base736

While I appreciate your bringing up the importance of choice, I can say about every jump that I've made that if I had believed it were hopeless, I never would have left the exit point.

Love your list, Tom. I was talking with crwper the other day about the good and the bad of BASE. The way I see it, a person could make up a list for BASE (or for anything else, for that matter). On the left, the bad. On the right, the good. On the left for BASE, the people we lose, the people we almost lose... On the right, one thing so spectacular that it balances the left, if only barely -- "I can fly".

You could do the same with skydiving. Or running. Or vacationing in Europe. No matter how you die, there will always be more you could have done had you not died just then. The risks in how we choose to spend our time may differ, but the motive is the same.

Nice! I'd love to see pics from the side on a S/L jump -- it looks like this packjob might avoid the angular momentum issues I've seen with the more traditional packjob...

There were, as I recall, a few 5-cell canopies in skydiving that were near 1:1. My understanding is that a lot of other characteristics go to hell long before heading performance turns downard -- which is to say, while I've never heard anybody say anything about the heading performance of these canopies, I've heard plenty about other performance aspects (such as the ability to turn and flare). Which makes some sense... As the canopy gets narrower, the lever arm that each rear corner has on the thing gets smaller, and the trailing edge becomes shorter. Of course, those characteristics might have been related to the fact that these were thick 5-cell canopies, too.

Ah, there's the spirit that's done so much to push the safety of this sport forward. "It's complicated. And I'm sleepy." People have already commented on aspect ratio and various factors that I think boil down to "speed of opening" (the longer the canopy spends bunched up tight, the more likely it is to interpret minor body english as "Quick! Turn left!"). Body position, conditions and packing aside (and really, I think these are the most important factors), those two might be next on the list... That said, I'd also like to point out the importance of colour, and the general "brightness" and finish of the fabric. Brighter colours reflect more light, with blue fabrics reflecting photons with the highest momentum. Failure to properly coordinate canopy colours can result in a canopy which opens preferentially sunward or antisunward. In extreme cases, a poorly-chosen colour scheme can even promote tail inversion and line-overs.

I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that I, for one, thought that was pretty cool. Nicely done, Felix.

Never heard of it, but I assume from the name that it looks like this: .-------. `--. .--' ----' `---- (ooh, pretty ascii art)...

I assume you're having problems with reading the display? Check this thread.

For general information purposes, Velocity Gear has a jacket that is externally almost indistinguishable from Dainese's. They claim CE EN1621-2 Level 2 compliance (the better of the two levels). Dainese doesn't say much about their armour on their website, but the Velocity Gear site states that the Dainese's honeycomb back protetor is Level 1 compliant. A lot of other stuff isn't rated at all, so watch yourself. Velocity Gear's "Velocity Armor" seems to be US$100 cheaper than Dainese's "Safety Jacket" (which resembles the top half of what I use). Velocity Gear does not seem to sell a full suit, or even a bottom half. Bummer, that. My experience with Dainese has been very, VERY positive, but I thought I'd post a summary for people wondering about alternatives.

I know. I took the teensiest fall at the world's easiest object wearing $700 of body armour, and still I got hurt. What a gyp. Edit, just in case: In all seriousness, I owe my life to having worn Dainese armour.

Chalk up another vote for the Dainese Shuttle Pro (or equivalent). I've heard a couple of people complain that the shoulder pads increase the effort required to reach up to your risers, but have never noticed that myself (though you should be aware of the extra effort if you choose to climb a structure wearing the thing). Anyway, that'd be the same with the short or long sleeves. One big plus of the integrated elbow/forearm pads is that they're far more comfortable than any separate elbow pads I've ever worn.

My bad. I had assumed, since you were asking, that the antenna was AM. As crwper pointed out, the structure of an FM antenna is harmless. An aluminum ladder touching it will therefore be just as harmless.

An aluminum ladder will do more-or-less exactly what a steel or other metal ladder will do... Which is to say, if it touches the antenna it will "be one" with the antenna.

Thanks for posting this. I was contacted, this morning, by somebody from CBC Montreal. I suspect this helps make sense of that...

Congratulations on naming the phenomenon. You must take great pride in your achievement. Seriously, there's a world of difference between experiencing a thing and studying it in detail. Having done one of those does not diminish the value of the other... As for the value of naming a thing, well, that's pretty trivial now, isn't it? My response to the questionaire will be on its way...

The Scout is a common choice, as I recall. As has already been pointed out, unless you're jumping super-low stuff, there's no real advantage to knowing the height of an object to the nearest yard (though it is a lot of fun). And unless you're lasering from the exit point straight down to a flat field, you're probably out by more than that anyway. I can think of several ways to determine the height of an object to within 20%, which is almost always sufficient for safety purposes. It's a good idea to be familiar with them. That said, the laser reading is a nice piece of information to have, and it's easy.

Sharkfucking?

Happy birthday, Joy!

I'll take that one step further and point out that, if we were being at all pedantic about it, there's no magic time when an object "reaches" terminal velocity, but just a range of times in which most reasonable people would agree that it's "pretty much there". So the whole thing is pretty wishy-washy from the start. There are three ways to increase terminal velocity without changing the thing that's doing the falling -- you can increase temperature, increase humidity, or increase altitude. I've attached a graph of velocity vs. time for standard conditions and a few variations ("M lower" is equivalent to increased humidity) for a jumper with a pretty normal terminal velocity. You can draw your own conclusions. To my eye, everything but the drop from 5000 m pretty much reaches its terminal velocity in 10-12 seconds. Even the high drop seems pretty near terminal at 12-13 seconds.

It's always seemed to me that there should be some cliffs out there in Newfie territory. Last I was out that way, though, the fare was more of the spindly and man-made variety. Doubtless somebody more knowledgeable will get back to you.

Followed by: Umm, seriously? Are you claiming that running the AN-2 through club membership was SAFER than the previous system? I completely agree that jumping a non-TSO'd system at the WFFC is a mistake in that it might bring the FAA down on the party. I just think (and maybe I'm crazy here) that intentionally bringing the FAA down on the party is a piss-poor solution.

I've put myself through the wringer before when a jumper new to the area approached things differently than I did -- even in a manner I thought was unwise. Ultimately, it made me sick to my stomach and did nothing to improve the situation. I'm with Ian. Arrange to have beers with the guy. Let him know the specifics of what's bothering you (lack of armor, for instance), but don't just be an ass -- give him a suggested course of action (armor up). If he chooses to follow your advice, cool. If not, well, that's really not something you control. How many of us would be jumping at all if we heeded every piece of well-intentioned advice from the people around us? Right. You made your choice. He needs to make his.

Anbody who doubts is a fool. There I was in the landing area at a certain popular Norwegian location when I looked toward the exit point and saw the attached. Now, it's a video capture, and it's been zoomed in, and the quality isn't that great... But seriously, it's undeniably authentic, and its unmistakable.

Certainly I'm saying that I'd be cautious about it right up until three seconds -- maybe a little more -- even with a moderate crosswind. It surprised me how little it took to be on a two-way watching the other guy quickly work a bridle off of his right arm.