tfelber

I write code for development and test of aerospace and defense systems. I can't imagine me or any of my clients suggesting using a Mac. The development tools and associated test hardware just don't exist for the Mac platform. I have a couple of friends that are not computer guys and one that is a developer, they love their Mac's. I've tried a Mac a few times and I just never was drawn to them. BTW, I used to work for IBM so maybe I'm biased. I think for consumer graphics and basic connectivity the Mac works well, but I would still choose a PC. For high-end graphics I use Silicon Graphics or something far more exotic.

Try the Owl Cafe and Garduno's. Garcia's on Commanche and Juan Tabo. Take the tram up to High Finance great food and a great ride. There's some cool little bars back in Tijeras Canyon, I met David Crosby up ther one time. Apparently he lives in the NE Heights somewhere. There's quite a bit to do in ABQ. If you need more suggestions let me know. Where are you staying?

This boogie is coming up soon so I wanted to get the announcement back on the first page. A great time will be had by all...

Bring it with you to LP, I'm sure there will many resident experts who can tell you what it is and it's effects. Or just mail it to me and I'll do the research. Tony

Looks like fun Dave. Be careful over there. In case you haven't heard, I believe Shawn has finished his A license. I haven't had a chance to jump with him yet. Tony

That's not how you do it! You have to yell "IROC!!!" Geesh...

I'd say a better poll would be "Who would put their name/reference on the list?" Being a software guy I know anything can be hacked. Some of the best hackers work for the Gov. If something high profile happens, say a jumper gets away after jumping off the ESB, it would take the Feds no time to find that person if they were in this database. No matter what system you put in place to prevent it.

Yeah, he had a couple of days of pain and setting around to think about it. He kept telling me I should try it, but I just wasn't comfortable with the details of the jump. As for the "Don't go MF!" we were talking we should have a safe word that means no joke. Something like "Watermelon" but then everyone would just start joking about that. BASE jumpers are a pretty twisted group. Off topic a little, but I was standing on the bridge watching some people exit and dealing with their fears, legs and hands shaking before exit, thinking WTF do we do this for. Then sitting in the boat and watching people get on with the shakes happening I thought again WTF! It's no wonder it's so hard for people to understand what we do and why.

He has done this jump before and magot told him "Don't go MF!" but he thought magot was just screwing around. There were other people standing near that could/should of seen the issue, and he might have listened if they were yelling at him. But either they didn't notice the problem, hadn't seen the jump executed before, or assumed "Don't go MF!" really meant don't go. I was watching from the sidelines and didn't see the the malfunction until he was under canopy spinning. I really expected him to pull it out without a hitch or land in the water, but by the time he cleared the twists his choices were few. He made the right choices after he left the object and saved himself a trip to the hospital. He probably could have braced for impact a little more and prevented his knee from hitting him in the ribs, but he thought he was going to hit a lot harder. There really wasn't much luck involved in this incident regardless of what others are saying.

Maybe you should re-read your first post. I just did and it still sounds like bashing to me, regardless of who's involved.

I said who the jumper was because he asked me to post a rebuttal. I posted my observations because they were parallel to Nick's and I was there. I was pissed that you and Tree posted what you thought happened without even being there and Tree was being quite flammatory in his post. I also thought the goal was to keep the unknown interpretations to a minimum and let people who know what happened comment. And that's the reason I brought up the incident and interpretation from last year. Because there again you made an incorrect statement regarding what happened and you are speaking from a perceived position of authority. Quite frankly, Nick did a hell of a job getting that canopy flying and not getting severely hurt. I told everyone watching he was going to pull it out and swoop the landing, so he let me down a little there, but he still dealt with it quite well. I admit he created the situation but you guys act like it was a total dumbass act when it wasn't. It was a simple accident, nothing more, nothing less.

