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I am wondering if there are any basejumps, or even better basejumpers (and basejumps) in the Domenican Republic? Please PM if you are (a basejump or basejumper) or you know of one/many. Thanks! Sam PS - hopefully I get a response before I have to email every basejumper who's address I have...

Shallow Brake Settings for: -slider up -slider off with no immediate object strike or proximity of other jumpers (to lessen wear on DBS) Deep Brake Settings for: -slider off with object strike potential or jumps where I could open close to other jumpers I don't feel much difference between the DBS and SBS doing rollovers slider off.

ah, the notorious A-B a very rarely seen object, but yours is certainly too low to qualify I have seen at least a handful of A-Bs that look entirely jumpable and I plan to jump one or more of them in the next few years. Only counts as an A-B though if you pass the top of the building before you have a flying parachute, because that way you wouldn't have lived if the B wasn't there, making it simply an A in a weird place. I am quite curious if anyone has actually jumped a bonafide A-B. Please PM if you have but you would prefer not to post about it. cya

too bad a raven 218 is not so good at dodging those pesky cliffs after a 180... I would've probably abandoned that thing too. Why even bother with an R-Max? I would've thought you might see the advantages to a base specific canopy after that little incident?

you don't need everyone out at the same time race in pairs like a tracking race do a linked exit to be sure you leave the plane together I learned this from a Swiss guy at Sebastian last year. Linked two-way (handgrips) exit into the wind from a caravan is easy, should be simple from an otter also. but really this kind of race interests me not so much anymore... the way to go is 2-way jumps from big cliffs. who cares who won if you're both laughing like crazy all the way??

unless what you believe is incorrect, then having enough confidence in it can improve your chances of injury and death quite severely Only if you change your course of action. Admitting that pulling really low is dangerous did not stop several people from getting hurt by low-pulls later anyway. The relationship between your skill and your chances is not simply a two-way realtionship. The other major player is your judgement. Level of desensitization and level of boredom are factors here too. If you look at all of those, maybe it will seem less random to you. WHAT? Nobody told me. It doesn't matter anyway because luckily I'm not addicted. people who say they will never do something and then do it later anyway worry me it suggests to me that they are not capable of admitting to themselves that there are things that they do not know and/or understand this would seem a counter-productive way of thinking in this kind of environment I think the key to longer term base survival might be self-knowledge. Knowing that not only are there things that you know-that-you-don't-know (KDK), but also there are things that-you-don't-know-that-you-don't-know (DKDK) would seem like an effective way to avoid some risk factors that are clearer in hindsight. that's my 2-cents for today, if you paid more, you got ripped off!

actually I have to disagree with Matt's views on skydiving gear his point does not stand and all you have to do to check it out for yourself is deploy most skydiving reserves at terminal velocity and you will be surprised at how much that canopy wanted to come out... actually this is not a BASE jumping forum, this is the DORKZONE these are BASE jumping forums: BLiNC UK BASE Board FBA Forum IBA Forum ABA and then, of course, there is always the ubiquitous websearch: search results for 'BASE jumping forum' maybe you can now do some clicking and try and learn the difference although personally I would prefer people with your posting style and history to stay on the DORKZONE rather than mess with the signal-to-noise ratio on real BASE forums cya

I can't say anything about mojo or flik vs. blackjack, but based on the 25 jumps I have on my new CUS (zp option) Blackjack 260s vs my previous non-zp Blackjack 260s (500 jumps between the two of them), the CUS (zp) Blackjack flies like a ONE SIZE SMALLER non-zp Blackjack, specifically as far as turn response and dive goes, it also has more forward speed. The CUS Blackjack will allow you to fly yourself into trouble on tight approaches much easier if you don't keep it under a tight reign. You do get to keep the 'square-footage' of the same non-zp Blackjack as far as braked flying and low-speed flying goes. I have heard from a few people that you can actually fly the CUS Blackjack slower than the standard one, but I don't think I have enough jumps on the CUS Blackjacks to know that yet. The standard Blackjack is capable of such good deep brake flight anyway that it might be a moot point.

because winds change with time I have experienced very different wind conditions on two jumps, 30 minutes apart, from the same antenna. In fact, a few times now I came close to jumping two different sectors of the same antenna on the same night. part of the joy of having two rigs, I suppose...

yup. pretty much brand new Blackjack 260 with the CUS (ZP on front 3rd of topskin) option the small mesh slider I have for it is the standard slider that came with it and that thing is gigantic, which I believe makes it much harder opening than a smaller slider made of large hole mesh the large hole mesh sliders I have been using are not CR sliders

I know one jumper who did a 330ft climb in 7 minutes, and another jumper who regularly did 6-7 minutes to 400ft, so maybe you should shape up....

yup. cool is the word! so, this morning I completed my AWBP (Accelerated Wingsuit BASE Program), it comprised 5 levels: 1 - normal clothing freefall and track, 7 sec delay 2 - PF pants & jacket track - 12 sec delay 3 - PF Prodigy flight - 20 sec delay 4 - PF Phantom flight - 30 sec delay 5 - PF Vampire2 flight - 33 sec delay so, 5 jumps from my first terminal BASE jump to my first BASE flight with my V2, might seem kinda quick, but I figured a few subterminal jumps (including slider ups) and a few wingsuit skydives along with reasonable level of currency made this program OK for me I only progressed to the next level if my jumped went flawlessly. I am also being a shameless dirty high puller, it's a good thing my regular jumping buddies aren't here or they would be making lots of fun of me.... The normal clothing freefall was super cool for me, as I was so far away from the wall, even with a less-than-stellar track. Long canopy ride down the talus to the landing area also. The next morning saw me jump the pants & jacket and the forward speed that you can easily achieve is surprising when you have something close by for reference. The Prodigy was a big step up in forward speed. Wingsuit reality distortion started to set in: the ground is just not scary anymore, it does not seem to come any closer as you fly along the talus. I knew of this phenomenon, though and pulled high because of it. The Phantom felt a little like a straight-jacket as I prepared for exit, but as soon as I had some airspeed and put my legwing out, it raced forward and I felt at home, I was briefly tempted to try and fly all the way to the landing area, but I had my progression and I was sticking to it with yet another dirty high pull. Plenty of time to unzip my legwings, shoot some video of myself with the cliff in background, fly around aimlessly and finally land. It was a very impressive sunset just after we jumped. I am glad to have shared the last 3 jumps with some French jumpers we have met here. The only thing I would have liked to change about this jump was the way my canopy slammed me so hard that a little assymetry in my harness resulted in me getting flung around two and a half times into so many linetwists. No big deal as I was open so high and far away from anything. I guess that'll learn me for using the small-hole mesh slider on my canopy, I am going back to large-hole mesh, go figure! This morning confronted me with a tough decision, as the winds were higher at the exit point than any of my previouis jumps here. The small lake seemed tranquil, though. What the winds were doing at opening altitude and for the canopy ride would be anyone's guess... I did not want to make the call, as the other jumper has less experience, no tracking suit or wingsuit and a lower wingloading under a slower canopy than mine, all factors that would make it much harder for him to reach the main landing area in adverse conditions. He did not want to take any of the outs either, as his Crispi boots have given him blisters and he is in sneakers now. 15 minutes at the exit point convinced him that the conditions were not what he wanted, so he opted to walk down. I knew I would go further in my V2 than my Phantom if I have an equally good exit and I was feeling pretty good about my exits, so I geared up and went. I felt stable sooner than in the Phantom and started straightening my legwing sooner. The V2 took off with much more speed as soon as it got flying and I was laughing to myself as wingsuit reality distortion set in and I took a few seconds to look back between my feet at my shadow on the wall, getting ever smaller as I fly away. The rocky talus seemed miles away and I was over the trees and hillsides in what seemed like no time at all. I didn't feel any turbulence as I passed the edge of the wall to my left and into the area of the valley where you are not shielded form the wind anymore. The trees just did not seem to be getting bigger and I was almost 100% sure I could pull right over the landing area and not be low. Being my sensible self, though (just ask anyone who has jumped with me) I pulled dirty high once again, expecting to be dazed from another slammer opening, as I was using the same 36" pilot chute recommended by experienced wingsuit BASE pilots and I thought maybe that was the cause of my previous slammer. I was pleasantly surprised by an opening so slow and gentle that I had time to look up after the swing forward and see my slider not even 10% of the way down the lines yet - nice... my large-hole mesh slider seems to be the hot set-up for these conditions. Wingsuit BASE is everything I thought it would be and more. This is the most pure feeling of flying I have ever experienced. An added bonus is that this cliff is good for 7-8 seconds of straight down freefall, some more seconds (like over 12) if you track well and then if you fly a high performance wingsuit competently, you have around 4000ft of usable altitude from exit to landing... wingsuit BASE changes what is possible from certain objects, it transforms them into something even more wonderful than they already are. It is really very easy to lose track of your altitude in wingsuit BASE, though, and I am coining the term: wingsuit reality distortion for the way the ground is not scary anymore when you are flying your wingsuit over it. I guess that's the Yin to the Yang that is possibly safer BASE jumps, longer delays, more object seperation and the feeling of pure flight that wingsuit BASE is. I think wingsuit BASE is going to make my BASE jumping addiction stronger... I might have no chance of a normal life anymore, but I don't care, I loves the nylon craic!!! As for the snow, it's unseasonably warm here, most of the hike is snowless, there is maybe 50 metres of 1 inch deep snow on the hike.

