TomAiello

The river is dam controlled in Twin Falls. The nearest dam is just upstream from the bridge. The river flow was completely shut down this fall for invasive species management. The river has also been intentionally dropped in the past in search and recovery operations for missing persons (both jumpers and non jumpers).

It was manufactured by Precision Aerodynamics, under contract for Vertigo BASE Outfitters. The canopy was designed by Chris Martin (designer of the Xaos canopy among others), shortly after he began BASE jumping, in consultation with Marta Empinotti and Jimmy Pouchert. I have owned several, and still have two (a 303 and a 288). The pressurization is fairly good. The glide isn't fantastic (especially by more modern standards) as the canopy was designed for tight accuracy approaches. The flare is on par with the Mojo or Troll, but not nearly as strong as other offerings of the time (like the Flik), and certainly falls short when compared to more modern canopies. The low airspeed slider up openings are, frankly, terrifying. I wouldn't use it slider up at any delay under about 8 seconds. Chris died in 2005, skydiving, when the tiny (21 square foot) canopy he was doing XRW with spun up. I haven't thought about Chris (who I did some jumping with in rural Alabama and Tennessee back around that time period), in a good long while. I'm sure I'm not the only one who misses him. I have a photo somewhere of my (then toddler) daughter pretending to fly the 19 square foot Rock Dragon model that Chris brought out to the Perrine.

That's really a speed wing question, not a BASE jumping one. :) Personally, I'd probably fly it on a paraglider first if I wasn't sure I could make the flight on a speed wing.

If you are looking for feedback from students who have taken the course, you might consider posting in the alumni Facebook group.

I can give you all of my thoughts on it, but they're pretty much already on our website: https://www.snakeriverbase.com/courses https://www.snakeriverbase.com/object-avoidance https://www.snakeriverbase.com/object-avoidance-course-outline Do you have any specific questions about the course that I can answer for you?

Sliders are specific to the canopy. If you are mixing and matching sliders, you are a test jumper. If you're going to do that, you should definitely make a substantial number of test jumps from an aircraft to verify the function of the slider. If you can find the dimensions of the fine mesh slider, you can probably just have one made by your local rigger.

For the USA, it's generally enough to show that you are paying a USA business for a service (BASE training). What country in Europe are you going to? If you are going to several Schengen area countries it might be worth researching which one is the easiest to get a visa for. Once you're inside the Schengen area, there is no internal passport control, so you could potentially get a visa for an 'easy' country, fly in there, and then travel to the places you want to visit.

Separately, I'd recommend paying your coach with something other than cash. I have (twice) had to do phone interviews with US customs when a student came through with enough cash to pay for both training and equipment (i.e. they were buying a new rig) and the customs people didn't believe them about the reason for bringing cash. If that's you, definitely try to get an itemized invoice showing the cost of everything you bring cash for.

Yes. But those are visas for the USA, not for Europe.

Are you getting any coaching while you are there? I've written letters (and done interviews by phone) for students who needed a visa. They never asked me "how long is this course" so people would come for a 4 day course but have a visa for the following several weeks to stay and jump more.

I would just say 'vacation' or 'holidays' or something similar. I doubt they'd deny a visa just because you said you were going to BASE jump, but I'd avoid the hassle unless they asked for some reason.

I definitely saw some first person POV video post strato.

There are lots of videos of it. But I'm sure that they were all CGI. Definitely.

You should ask Maurizio di Palma. He should be able to set you up to rent one of the apartments immediately next to the landing area. If that's outside your budget, their are plenty of AirBnB options, as well as a nearby campground that plenty of jumpers stay at. I have never stayed there myself, but plenty of people do.

I own the Tube 5 and the PF Power Track Suit, and I prefer the PTS. It's not about power really, it's about ease of use. The point of a two piece isn't to get the most power. If you want the most power, you should be flying a wingsuit. A two piece tracking suit is safety gear. It's purpose is to give you the ability to move away from the cliff, and the make it easy to recover from instability (bad exits) and to fly naturally. I find the PTS more forgiving (flies well in a wide range of body positions) and easier (less 'twitchy' feeling in max track), which makes it a better two piece suit, by my standards (which are all about safety, not max performance). FWIW, I also own the PF Classic (and about 7 other suits) and I find the PTS easier to fly than the classic (and pretty much everything else on the market).