That's pretty harsh Tree coming from someone who wasn't even there. But I guess since your Tom's buddy and Nick is banned from this forum anyway that kind of remark is acceptable, huh? For a little bit of truth to the story from someone who was standing there and saw the entire incident, Nick was doing an IROC where you hang the canopy below you and exit backwards flipping over the canopy. The line group over was due to having to turn himself through the lines to get everything facing the right direction. As he launched the lines caused the canopy to spin putting him in line twists. He kicked out of the twists but was too low to clear the lineover, even if it was possible. He prepared to PLF and landed the canopy as well as he could given the lack of control. He did not hit a tree. He landed beside a tree and the canopy fell over the tree. The broken rib was from his knee hitting him in the side as he attempted a PLF in thick brush. Here's a quote from Nick regarding the incident: "Granted that I left the bridge with whole riser-over, the fact that I survived the landing has nothing to do with luck. For the record Mark and Tom did not see the jump, they were not even on the bridge. First I did not land in trees. Second I did not spin into the ground. Those are lies ... I had four line twists coupled with tons of line over. As I was kicking out the line twists I looked up and saw no brake lines over. So as soon as I got out the line twist I had the toggles in my hand, made a correction to the heading not to hit a ditch, flared and PLF. My canopy ended up on a tree but I PLF on ground." Tom, for somebody that generally tries to keep the rumors to a minimum and not talk about things until you understand what really happened you sure missed it on this one. That really makes me question some other reports you posted, like say "The center jumper exited significantly before the outer 2 jumpers." from last year. WRONG!!! And I have the video and stills from that jump to prove it. I generally try to stay out of this petty bickering but it is reaching a level of childishness I haven't seen since the third grade. Grow up ya'll! edited to remove text from Nick's quote that could be considered a PA.

I was trying to remember specific interactions with Dale from our outing at the lake in AZ and just had to laugh when I remembered sleeping in the bunks that one night and him talking in his sleep. "Grab that bitch by the hair! No, not like that! Like this!!!" I can't remember the rest of the conversation he had with himself that night but it was sure funny to hear. Cheers to you Dale! I'm glad I got to be around you!

I was actually thinking of doing it between the tow rope and the cutaway. Do you know the effects of water on break cord?

So I rigged up one of the cutaways you mentioned and it works quite well. With my full weight hanging on it the pressure needed to hold the last loop is minimal, it can easily be held with two fingers or your teeth without slippage or risk of injury. And when you release it the system cuts away instantaneously. Thanks for the idea. I'm going to use a double wrap of break cord for an emergency break away to deal with excessive loading so I don't damage the boat or the canopy. I'm also going to use two observers in the boat; one holding the loose end of the rope wrapped around a horizontal barrel and one with a hook knife in the event of a hangup. I'll let you know how it goes.

People are saying a list of this sort doesn't exist in other sports, what about the incident forum? Is this not a list of similar magnitude for skydiving? With similar information? Should the list become a wikipedia type platform where people can add what they feel is pertinent? I'm sure this would take a load off Nick's shoulders. As for internet password protection, who would monitor this database? How would you decide who gets a password? Would you change it every few weeks to keep it secure? An incident list is quite useful in sports like BASE, skydiving, rope jumping, paragliding, climbing, etc. The list helps prevent the recurring problem and make the danger of the activity a reality. How many of you check your gear differently since the Hilder incident? I know I do! As for the personal aspects of such a list, I think it adds to my understanding of the incident, cause and effect, when I know a little about the person. I know he was some guy making bad choices and headed down the wrong path to begin with. It makes it a little harder to just rationalize away the issue as "it won't happen to me". I have friends on the list. There are people I've met online, people I've jumped with, people that died while I was present. I don't think the list degrades them in anyway. I sometimes read the list just so I don't forget about the person and who they were to me. I also find people on the list I wish I had met before they made the list. This has me regard jumpers I meet at an exit point in a different way. I think the list has several strong points. I think the biggest burden is it's maintenance. I feel Nick has an attachment to the list and this comes from his attachment to the sport, so the info in the list is fairly accurate. But he also catches the wrath when someone disagrees like Jimmy and Clair. If it was more of a free entry platform like the way a Wikipedia is supposed to work it may be even more complete.

There is not really anything good in AZ to do a first jump off of. Get in touch and we'll go out and have a beer. We do have some nice legal cliffs where you could GC and learn a little more about the sport, but I don't think anyone I know would be interested in putting you off anything local.

Diablo doesn't show up for shit like this. I heard there is a real bingo and I vote for Maggot or NickNitro. Either way I win because I'm going to be holding the cash...

You guys sure criticize PotatoeHead alot. He's actually not that irrational. I've been with him a few times. I've seen him climb down when he didn't feel right about the situation and I've seen him jump and land his $10 rig without incident when others weren't quite so lucky jumping BASE specific gear. I will admit he is a little different and he's proud of his $10 rig. I don't know of anyone he's hurt or killed and it's not like he's out advertising a FJC, so get off his ass!