so, today, for the first time in my life, I saw a terminal velocity wingsuit basejump... There I was standing on the edge of a giant cliff in Italy and watched Robi and Livia launch a 2-way and fly all the way to the landing area and more before deploying. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I think this is why wingsuits exists. I laughed like crazy for their whole flight. Can't wait until I fly my wingsuits off here this week. cya sam

Hi My friend Denis and I are here. We got our first big wall jumps today, big thanks to Robi, Stane, Livia and Hannes for helping us get there and all the info. Our Italian cellphone number is: (+39) 331 423 9482 Please phone if you are here and you want to share the drives to the exit. cya Sam

now there's no doubt your ignorance and misunderstandings of the dynamics of unpacked jumps have me convinced that you are Nick Rugay please do yourself and all of us a favour and try to find out what really matters with unpacked jumps before spouting the highly dangerous fallacies you are spouting here I do unders with no lineslack all the time at the potato, in fact I will only do them when i have enough wind to give me a good amount of linetension. paypal me $15 for 'when good times go bad - part 3' and you can see my buddy Trent do a NO lineslack under or you can just go watch Maggot's copy, as you are Nick Rugay.... next tell me again how the 3-way rollover double PCA is intrinsically impossible to do safely?? you just don't understand it.. and dynamics of a jump is NOT NEARLY as important as a GOOD Failure Mode Effect Analysis pattern recognition helps too....

You really don't want to play that game. You know why not? Because: (a) You showed up here immediately after another username was disabled; (b) You give identical advice to the that user; (c) You claim 1200 BASE jumps, but none of the very experienced jumpers in your area have ever heard of you or made a jump with you; (d) You give dangerously bad technical advice (like advising people that it's better to induce line slack in a rollover than to maintain line tension). Maybe you shouldn't be giving people advice either. At least Dave is honestly representing both himself and his level of experience. I think the masses now want to know if baserigger really is Nick Nitro???

I have skydived the Medium, Large, Extra Large and XXL sizes of Phoenix Fly Pants & Jackets. There are no safety issues doing this and they all worked. The fit does affect the way they fly, though. I really liked the XXL for the Stay-Puft marshmallow man effect and how it flew like a Birdman Classic, but very experienced basejumpers have advised that the most efficient fit for BASE is tight jacket, baggy pants. The floppier the fit (oversize suit) the less stable it seems to be also.

the knot is not the only stress concentration the cord sees it also sees stress concentrations at both ends where it is attached to your bridle and the object how you choose to attach it to the object and your bridle will determine how high those stress concentrations are and most likely it will break at the point of the highest stress concentration unless of course there is some material defect in teh cord, in which case it might break there instead which is why not only do I always use the double loop method, I always use different colours for each loop, to ensure I don't get both loops from the same batch of breakcord, or even worse, from the same area on the same batch of breakcord... I have found that using 550 cord to tie to the object and a small rapide link to attach to my bridle, that even with an overhand knot the breakcord doesn't break at the knot. in addition I have seen a really smart carry-with you set-up that carries EVERYTHING you brought, away with you...

dude your posts are starting to get annoying - do some research before asking the same question that has been discussed to death here before.... 80lb break cord is fine small primary loop with a big backup loop is the way to go one night after a jump me and 3 other jumpers were having a cofffee at the local Tim Hortons and talking about static line technique and break cord one of them did not see how a loop of 80lb breakcord will take 160lbs to break because it's a loop so we got the strongest one of us (a firefighter who is something like 6'2" and 200lb+ all muscle) to try and pull a normal static-line setup till it breaks we achored it to the table (one of those fixed to the floor jobbies) and he gave it hell he couldn't break it, so we all agreed that it takes more than 80lbs to break the loop and probably more like 160lbs so then some of us started getting paranoid about this being too much so I (at 6'0" and 165lbs, certainly not the strongest person there) stepped up, took the 550 cord tie-off loop, moved it one side of the tie-off point and yanked it as fast and as I could past the tie-off point, the total travel was about one foot the break cord snapped easily this is a very informative little test you can do at home too there is a VERY big difference between what kind of static load and what kind of dynamic load will break the cord there is no need to re-invent the wheel here 80lb break cord is the bomb, just learn to use it properly cya PS - re-reading your post, it seems you tried to break a loop of break cord and expected it to happen at 80lbs, it happens at 160lbs, because a loop is two strands together! If you cannot get yourself to understand this, consider sticking to sports that do not require as much understanding as BASE does.

