robinheid

That's what I thought about the World Trade Center... 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Soria, Spain, 2009 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

If your avatar picture is the "real" you, then you are HOT -- and if the receptionist is NOT --- well, then, that may be part of your problem! But really, if the point person for any business is an ***hole to customers (regardless of hotness), the owner should know about it -- and yes, maybe you misinterpreted her conduct some, but the fact that you registered on this forum and sought guidance suggests that this was way more than an isolated-having-a-bad-day experience. So before you go anywhere else, either call and talk to the owner, or at least talk with your "awesome" instructor and see what he thinks of the whole deal. Bottom line is the bottom line: He loses money too when a nasty customer service person chases away business, so both he and the owner may be happy enough that you cared enough to tell them that they'll give you an extra discount or something when you bring your group out. Finally, welcome to the club. Hope you stick with it. Thoughtful hot chicks rock! 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

elaborate If the OP can't navigate and land worth a ****, then it doesn't matter what he does first because he won't last long as BASE jumper whether he's wearing a wingsuit or not. Kinda funny how all the other posters totally ignore the most important part of the whole equation in favor of pontificating on jump numbers, canopy types, wing loading and which freefall skill to learn first, none of which matter if you can't walk away from the landing area -- most of which in BASE are smaller and gnarlier than even the tightest drop zones. Or as Number One Sky Monkey say... 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Make a lot of skydives in quick succession and learn/practice good canopy accuracy and conapy control techniques ON EVERY JUMP because BASE involves low openings with little setup times into often-gnarly landing zones that are tight and/or surrounded with obstacles and/or at higher altitude. The more competent and confident you are with your canopy control and navigation, the better off you'll be. One more thing: There is a difference between canopy control and canopy accuracy. Accuracy means I can land on the hood of your car. Control means... no dents. On BASE jumps, it sometimes doesn't manner how controlled you land as long as you hit a precise spot. Other times it doesn't matter where you land but you better land in perfect control. And of course sometimes you need to do both at the same time. Now what was that you were saying about BASE FJC first or wingsuit first? 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Jumping is just like sex.... it's soooo boring after the first few times that almost everyone gives it up. Oh wait... never mind. So here's an idea: Next time you jump, don't pull until you're not bored any more. And in the meantime, check out these boring jumps. Yaawwwwnnn..... 44 P.S. Seriously, though, you should either quit or be patient because you either don't understand what you're doing or you just need to learn enough to do more than bore a hole in the sky and make a few turns. And if you practice enough, you too can make a jump as boring as this one. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

- incorrect. It's much difficult to flock in V3 then in V4 (if the flock fly instead falling down on bellies) because to swell in V3 you need forward speed which usually more than the flock speed. Swelling in V4 much easier, because of extra clobber on the sides. May be you will don't mind if you very light and high, but usually flocking is V3 much toughly. Sorry for the people making fun of your English. I wish I could speak and write in Russian 1/100th as well as you do English, but could you please check with an English speaker better than yourself and then tell us what words you actually mean when you say "swellling" and "clobber"? Tanks monnn... 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

I'm not running for the board or pretending to be something I'm not. (PH) No, you certainly aren't, ParaHog. Your discourse here brings to mind the old saying: Never fight with a pig. You both get so dirty no one can tell the difference -- and the pig likes it. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

LOL... one of the things you don't know that you don't know is that you should never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. Seeking to have the prospective licensee pay for the sloppiness of the people responsible for signing them off is just a dumb way to handle it. Jan can speak more to this because I'm not privy to the details, but I suspect that this dumb proposal is essentially revenue-neutral -- they're looking for a bandaid, not a solution, and definitely not a revenue stream. In the meantime, it's very curious to see somebody get his panties in such a wad over a few one-time $$$. Given your... passion, it seems to me that you would serve both yourself and the sport better by reserving that... passion for something a bit more consequential. But hey, what do I know? 44 P.S. Just so you know, it's mad skillz, you know. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

LOL... But you don't yet know what you don't know.* 44 * Like, fer instance, the fact that I've been to more funerals than you have jumps, many of them for guys who knew what they knew right up until impact. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Here's the actual video of the Mars Curiosity landing, most of which occurs while descending under the automatically-deployed supersonic parachute. Many cool elements in video and audio alike. Well done, America. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

