bert_man

A PCA from a 200-foot S with about 25 feet of thick memory foam beneath it extending in all directions beyond the glide ratio of the canopy. The jumper would be drunk, as this would help keep their body limp in case they had an impact with the foam. There would be a box of tampons awaiting the jumper at the bottom. -Ghetto "The reason death cannot frighten me, is because life has cured me of fear." Web Design Cleveland Skydiving

or "as the lines knot"? (By the way JP, you might want to change your sigline before you get inundated with spam ) -Ghetto "The reason death cannot frighten me, is because life has cured me of fear." Web Design Cleveland Skydiving

Yep, hats off to Jason and everyone else who helps to keep bridge day around. I highly recommend it, even if you dont plan on jumping. -Ghetto "The reason death cannot frighten me, is because life has cured me of fear." Web Design Cleveland Skydiving

Plus you get to party at the holiday inn! -Ghetto "The reason death cannot frighten me, is because life has cured me of fear." Web Design Cleveland Skydiving

On yet another first jump at the perrine: "If you die it'll all be Brett's fault..." -Ghetto "The reason death cannot frighten me, is because life has cured me of fear." Web Design Cleveland Skydiving

Hehe, congrats! I was also one who was highly obsessed with wingsuiting from day one of my skydiving career. When I saw somebody fly a wingsuit for the first time, I noticed that his hands were still shaking after he landed and thought about how much fun he must have been having. Almost exactly a year later, I made my first wingsuit flight at WFFC and when I landed, my hands were the ones shaking, and then I understood -Ghetto "The reason death cannot frighten me, is because life has cured me of fear." Web Design Cleveland Skydiving

Crosswind as in down the wire, or crosswind as in 90-degrees off your intended exit heading? -Ghetto "The reason death cannot frighten me, is because life has cured me of fear." Web Design Cleveland Skydiving

I was searching for something on the BLiNC forums a little while ago and came across this gem: http://www.blincmagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17687 It's a thread from back in 2000 where jumpers posted stories of their biggest BASE blunders. It is three pages of pure gold, lessons learned that should not be forgotten, which is why I'm posting it here. Maybe we should continue that thread here? I'm sure that there are plenty of new stories to add (Jaap, can you think of any? ). What is unique about this is that newer jumpers (like me) can read examples of specific situations (rather than just theory) that we may not have heard of or seen, and gain a better understanding of overall pre-jump evaluation (among other things). Maybe these could even be added to a new section of the BASE Wiki for future reference by newcomers? edit: sorry if that thread has been repeatedly brought up here in the past by other newbs... either way it cant hurt having it on the first page for a while, right? -Ghetto "The reason death cannot frighten me, is because life has cured me of fear." Web Design Cleveland Skydiving

It appears so. They also seem to enjoy the invisible brake line mod

I hear ya. The media talked to my family about BASE long before I did, and as a result it is still a rather heated subject at family gatherings. -Ghetto "The reason death cannot frighten me, is because life has cured me of fear." Web Design Cleveland Skydiving

And the Illuminati is really controlled by ronald mcdonald edit: This reminds me.... I heard on the radio that a guy who was actually named Ronald Macdonald was arrested for robbing a mcdonalds

Well maybe for those guys, you could have somebody measure the angle off the horizon from a spot on the ground (not directly below the flight line), then use GPS and a little trig to calculate their true glide path. If you know the location of the person watching, the gps coordinates of the line of flight, and their altitude at a few points, you might be able to figure it out with a little math. Other than that, I guess they're just SOL unless they have boobs to show to the pilots

I was just watching a wingsuit video and just thought of this: If you jump a wingsuit and want to know your glide ratio, why not just jump with smoke and have somebody fly next to you with video? Then just measure the angle between the horizon and the smoke trail. This measurement would be independent of winds aloft, and would be a very good indicator of your L/D. The only problem is that the smoke trail isn't exactly a thin line, but you could still get a reasonably accurate result. Any thoughts on this?

