VNugget

1. Jebus, I thought the planes stopped their props before that kind of stunt! 2. When he got eaten by the waterfall is probably THE craziest video footage I have ever seen!

Generally speaking, winds aloft can be substantially higher than ground winds. Even if you exit with a perfect spot, if you chop high, you could be pushed back substantially. I once chopped at 10K and landed 2 miles off. Gah, thanks.. I didn't think of the case of the wind being so strong that it pushes you from a "long spot" back over the field, and then off in the "short" direction. It's just that billvon phrased it in a manner that posited "long spot" as the distinguishing factor in the situation, everything else being normal.

Sorry, but this wuffo has to ask: Wouldn't you stand a higher chance of making it back with a higher deployment? I thought you had a much higher glide ratio under canopy than during freefall, even with optimum tracking. (Or are we talking about a downwind jump run? They're usually upwind, right?)

You mean "6 months" is a lot of time?

Wuffo you jumping outta them airplanes, anyway?

Thanks for the open arms! Oh yeah, one thing I've meant to ask that I might as well ask here... what is it with everybody representing wing loading as a ratio? Is there something I'm missing?

Well well well, don't really know what to spill here... I'm a 20-year old guy in San Jose, CA. After a brief stint as a wannabe computer nerd for life, (hey, if you grew up here, what else would you want to do for life absent any other ideas?) I realized my real life passion, which is to be in the air. In hopes of becoming a professional pilot, I am currently undergoing flight training, (as I write this, I am thinking up plans for my 2nd solo cross country) which of course pulled away the money I was planning to learn to skydive with. (I never even got to do a tandem jump. ) Still working only part time as I'm going through college ain't helping either; but not to worry, I am prepared to live like a bum on starving CFI wages and skydive every weekend once the time comes. P.S. what's with the draconian filsize limits for usericons ;)? I tried several different pictures with maximum jpeg compression, and none of them cut it.

Well, thanks for all the replies, guys. 1. Oops, I should have clarified it, I'm talking about the SJ in California (yes, the one with no tall stuff, save for the B's downtown that are all 5 minutes from the police AND sheriff's stations :P ) 2. I fully understand that like most other undertakings in life, you need to learn how to walk before you run, and I realize the importance of having at least several hundred skydives under your belt before you start looking into BASE. 3. As for my identity, well, I never really associated someone's profile on a forum with his identity, as anyone can fill out anything they want, and I'm not in the habit in filling them out anyway. But since this forum doesn't seem to be full of stalkers and axe-murderers, I filled out my profile here with as thoroughly as I could, as apparently that is the norm and custom here.

A college student in San Jose who hopes to become a professional pilot, if that's what you mean. I think I sense what's on your mind, that I'm some sort of spy or something. Well I'm not sure what I can do or say, beyond showing you my transcript and student pilot certificate to prove my background! I have no skydiving friends and have no connections to any skydiivng/BASE circles, aside from my 2 posts so far on this site, which is exactly what I'm trying to chage.

Hi, I am a local wuffo who is interested in skydiving and BASE jumping in the future. (I was going to take up skydiving earlier, but that went on the back burner when I decided to become a pilot. BTW, I just flew my first solo cross country today! ) I'm in no finantial situation to start skydiving (or much less BASE jumping, of course) in the near future, but it won't hurt to learn as much about both in the interim and meet some people. Thus, if any of you are from the local area, it would be of great interest to me if we could get to hang out and talk about things, or even if I could view a BASE jump. Maybe I could even help out as part of a ground crew. So.. anybody? By the way, I read the thread about naming locations, and I hope I didn't do anything wrong with the title of this post. If so, do not hesitate to edit it. But I'm not quite sure how to say what I mean to say otherwise.

I am not a skydiver (although I planned to take it up, before I decided to become a pilot) so I don't know if this is old news (forgive me if it is and I'm wasting everyone's time) but this video is definitely pertinent to this thread... http://www.ehrenguard.com/clocks/mountaindive.wmv It's a wingsuit skydiver skirting a snowy mountain ridge (it looks to be about a 30 deg. slope) at 10' AGL! So it looks like zero sink rate wrt the ground has already been achieved, now someone has to figure out how to make contact.