the size of the holywood movie industry. if you can capture 5% of the industry even the $30million games are successfull. tony hawk game reaps in about $30 million + a year. I think a BASE game if made correctly like with the right graffics and plot etc would be a success. for it to benefit base though, the best way it could be made would be not to have it named after 1 jumper like tony hawk skateboard kinda thing but have several very experienced jumpers put input into the games development. and have the game company donate 20% of the profits to Nick G's commercial base tower

man that games so awesome i used to play it on my younger brothers PS2 as I don't have 1 the game is now on PC so I'm getting a copy very soon all I do in it is jump off the mountain and a few tall buildings the rest of the game is a waste of time lol a tip is to turn up the game speed that way ya falll at a more realistic speed. tracking from the mountain is awesome. would be great if 1 day they made a pure BASE game kinda like tony hawk. can't see it happening though but it would be enjoyable providing it had many of the worlds cliffs, most people may get bored after doing a few million aerials though and wondering why it dont have the names of the cliffs lol. they would need to give it more action like the cops are always after ya so ya gotta get away, and like these crack heads come out of the dark and hit ya up for money and if ya don't give it to them they tell the cops on ya and/or break into ya car after the cops take ya away. ya could even play as a *mythical* character who runs an import/export business accross the border to mexico he could import say lots of cocaine lol and when the cops come after ya you would run and jump off the cliff. maybe the game can start off with ya doing a course on a bridge and the instructor is known as TA lol. maybe online aerial comps and the winner gets an energy drink sponsor and goes to all the big gameing conventions and when ever his interviewd he like screams at the guy, like say some journalist from PC gamer is there and his names peter, the sponsered d00d would be like "YEAH !!! PETER !!! I'm FEELING!! IT PETER!!!" a BASE game will eventually come along just not sure when, Pilotwings was a skydiving game and originally on the super nintendo so BASE shouldnt be to far away. GTA is a great start, it just needs more cliffs and to be able to do aerials, also get rid of the rip cord would be good, and if it could allow ya to do PCA and also jump with ya PC already in ya hand

I thought it wasn't the best idea at first but now I think 2 forums would be good I'm always thinking of questions and threads to start etc but then think "nah I won't as I don't want to start to many threads in such a small forum"

Hi Mike, congratulations on your decision, that is doing what you wish. I hope your family reads your post so they can see how much they mean to you, although they probably already know. once again congrats

did he get zapped at all ?

Hi Dave, why don't you burn all the files on skydiving movies to dvd (data dvd format for computers) then sell them to all the skydivers/base jumpers who only have dial up connections like my self how many gig worth of vids are on skydiving movies now ?

Hi, Sorry for sounding not with it but I used to be with it, but then they changed what 'it' was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me. but whats a gainer? thanx

HA HA

tom could you briefly tell us ya story about ya jump there where ya F$&*%# up? or a link to where ya have written it somewhere before thanx

Hi Jasmin I wasn't stating what happend or what was right to do or wrong to do (as I wasn't there), was just trying to explain that if the BASE Community is totally underground and has no real public faces then when $hit hits the fan its free fireing for the media and general public as they don't really see much BASE to understand why or who these jumpers are etc. hence the reason I reckon stuff like the 60 minutes episode did more good then bad.

and the only police will be Troll police ??? whats the reasoning for 3 ? why not 1 big 1 and ya just dont climb all the way to the top when ya want to jump low ? or is there some disadvantage with that ?