John, I cut Chris a lot of slack on this because if the whole book reads like that, then he did indeed have a whuffo editor -- and a bad one at that. The "cord" "chord" thing, for example, is Editing 101; be consistent with a word use (even if it's wrong!). Reading between the lines of the jumping excerpts (and buttressed by your comment that the whole book reads like that), I think that Chris either told his story orally, and then it was transcribed and edited by a total effing whuffo (whuffo about jumping and the military too), or he wrote a very rough draft that was then "fixed" by said whuffo editor(s). Years ago, I edited Gung-Ho magazine, which was like Soldier of Fortune except it was the real deal instead of a Walter Mitty mercenary rag (to be fair, SOF got better and better as time went on). Anyway, the people who wrote for us were the real deal -- professional soldiers, NOT professional writers -- and for many of them, English was a second, third or even fourth language. So editing their stuff was quite a challenge in terms of retaining truth, accuracy and flavor but at the same time making it readable (and I was up to it because, editing skills aside, I'm not a military whuffo).* So it seems clear to me from these excerpts that Chris did not do the final writeup, and I would suspect that he's a bit embarrassed by how some of it came out, and has probably been getting a ration of poop from his homeys about some of it. As Sparky pointed out, you don't jump the first day of jump school -- not even from the 34-foot towers, which when I went to jump school resulted in more refusals to jump than from the actual airplanes! 44 * Interesting side note: Even though the soldiers were not professional writers, they were excellent storytellers; whatever they sent in always had all the key information. They were complete stories, so while it was challenging to fix their bad sentences, missing punctuation, terrible spelling and non-English grammar, it was always doable because everything was in the story. The periodic submissions we got from professional writers, on the other hand, were often technically correct in terms of spelling, punctuation, grammar and sentence structure, but were worthless because they left out critical pieces of the story -- you know, kinda like almost every news story ever written about a parachuting incident. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

First let me say, many longtime regular posters here will tell you I'm no big fan of many past & present BOD members and HQ staff and I've been rather clear in my "choice" words over the years on that subject. However, not all are bad people, some are fighting the good fight and have always had the members & skydivings best interest in mind in the things they do, we, as members, may not always agree... Just look at how Jan was treated over her taking a stand on the SDAZ vs Skyride case. It's clear she was in the right and USPA was lead down the wrong road, costing the membership thousands $$$$$$$$ !!!! Many of you wanted to throw her out to the wolfs, many of us stood by her and supported her, we lost and some crooks got a big pay check of our membership monies. As we sit here and watch you bitch, there is a time clock running, you state: Let me ask you, do you not think there are major pressing Government regulations/changes heading our way? Do you not believe it's a "political threat" that can and will force the shutting down of dz's? Are you aware that Deland FL. is looking at being forced to lose two LZ's there. Are you not aware there are operators who are going to be forced to move their operations in the near future, should these "political threats" happen, and it looks like they will. +1 Stratostar -- and unfortunately, today's NY Times has a case-in-point story that underscores how important USPA's work is to keeping us in the sky and not paying European and Asian prices for a jump. Yes, this story is about a parasailing rather than parachuting death, but the "there oughta be a LAW" mentality is transferable -- and, more importantly, how many whuffos in positions of power can tell the difference between the two anyway? Yes, USPA will always aggravate part or most of its membership with some of its intra-sport management and policymaking (and I'm totally with Jan on the kerfuffle about license cards, for example), but it's also important to look at the most important part of the big picture, which is basic airspace access -- and on that score, USPA has since its founding consistently batted close to 1,000. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

So you can jump your BASE canopy from an airplane with a TSOed two-parachute rig that complies with FAA regulations -- none of which include any language about handle access. Beyond that, even most BASE-specific wingsuits do have handle access. 44 I get that, low profile rig that fits a large canopy. But why use it for base, just the fact that the risers run down the side and have to both clear the container evenly greatly increases the chances of line twists. Riser covers in and of themselves do not "greatly" increase the probability of line twists -- if they increase that probability at all. And as you may have noticed, many if not all modern single-canopy BASE rigs come with... riser covers. Wingsuits increase the chances of line twists way more than riser covers. Bad body position at deployment increases the chances of line twists way more than riser covers. Not necessarily, but somebody who's studied the whole tension knot thing will have to provide the details on this one. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Lots of people have and will continue to do so -- and for far fewer $$$. This is just another marketplace choice. Absolutely effing nothing! My skydiving reserves are actually much bigger than my skydiving mains because, you know, they are lifesaving devices, not fashion accessories, so I want something that's gonna be able to do that job even if I can't help. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

So you can jump your BASE canopy from an airplane with a TSOed two-parachute rig that complies with FAA regulations -- none of which include any language about handle access. Beyond that, even most BASE-specific wingsuits do have handle access. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Yes, but... Most rigs that will fit a 260+ BASE canopy also have a very large reserve because, as I explain above, they're "big boy" rigs meant for larger and/or older jumpers who want or need a large main AND reserve. Accordingly, the container system component relationships remain more or less constant; they're just scaled up. As I understand the MiraJeb, its main container accommodates a "big boy" sized main but has a "normal" size reserve container. Accordingly, this requires some re-engineering because the main contianer is scaled up but the reserve container isn't. This kind of re-engineering can seem pretty simple on its face, but can create some serious unk-unks for the unwary. A case in point, which I've described on other threads: Years ago, Rigging Innovations made a modified version of one of its rigs (the Talon, I think) with a narrower-than-standard reserve container to accommodate the gnerally narrower shoulders of women jumpers. In so doing, they changed the reserve flap geometry and relationships a little -- just enough to increase the amount of pilot chute spring force required to push past the flaps. This went unnoticed until Rose Karam had a hard pull on her main and the reserve wouldn't open when she "went silver." Fortunately, she refused to die and clawed open the flaps and survived without injury. More fortunately, they duplicated the failure on the packing table and then fixed the problem by upgrading the pilot chute spring. So while the MiraJeb might appear to be a pretty standard Mirage, a lot of thought and tinkering probably went into making it BASE-canopy friendly without planting any landmines to be discovered later. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

The Sorcerer wasn't TSO'd, and the Sorcerer had a pull-out style reserve PC mounted in a pouch on the outside of the reserve container, with a pud mounted on your shoulder. Those would be the two biggest differences. +1. It worked well, too. I'm the guy in Mike McGowan's movie who cuts away at 250 feet on a Sorcerer at an early 1990s World Freefall Convention. Mike was behind me under canopy and the interesting thing about the shot is that there is no sky to be seen -- just green. Still had an almost 10-second canopy ride. One of the main objections to the Sorcerer at the time was all the "smart" people who said it was dangerous because it had a pin closure instead of velcro. Now, of course, pin-closed BASE rigs are the standard, especially for wingsuiting. Also, contrary to the assertion of another poster, only one guy got killed jumping a Sorcerer and IIRC it had more to do with the reserve canopy than anything about the container system. The primary reason for discontinuing Sorcerer production was lack of demand; the system was designed when BASE jumping was still a pretty new and not-yet-popular sub-discipline and a lot of peeps didn't like the notion of jumping with only one parachute. But as more and more people started BASE jumping, and each one made more and more BASE jumps, it became clear that one parachute was enough, so people lost interest in 2-parachute BASE rigs. It's hard to imagine now, but in 1980, 100 BASE jumps was a lot, and even in 1993, when the rig's inventor Mark Hewitt became the first to make 1,000 BASE jumps, there were few people in the world with more than 200. * Now, of course, there are some guys with 2,000, a significant number with 1,000, and a bunch with 500 or more -- and the number of BASE fatalities that "could have been prevented" by having a reserve are statistically insignificant. The purpose of the BASeR and, now, the MiraJeb is so that BASE jumpers generally and wingsuit BASE jumpers in particular can hone their skills from airplanes with the same rig (or at least the same canopy) they want to jump with from fixed objects -- without having to have a "big-boy" rig in order to jump with their BASE canopy from an airplane. Another intended feature of both systems was to eliminate the need to have a BASE rig AND a skydiving rig. There were several reasons that didn't happen with the BASeR; we'll see how it goes with the MiraJeb. 44 * I was jumping with Mark at the time, and every time we launched, he'd say "another world record!" because at that time he did in fact break the record for most BASE jumps with every one he made. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

I had my first malfunction, a total, with a round and a belly wart reserve container with another round in it. Very memorable! The main thing is, whatever you do, be sure you can make jump #101. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