I disagree. Turbs are very predictable. There are loads of books on this. They are probaly the most predictable. take care, space OK, just so I understand: are you saying that turbulent airflow is very predictable? Could you define what you mean by predictable? Computational Fluid Dynamics happens to be one of the most difficult fields in the world to get results consistent with observed reality and even today there are a lot of empirical methods used. Maybe you are not saying that you could predict the exact nature of the turbulent airflow around a building?? I'm thinking that anyone who has ever thrown a few wind drift indicators from a building might find your statement hard to understand/believe.

I disagree. I have a reasonable sample size of jumps on standard Blackjack 260s. I have just replaced my 2 standard Blackjack 260s with ZP option Blackjack 260s. 3 BASEjumps on the ZP option so far and I believe it opens and starts flying (and being controllable) even quicker than the standard Blackjacks did. of course 3 jumps is not a reasonable sample size and maybe I have forgotten how fast my standard Blackjacks opened when they were brand new, so give me a few hundred jumps on the new ones and I will have a more valid opinion for you. ship me a brand new standard Blackjack 260 and let me jump it back to back with my ZP option Blackjacks for 2 years and I will tell you for sure it really is just about the only way to know I have heard that the ZP option Blackjacks not only have a higher forward speed in full flight, but can fly slower than the standard Blackjack also. I will try to find out and report back. More available flight range is only a bad thing if you do not fly the canopy in the correct part of that flight range for your given situation.

(sic) reversed/integrity risers have a lower overall leverage ratio than standard risers mini-rings are quite common on base risers now, the thinking behind that has been for compatibilty with most skydiving gear, to encourage you to skydive your base canopy first mini-rings have a lower overall leverage ratio than standard 3-rings the most common failure mode for type 8 risers would be pull-through of the yellow cable the force on the riser that is required for this failure mode is the force required to pull the yellow cable through the grommet multiplied by the overall leverage ratio the force required to pull the yellow cable through the grommet is the same for standard or intergrity risers, but, as stated the leverage ratios are different and range from something like 12:1 to over 30:1 so if you are on the bigger side (think 200lbs ungeared) with mini rings and integrity risers, according to some numbers seen in deployment tests (6G peak load during deployment) and then in riser failure testing, IF you had that 6G peak force all on one side's risers (severly assymetrical and very hard deployment), you are very close to the force needed to pull the yellow cable through the grommet or you are exceeding it that is where standard risers with mini rings would take more load before pull-through than integrity risers, this happens before they break, even with a hole and grommet through the riser as above, it allows you a better leverage ratio and only affects a failure mode that is not the first to occur IF you have mini 3-rings... in skydiving yellow cable pull through is a perfectly acceptable failure mode, in fact I would prefer it to a riser breaking. in skydiving riser failure is preferably to injury or harness damage or failure. in BASE your body should fail before your risers or harness does this is a valid statement if you are under 200lbs, or you have large 3-rings there is a lot of research published on this, just look around

The manufacturers are really good people to ask about this. From what I understand after talking to a few, the opening forces will not change linetrim nearly as much as heat generated by friction with the slider grommets. I believe that openings will increase the porosity of the fabric. Jumping a wet canopy will increase the porosity of the fabric a LOT. Getting a canopy wet will increase wear, especially if you landed in the water and pulled the canopy out by anything other than the tail. UV is slated as the major bad guy for ripstop nylon. Heat degrades the fabric too, as does various chemicals, including those found in sweat. Packing a dirty canopy (or a canopy with dirt, vegetation, dead animals in it) will help work the dirt into the fabric and increase porosity by wearing the fabric. I understand that 'seam impaction' is a wear effect of opening forces and one that you can inspect for. Packing is a major contibutor to wear on your canopy, but you can greatly minimise it by making sure the canopy has no dirt or foreign particles in or on it when you pack, packing in a clean, dry area, packing on a soft surface that will not damage the fabric and staying out of the UV radiation. Lower brakelines wear at the brake settings, especially the DBS if used often, but this can be minimised also by placing the line (and not the piece fingertrapped into it) between the loop and the ring and making sure it is pre-tensioned good and stays that way through your packjob. Tailpocket velcro is also a normal wear item, but I found it minimised by keeping dirt and foreign particles out of the velcro and possibly also by peeling back the velcro at an acute angle when opening it. I put 220 on a Blackjack and I have not replaced the lower brakelines or tailpocket velcro yet, as they are still in reasonable shape. This is way past the point that most jumpers would usually replace those items, but I have always pre-tensioned my brakelines when packing and kept everything spotless. It helps that I do mostly short delay slider-off jumps at night. I hope some of that was what you were looking for. cya sam

33 3 years experience 333 jumps (just kidding, I actually have 510 jumps) cya

Like 'The Birdcage" with Gene Hackman and Robin Williams? No wonder I felt uncomfortable with the way you ZHills birds were looking us visitors up and down...