I personally think Jimmy and Pete are good for Aussie BASE. I say this as not an insider but as an outsider of the sport. In OZ if some1 fucks up or dies it makes the news more and more each time. and more and more each time people will think "who are these dumb ass idiots and why the F-bip do they want to even jump off a cliff". this gives the jumpers no support what so ever, and even verges on negative support e.g "fucking idiots" instead of "well they knew how dangerous is was". With people like Jimmy and Pete on sports tonight, 60 minutes, ACA and vids (+ interviews) on extreme sports stuff on pay tv like the St00pid base and slim a base life, it puts a friendly human factor to the sport for the outside community (the rest of the tax paying people who own the cliffs and emergency services). So when some1 fucks up people will think more along the lines of "oh shit, that’s not good, but they know its dangerous" (along the lines of a motor sport accident) instead of "what a fucking idiot, who ever else was with him should be locked up". I see TV footage from other countries where its like a news story put together on bridge day style events, I'll assume they help with public support???, in OZ there is no such events, and due to the underground nature of the BASE community the only time BASE is really seen is when they show a funeral on the news and these mysterious people that no1 has any idea of who/what they are walking out of the funeral. are these jumpers aliens ? are they wanting to die? are they dumb? do they even have jobs? are they selling drugs to buy there gear? ok... maybe I’m going a little far. but when the only thing ever shown about base is how some d00d died and everyone did a runner and people ring up the radio saying how "leaving ya mate behind isn’t the Australian way". I can't possibly see how someone on 60 minutes etc showing how good they are (even if they are crap) and answering questions can be bad for the sport. Australia has a rather "us and them" mentality, people want to know who's living in the house next d00r, how ever once they know who's living there they don't really give a shit what they do as long as they keep it to them self. If BASE is going to be in the news constantly with injuries and deaths it must have (familiar) faces to represent it, or it must be expected to cop shit loads of flack from the news and general public on talk back radio. Sure it might seem like a smart move to have an old doctor talking to the media but from certain angles it looks like his just being the front man of a cult, with jimmy and pete when they speak it’s the actual jumpers speaking, guys who do the flips and shit you see in the short file footage the news shows and not some guy who fell end over end down some big cliff on the other side of the world. It’s easy for the Media to manipulate BASE interviews/stories as the general public rarely sees it so they have no idea of what’s true or not, with skydiving its different, every person in the country knows at least 5 people who have done a tandem at a drop zone and can explain who the people/culture are/is. I reckon more interviews and shit in the media is in the best interest of the sport (and cesslons vid collection). BASE sells, why? Because extreme sports have awesome footage and BASE makes the number one in terms of extreme footage, 60 minutes wouldn’t have shown the BASE story unless they were 100% sure people would watch it over many other stories. I say keep having good interviews etc but tell the network “hey if you fuck us over, we won’t deal with you again, and will simply give the other network a story 10 times better next time”, this is currently used by several sports. BASE doesn’t need to be a front page sport but for the media to manipulate less the general public needs to see/understand more, and Cesslon needs more BASE footage on TV to add to his collection. I can see how the Media can do bad for BASE but so can silence. When Jason Fitz-Herbert died my old man was listening to the radio and it said “an anonymous triple 0 (the 911 number in oz) call was made saying he was dead, and the radio guy said how low the other jumpers are and people rang in bagging them out saying how its un-Australian, now I don’t know what really happened as far as the phone call etc but for any1 who listened to the radio it made it sound like he fucked up and every1 else was like “shit man fuck” , “go check if his alright”, “nah man fuck that the cops will get us” , “quick ring the cops and get the fuck out of here” Having been first on the scene at a bad accident 2 nights ago and having been the person who called triple 0, I noticed they never asked my name, and when all the ambulances, police, fire brigades, rescue squad, etc arrived, no1 had asked my name, so I could be classed as anonymous to. I have no idea of how Jasons accident was but maybe some1 did stay ?? or maybe they had “the pact” where they planned if some1 stuffs up every1 goes ??. Either way the general public doesn’t no, because all they see is bad shit (90%), of the time, where as with the 60 minute story the general public can see its people having fun and the jumpers have a better chance of getting there side of the story across, sure there story may be heavily edited/manipulated/changed but like I said above, just take all you stories next time to a competing network. This is my Opinion, please feel free to correct me on any mistakes, all *constructive* criticism welcome.

I love aerial footage, sure a simple ugly looking front flip might be a bit over shown in vids but if some1 does like a triple back flip then twists it into a double front flip, chuck in a few more twists and flips and it all looks world class fancy I reckon thats great. if thats boring whats the more exciteing stuff ? tell me what my eyes have been missing out on thanx