yuri_base

That's easy. All you need to do is to appear on Brighton Beach in New York in humongous clown shoes and Vampire in the middle of a hot and steamy weekend day, when naked Russian Chicks melt in the sand like cheese. Just walk around and say that your L/D is better than that of a parachute. Chicks will stick to you like melted cheese to shoes.

Brian, I agree: it could be trim, extra smoothness of well-stretched fabric, balance, magic of clown shoes, or all of the above. I won't be flying in the next two weeks, so you're the Principal Investigator of the Mystery of Clown Shoes. I'm interested in seeing the results of your experiments, you're an incredible flyer. I'm sure that given clown shoes big enough, you'll fly at 5.0 with the fall rate of something-teen.

Brian, if the heavy shoes made a Behemoth fly at almost 3.0... I can only imagine what some lead soles can do to a Mosquito! Dude, this quiteness of the air is AMAZING!!! Maybe we'll do some flocking at 5.0 wearing beer bottles on our legs and do all the chicks om the 10 mile radius to spread some awesome L/D around... Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Brian, you f#@king natural bird... You're a mistake of Mother Nature. You should be shaving feathers instead of facial hair every morning... Definitely try the balance thing. When you glide at 4.0, I'll send some cute Russian Chicks your way so we can start the Darwin's 'procreation for natural selection of the best species' thing. Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

To convince you that the sloppy, but free of line tension fabric "doesn't affect the openings at all, of course". In other words, to speed up your packing, so you can enjoy life more. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Yo! So I fly my Phantom from a balloon the other day, and as soon as I start to fly, I feel something is not right... it's too quiet! It was quietness and smoothness of the air I've never experienced before. I even looked quickly at both arms as if suspecting that I grew feathers on them. There were no feathers, and I wasn't in heaven, but it definitely felt so. I was f l y i n g . . . I examined the data, corrected it for the wind (GPS was turned on during the accent, effectively sampling winds aloft), and was astounded to find that the average L/D ratio during the best 20s of the flight was 2.9. WOW!!! (my best L/D in Phantom so far was 2.2-2.3) How is that possible?! What was different on this flight? Usually, I fly in sneakers, heavy skydiving rig and with a relatively heavy top-mounted camera. This time, I flew in heavy Hanwag boots (+4lbs) with a lighter rig (-10lbs) and no camera (-3.5lbs). Could it be that the shifted center of gravity put the body in optimally balanced position for the best glide? The data shows unusually low forward speed (90-100mph vs. my usual 115) and ridiculous (for a 205-210lbs. meatbomb) fall rate – about 30mph (vs. usual 50). That’s why it felt soooo quiet! Those best 20s consumed only 1000ft of altitude, while covering 3000ft horizontally. This discovery by accident lead me to thinking that in our quest to find that perfect body position and best wingsuit design we forget one of the most important factors: balance. Balance between aerodynamic forces and weight determines overall attitude of the flying body and its ability to glide efficiently. By changing body position, we are able to change the balance somewhat, but we may still be far from that perfect balance. We may need to move our center of gravity using weights (as heavy boots and lighter rig did in my case). Take canopies, for example. By shifting your weight under the wing (pulling on rear or front risers), you change the angle of attack. The best glide is usually achieved by giving some input to rear risers, that is, at rather high angle of attack. Small angle of attack (front risers) increases speed, but the glide ratio suffers. It seems that we try to find the best glide with wingsuits by flying them on 'front risers' (actually, bending in the hips is probably equivalent to pulling both the front risers and the brakes). We always hear that speed is your best friend, that you need to go head low to achieve the best glide. But we might be looking for best L/D in the wrong place. If further experiments prove my theory, the best glide can be achieved by proper balancing and the resulting 'subterminal' - amazingly smooth and quiet - flight, not by going 'superterminal'. Or is it all just some magic power of Hanwags?... Yuri PS. Notes about data: - GPS used: Etrex Vista C mounted on top of the helmet with a foam pad covering the breathing hole - wind speed/direction were approximated using 4th order polynomials, which were used to calculate the corrected wingsuit speed - I was flying downwind, but the wind is subtracted (as a vector) from the end result (L/D and true airspeed) - fall rate was calculated as the loss of altitude in 5s divided by 5 (to smooth the noisy data) - L/D was calculated as the horizontal distance (corrected for the wind) covered in 9s (centered at current point) divided by the loss of altitude in 9s (again, to smooth the data) Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

If you look at my and Chris' graphs, you'll see that the fatality rate is not changing that much. It's just the number of jumpers is growing exponentially (actually, superexponentially). It took 18 years for the first 50 deaths, just 7 for the next 50, and will take just 5-7 years for the next 100... etc. So the answer to your question, "what's going on??" is, "Nothing. Math 101." Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Of course! With no gray matter and thick red neck, you won't feel a thing! (no personal attack, just stating facts you already know, Tom.) Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Tailbone and both wrists (skydiving with low jump numbers in turbulence, hit the runway). Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

It's not that bad (with a small battery and a tiny wide angle adapter (Century 0.55x)), but I wouldn't take it on a 2.5s+ delay - 2s is max for me. Terminal openings with vented Flik feel like ~2.5s no slider, so it's marginal. As for skips, I had 3-4 skips on one Sony Premium tape, the average for all the footage on all other tapes is 1 skip per ~2 tapes. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Good: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=4070 Great: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=2882 Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