What a pile of puppy poop. The bigger picture is first getting a handle on our fundamentally piss-poor basic parachute pilot training because of our psychotic insistence on maintaining a training system that focuses on freefall FUN skills instead of parachutist SURVIVAL skills. Hassling a small subset of the sport parachuting community while ignoring this massive, fundamental failure is idiotic on its face: Let's ignore the severed femoral artery of our fundamentally flawed basic training paradigm and put a bandaid on the skinned knee of a few fools who need to be reminded in the door not to open their wings until they clear the tail. Brilliant big picture thinking, old chap. 44 Apology from me is in order here... I brainlocked on who Para-5 is. If I had remembered, I would have approached my answer differently because, unlike my assumption, he is not coming late to the party -- he's done more than 20 ordinary people in pursuit of a solution. Kudos to him for his efforts, regardless of where we are respectively on the issue. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

I've not read the source, but there has been more than those two. At least one person fell out of the gear at pull time and another inexperienced WS didn't pull. This is just from the top of my head, I'm sure there are more. Concur, but even if we quadruple the listed number to 8, we're still looking at an extremely small fatality subset in the overall fatality picture, and neither of the ones you mentioned involved a tail strike, which is the only wingsuit-related safety & training issue that is statistically and operationally significant, and thus deserving of some problem-solving attention. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

LOL... if you would actually read instead of just gobbling, you would notice that I said this: "As far as I know, none of the above questions are part of the debate at the moment. This information may already exist, but it's sure not showing up in the discussion (especially that last part) -- and until it does, the whole debate is an attempt to create a political reality, not deal with a physical reality." So maybe instead of posting, ahem, the way you did, why don't you post the details to that and the other questions I posed and thereby enter them into the discussion? 44 P.S. A word from the wise: I've been to almost as many funerals as you have jumps, and you remind me of a bunch of those decedents. Just sayin... SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Gene Paul was the first DZO I met, and set a standard for all who followed. Truly one of the pivotal figures in sport parachuting for decades, first as jumper and DZO, then as a long-serving board member. And a great guy with a wonderful family to boot. Be sad for now that he's gone. Be happy forever that he was here. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

And on its face that is a legitimate concern, which can be easily and simply addressed by making sure everyone is really really REALLY clear on keeping their wings closed until one second after exit and leave it at that. On the USPA BOD thread on this subject I proposed a solution set for this issue, to wit: a separate wingsuit waiver that says "I understand how critically important it is to not open my wings until one second after exit, and I hereby promise and contractually agree as a condition of being able to wingsuit at this DZ that I or my heirs will pay for any damage to the aircraft if I violate this promise." And put a sign next to the Pavlov Light that says "Wingsuiters: Do NOT open wings until one second after exit." Heck, since at most places the wingsuiters sit near the pilot and are last out, you could even give each one a ticket on each load with the same words as the sign -- and right before they exit, they give the ticket to the pilot so they're less likely to forget -- and any excuse that they did forget is met with derision. No bureaucracy needed. Moreover, you say about one tail strike a month. What's your sample? One year doesn't mean ****. Two or three years in a row of increasing frequency culminating in the one-a-month stat, then maybe you're on to something. But let's stipulate that your one-a-month figure is a valid read on what's going on. The next part of the statistical analysis has to include: Did these tailstrikes happen at 12 different DZs -- or were there multiple strikes at a few? On what aircraft did these tailstrikes occur? Multiple types or a predominant type? What kindof DZ -- large or small? Of these tailstrikes, how many happened to low-time wingsuiters versus experienced wingsuiters? As with swooping and other open-canopy fatalities, it may be that the mad skillz set is hitting tails with equal or greater frequency than the low-timers. Finally, how many of these tailstrikes have happened at DWE's DZ? A raft of them there would certainly help explain several things about that "proposal" of his. As far as I know, none of the above questions are part of the debate at the moment. This information may already exist, but it's sure not showing up in the discussion (especially that last part) -- and until it does, the whole debate is an attempt to create a political reality, not deal with a physical reality. Regardless of the answers or sample size, the solution is the same: Educate wingsuiters -- and every other jumper too -- that no wingsuiter opens his wings until s/he's one second out of the plane, period. No bureaucracy needed. 44 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."