I've spoken with you a little about this in PM's but this info brings up a few issues regarding my situation. I'm planning on pulling with a boat with me starting on the shore near water with a slight headwind to get the canopy inflated and flying. I've been practicing kiting so I'll have a better feel for when it's time to hit it. I intend to have 300' of line with multiple wraps around a pulley so more rope can be fed out or released completely, sort of like a windlass. My intention is to have a pilot cutaway as you've mentioned. The observer on the boat could release the line or cut the line with a hook knife in the event of a hangup. The canopy is actually a 9-cell paraglider and I intend to release my cutaway once at altitude. Once I get it flying and figure out all the nuances, I've thought about building a cutaway for the canopy, and wearing my BASE gear over the harness. Cutaway, go into freefall, throw my PC, and land on the beach. Soooo, do I sound like a lunatic about to hurt myself and others or does it sound plausible???

I have a hard time with discussion of a burble in zero to low airpeed conditions. The burble created, if any, in these low jumps is so close to the jumpers back that a PC released at arm stretch would have a very hard time getting "caught". I think what is often referred to as burble effect is more times than not an actual bridle/pin/velcro hang up. This clears as the airspeed increases and looks like a PC caught in the burble of a terminal freefall.

So Mike, I had a conversation with someone who explained how Jeb's jump affected him. He made a lot of good points and believes Jeb should be ostracized for his action and it's effects. As I said previously, his actions have not impacted my jumping, I'm not really an urban jumper, but I now realize there are jumpers out there who were impacted by his apparent disregard of the long term effect of his actions. This jumper also felt I was overly harsh in my statement about not giving Jeb shit. As I mentioned in my previous post my statements were not directed at you, but apparently I was not clear enough. I would like to apologize for coming across so harsh.

***he endangered lives all right, the ones we live as base jumpers.. *** He didn't endanger my life one iota(sp???). I still jump what I jump. I still do what I do. He may have made the risky more riskier, but I've heard people say that's why they do it. So in reality he improved their lives! It all goes back to choice. If you don't want to get busted don't jump illegal stuff. If you're not worried about that then nothing has changed!!!

Nothing against you Mike. You did what you did and you do what you do! Very commendable! BUT don't give Jeb shit. It's a bunch of shit that what happened happened. He didn't endanger anyone. PERIOD! What you did from El Cap endangered no one and now it's illegal! A BUNCH OF CRAP!!! BASE jumping truly represents freedom. I realize the dangers and it's still my choice a true choice as to jump or not. WE don't risk others, PERIOD! We risk ourselves and that is our choice. It's not about suicide, it's not about a roll of the dice. Everyone one of us do it to live, not to die. What logic deems it to be illegal???

There you go, a perfect reason supporting FJC's. I have seen several people do a FJC and decide it's not for them. Good decision! Without that experience they may have ended up in trouble before they had that realization. While I was one of the skydivers who thought BASE was crazy until I was challenged about my understanding of the sport, I meet people all the time, skydivers and non-skydivers, that can't wait to try it with absolutely no knowledge other than it looks like a cool thing to do. (Most of the time it is.) These are the people a FJC would help the most. It would allow them to experience all it takes to participate. I took Tom's course, when it was free, and he did an excellent job of exposing the students to the work necessary. The first day we walked from the park to the landing area and climbed out. If that doesn't have you realize this isn't skydiving... Next we packed for hours. Having taken a packing course prior to arriving in Twin, I wasn't too pleased when Tom told me to open it up and pack it for a third time, but that's part of the learning. Climbing up and jumping out of that tree 8-10 times was actually scarier than jumping off the bridge the first time, and that's another reason he includes that. Jumping off the bridge after all that was kind of a let down. My brother called me right after I landed and asked how it was. My response was it wasn't as exhilirating as I thought it would be. Now take a step back and let's look at a guy who shows up to TF's with his friends for a first jump. His friends are generally more interested in their jumps than his and also tend to think of the bridge as a safe, easy object. They prepare him as much as they think is necessary. This includes helping him through his first pack job and having him practice his exit form several times. They tell him they will PCA him which means all he has to do is concentrate on his form. On the walk out they show him the wind indicator and the preferred landing area. They also point out the ditch and boulder field he should stay away from. He climbs over the rail, a pretty fear filled event by itself, and is now standing 485' above a hard surface, shitting his pants. Knees shaking he counts, 3-2-1-CYA. As he leaves the object head-low he tries to remember WTF he was supposed to do. The canopy slams open and he now has 20-25 seconds to get this big ass canopy to where he intended to land. HELL YES he's juiced when he gets to the ground! I realize not everyone brings their friend up and puts them through that ordeal, but it does happen. Pretty hardcore experience and that's off a safe, easy bridge. It's been done off not so easy object also... I think a descent FJC gives the student the most benefit and exposure. The risks are decreased as much as possible and the instructor monitors the students progress and makes informed decisions as to the students ability to progress.