That was my initial reaction as well... After reading the thread title, I was expecting to see something that involved showing base jumpers as the cautious, careful, calculating type that most of us are. Instead it was more along the lines of "Hey everyone in the tri-state area, watch out because these looneys are going to be jumping off of your shit, throwing their lives into the wind just for a thrill. What morons..." Nice move, guys...

by 'BASE jump a glacier' do you mean crevasses? There may be crevasses wide enough to permit a base jump if you know what your doing and/or are crazy enough. I don't think they can be over 400 feet though, because below that much weight, ice starts to flow without cracking (at least thats Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills says) Edit: does anybody know if 'crevasses' is the proper plural form of the word? it just sounds wrong... but then again so does 'crevassi'

I think he meant it is interesting those guys no longer fly BM suits. Which was already mentioned earlier. And I don't care how high you jump from, crossing the straits was still pretty damn cool. I entirely agree that crossing the strait was awesome, I wasn't knocking that one bit... Also, I understand what he meant when he mentioned what those guys are currently flying. I was just making a different point, saying that if you break time and distance records, but you also do it from a record altitude, you can't really claim that it was because of the suit.

The year is 2006, the suit is an S6; no coincidence. It doesn't mean it's 3 orders of magnitude better than the S3(s) Ahh, I get it! Clever (edit:)But if this is not an S3-something, then it at least implies that it is a new suit. Could boeing repaint a 747 and call it a 757? Yes, this is interesting... since the records they are talking about are time and distance. This may just be speculation, but this just might have something to do with the fact that they jumped from 40,000 feet rather than 13,500... -Ghetto "The reason death cannot frighten me, is because life has cured me of fear." Web Design Cleveland Skydiving

Since they're making such a big leap here in calling this the S6, it'd be cool to see some real changes, especially in the performance department. For example, this would look like a good (hypothetical) feature list for a new suit (this is just an example): ·Redesigned arm and leg wing profiles ·Improved air inlet design ·Longer leg wing, wider leg stance ·Larger rear deflector ·Free bag of magic beans to allow your farts to provide more thrust in freefall To be honest, if they use the same 'semi rigid' mylar ribs in this suit that they use in the phi, I would shy away from buying this suit just for that reason. Those ribs are a pain in the ass, they break (on two suits I know, the leg rib broke within the first 5 flights on both suits), and the added performance (if any?) just doesn't seem worth the added hassle. I'm glad to see that they finally came up with a velcroless cutaway system... hopefully it doesnt require any stitch-popping to allow you to pull the handles

Yea, those cuts on the forehead can be pretty lethal...

I'm not sure if it was just speculation or not, but I read somewhere that the jumper was flying a wingsuit at the time. If this is true, it would further support the altitude awareness theory, as it can be difficult to visually judge altitude properly with a wingsuit anyway, let alone over water. I'm not trying to speculate on the fatality per se, just trying to add to the discussion of alti awareness over water

Haha Avery, I couldn't have said it better myself The only problem is: What, then, are geeks like us to do if we don't sit around and analyze? I mean, sheesh... On a completely unrelated note, how's the new happy borrower of your black rig doing?

OK so let's say somebody manufactures a suit where the body is tilted downwards at 22 degrees, shooting for a L/D of 2.5. What if they manage to get a GR of >2.5? The body would then produce negative lift, would it not? Just a thought

and when you get in the plane and he closes the door, watch out for your toes.

Good point, I should probably clarify that I was speaking of the lines in general, as the option on the equipment screen was measured in feet. If it is brake line length that they are referring to, I would suggest using a slider system, like: Brake Line Length: short -----------|---- long Deep Brake Setting: deep ---|----------- shallow My .02 edit: Maybe even have the character's arm length affect this as well... For example, you could create a tall, lanky character and name him Brett, then have him jump somebody else's gear, we'll call him Tom (who has shorter arms), and see what happens if Brett doesn't adjust it? (Make sure you select 'butt pad' in the 'armor' section for these jumps, please)

Just a few things at first glance: Deployment - By 'in pocket' I believe you are referring to what we call 'stowed' Brakes Closing - Are you referring to the brake setting depth? i.e. close to the stall point (deep), etc. Line Length - I'm pretty sure that this is rarely modified. It is a characteristic that depends on the canopy model, so I don't think that this option would be necessary. That's all that I noticed that I want to comment on with my limited experience (for fear of being wrong and leading you astray). I really do like the attention to detail... for example the fact that you are taking wing loading into account, you can put smoke cans on your ankle, change your helmet, armor, packing methods and brake settings. Somebody more experienced would probably be able to help you out with the specific makes/models of gear, and help you tune the flight characteristics of your in-game canopies to the real ones. Keep up the great work! I can't wait to buy it