I jump HC1 and it skips, too. This is because current HD cameras record to standard DV tapes at standard bit rate of 25Mbps, so they use the keyframing compression: every 15 frames (1/2s) a key frame is recorded, the other 14 frames record the difference from the key frame. Thus, if the key frame ends up on a bad spot on the tape, the whole half second is lost. Using Sony's higher quality tapes with "HD" designation presumably reduces the incidence of skips, but I've had skips with them, too. These tapes are pricey (~$10-13). Also, you may lose ~0.5-1s on opening due to opening shock (2-3s no slider). Yuri PS. It's not that bad, though: ~1 skip per 2 tapes. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Another interesting thing about your graph is that the distance between points is increasing (reflecting the exponential growth of numbers with time). If one were to make an animation with points being added one by one, we'll see the point accelerating like a rocket through the sky... It's only a matter of time that this ever accelerating and growing rocket is going to hit popular legal sites and destroy them. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

I agree. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

The almost linear graph (fatalities vs. BASE #'s) is very illustrative. Given that according to the poll the ratio of total number of BASE jumpers to those with BASE #'s is about 1.4, the fatality risk is about 1/15, or 7%. Every 15th of us will die BASE jumping... On a positive note, the rest 14 will most likely die at age 100 making love to a hot 18y.o. babe. Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

What happened to the poll? Is it a bug in the forum software? Anyway, the last time I looked there were about 50 votes and they split 70% yes/30% no. Which puts the ratio of total number of BASE jumpers to those with BASE #'s at 1.4. So, the total number of BASE jumpers in the world can be estimated as 1070*1.4 = 1500 as of June 2006. (100 of them are dead.) L/D = 15 Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

It is. The growth over the last 15 years has been superexponential -- exponential with increasing growth rate. Attached is the growth rate since 1990. From 2002 to 2005, it increased from 8% to 13%. At 13% rate, the number of BASE jumpers doubles every 5.3 years. That means, we might see #200 in 2011. Paraphrasing Nick's nugget, we may say that "Numbers 101-150 are walking around among us right now, and numbers 151-200 will start BASE in the next 5 years, but they will all be dead by the year 2011. Please, if you see these people - "Next Hundred" - pull them aside and tell them to slow down . . ." Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Another interesting aerodynamic container: HYBRID "After 2 years research and testing, Adrenalin is proud to present to you the HYBRID which is now available and added to the line of products ADRENALIN already produces such as the ZAK. Aimed for experienced jumpers, this unique harness container, allows you to still make “classic” jumps but thanks to its profile, seriously improves penetration and lift on tracking and wingsuit jumps. The idea of the HYBRID is to reduce drag to a minimum by adapting the container to the profile of a human body in flight. Adrenalin has accomplished this task by producing the following: - A container stretched longer with the collar positioned at the base of the neck, the collar positioned in this way avoids air to come between the back and the container, this therefore considerably reduces drag. - A container a lot thinner which blends in with the shape of a wingsuit or tracking clothing. - The bottom of the container angled at 45° allowing increased air flow over the whole surface therefore increasing lift. - An extremely light harness container." Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

I might have a frighteningly accurate estimate when that's gonna be. In the last 15 years or so, according to data from BASE #'s vs. time graph, the number of BASE jumpers has been growing exponentially with the time constant of approx. 0.095/year: N(Year) = N(StartYear)*exp(0.095*(Year - StartYear)). Thus, the number of BASE jumpers doubles every ln(2)/0.095 ~ 7.3 years (like money at 9.5% interest rate will double in 7.3 years) If the current rate of 1 death per approx. 10 issued BASE #'s stays the same for several years, 100 more deaths will "take" 1000 more new BASE #'s, so #200 will go in when BASE #2070 (1070 today + 1000) is issued. 2070 is 1035 doubled, and 1035 was issued approx. in September 2005. 2005.7 + 7.3 = 2013. So, those who will be alive in 2013, will be wondering who's #200. Those who will be alive in 2030 (2006 + ln(10)/0.095), will be wondering who's #1000. Exponential explosion of the number of jumpers leads to exponential explosion of The List. Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Yo! This is a simple poll to estimate the ratio of total number of jumpers to jumpers with BASE #'s. When there's statistically significant number of responses, the total number of jumpers can be estimated as: [Total number of BASE jumpers in the world] ~ [highest BASE number to date] * (100/[percentage of jumpers with BASE numbers]) This idea was stimulated by an attempt to estimate the Life/Death ratio. Thanks!

I updated the spreadsheet with running 1, 3, and 5 year averages. For what it's worth... Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

I compiled the numbers from BASENumbers.org and BASE Fatality List, here's the trend of L/D ratio from 1983 (note the vertical axis starts at 7). Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

I think a round number by itself doesn't represent any milestone. It's just a number. Incrementing 99 to 100 doesn't have any special meaning as neither 65 to 66, 199 to 200, or 665 to 666 do. Given enough time, there will be 200, 666, 1000000, etc. BASE fatalities someday. But the ratio of the highest BASE number to date (Joy's List) to the total number of fatalities (Nick's List) -- or L/D ratio (Life vs. Death) -- gives us some food for thought... Currently, L/D ~ 11. Of course, the highest BASE number represents only some percentage of total number of jumpers, but one could argue that this percentage doesn't change much with time. Also, the derivative of this ratio (that is, the number of BASE numbers issued in one year to the number of deaths in that year) may reveal some tendencies. Eleven... Per 10 alive, 1 dead. Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

2000ft skyscrapers filled with millions of pigs! http://www.mvrdv.nl/_v2/projects/181_pigcity/index.html http://www.archined.nl/archined/3251.html

Great advice, thanks, Sam! Ever since I started dumping using "arm-wing only for a couple of seconds, leg wing closed, look at horizon" technique (vs. from full flight), and packing grommet-to-BOC I haven't gotten any linetwists (~40 flights), and openings are very soft and on heading. But I'll make an effort and get linetwists on my Spectre just to try the untwisting techique you decribed. Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio