BASE and Jump #s

[nikejumper 0]

Ok so I have asked a number of people and I have got some ok but nothing really good replys to sell me on it...

Why shouldn't BASE jumps count to your overall jump #?

BASE jumps are by far more technical (canopy flying)then skydiving as a whole IMO. If you do both jumping very often (current) why shouldn't they both count?

Is it saturday yet?

[NWFlyer 2]

Because BASE jumping is not skydiving.

Besides, "Count" for what? For licenses? For ratings? For an evaluation of your freefall skills?

Here's an example. If you came to me wanting to make a jump and said "I've got 300 jumps; 100 of them are skydives and 200 are BASE jumps" I would probably plan a different type of skydive than I would if all 300 were skydives. Personally, I'd prefer to know the difference, because having 100 skydives can mean you have very different freefall skills than having 300 skydives.

For bragging rights? Sure, whatever.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[punkd 0]

Count your jumps as you please, its for your records.
Once you make some base jumps you won't care who tells you they don't count anyways..

[billvon 3,068]

>Why shouldn't BASE jumps count to your overall jump #?

Because they're not skydiving. Different gear, different goals, different exits, different attitudes on safety, different procedures, different tradeoffs.

>BASE jumps are by far more technical (canopy flying)then skydiving as a whole
>IMO. If you do both jumping very often (current) why shouldn't they both
>count?

You can be a competent BASE jumper and a dangerously incompetent skydiver. (The opposite is of course also true.)

[jonstark 8]

Quote

"Count" for what?

+1

Who cares?!

jon

[nikejumper 0]

Totally agree with 70% of all your guys... the experience thing though... Say if I have 200 BASE jumps from 1500+ft with a tight landing area and 200 full altitude skydives and there is a dude with 400 jumps and 90% of them are hop and pops with a huge LZ.... who is the better flyer, better canopy pilot, more knowledgeable, more heads up in group skydives, ect??

In my experience I have seen BASE jumpers tend to understand how ALL there gear (BASE and skydiving) works not just mains and PCs (yes I understand that was a big generalization) as well as using front, rear, and toggles to pilot their canopy.

Some background on what brought this up, I'm working on getting my Pro rating and accuracy is not the issue its jump numbers. At the DZ the other day we where talking and it hit me, "Man why shouldn't my BASE jumps count?"

thanks for not turning this into a a flame-fest and keeping it at least semi-intelligent. :-)

Is it saturday yet?

[NickDG 23]

We preached for years about the differences between BASE and skydiving (to keep folks safe) and it's nice to see people echoing that up-board. However, whenever a non-jumper asks me how many jumps I have I tell them but then always feel the urge to mention my B.A.S.E. jumps too. So I know, either from a plane or from an object, at least in my subconscious mind, a parachute jump is a parachute jump.

That being said we had an old saying, "Don't B.A.S.E. jump at the DZ and don't skydive off the Flatiron building." So using your B.A.S.E. jumps to get signed off for a pro rating, even though I sort of agree with what your saying, isn't done, yet. Maybe someday. But when they send you up for your pro-rating accuracy jumps there's nothing that says you can't smile and make it look easy . . .

NickD BASE 194

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

Some background on what brought this up, I'm working on getting my Pro rating and accuracy is not the issue its jump numbers. At the DZ the other day we where talking and it hit me, "Man why shouldn't my BASE jumps count?"

I would say that accuracy for base jumps is totally different from accuracy from airplanes.

In a base jump you're already very close to where you're going to land, and you have very little time to maneuver before touch-down.

In a skydive, you have to calculate the correct exit point using winds, airspeed, forward throw and a practice eye. Then you have to maneuver your canopy for several thousand feet to get set up correctly to land where you want. And then only in the last several hundred feet does it become the equivalent of the base jump as far as the landing accuracy goes. You can't discount all that high-level stuff, because that's what is going to be needed for a demo jump, which is the purpose of obtaining a pro rating. You might have perfect accuracy from 500' on down, but you need to be able to get yourself to that 500' entry point starting from a fast-moving airplane very high above the ground.

This is not to belittle in any manner the special skills required for BASE jumping. But BASE and demo jumping are just very different. Someone who has a thousand skydives and no base jumps is not necessarily going to make a perfect first BASE jump, nor could you guarantee that someone with a thousand BASE jumps and no skydives is going to make a perfect first skydive. The skill sets are different in many ways.

That's my 2-cents worth.

[wasatchrider 0]

i wish my 100+ base jumps would count for something for my aff that would be cool

BASE 1519

[DrewEckhardt 0]

Quote

Because BASE jumping is not skydiving.

The card in my wallet says

"United States Parachute Association"

not

"United States Skydiving Association"

or

"United States Jumping From Airplanes Association"

Quote

Here's an example. If you came to me wanting to make a jump and said "I've got 300 jumps; 100 of them are skydives and 200 are BASE jumps" I would probably plan a different type of skydive than I would if all 300 were skydives. Personally, I'd prefer to know the difference, because having 100 skydives can mean you have very different freefall skills than having 300 skydives.

300 skydives isn't appreciably more descriptive than 300 parachute jumps where in both cases the majority of the jumps could be classic accuracy hop-and-pops, freestyle, skysurfing, solo or flocking wingsuit jumps, head-up, head-down, atmonauti, or something else which is at best tangentially relevant to whatever sort of jumping you plan on doing.

Quote

For bragging rights? Sure, whatever.

That's what jump numbers and USPA octa-hepta-nona-dodeca-golden-diamond-wing awards are for.

How you perform in person and the reputation which precedes you are much more indicative of how you're likely to do on whatever sort of jump.

[danielcroft 2]

I got my pro rating on a canopy that I doubt anyone would BASE jump with, i think that it's helpful to have air time but like JohnRich said, there's more to it than pointing your canopy at an open spot and landing. You're normally jumping with other people and have to account for the stack and the "show". Having said that, I've never BASE jumped so I don't know how well those canopy skills transfer.

[jakee 1,562]

Quote

Totally agree with 70% of all your guys... the experience thing though... Say if I have 200 BASE jumps from 1500+ft with a tight landing area and 200 full altitude skydives and there is a dude with 400 jumps and 90% of them are hop and pops with a huge LZ.... who is the better flyer, better canopy pilot, more knowledgeable, more heads up in group skydives, ect??

The guy who is the better flyer, better canopy pilot etc.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Halfpastniner 0]

You could always just say you have x amount of parachute landings. I agree with many of the up posters though. People with a lot of base jumps but limited skydives are just not that good at skydiving. Yes, they are way above average in knowing and understanding their gear, and generally very good at reading winds and accurate landings. But having a bunch of base jumps won't help your freefly skills!

Quick aside, I have a friend with almost 600 base jumps and less than 50 skydives. If he told you he had 650 jumps, you would probably expect him to be a pretty good skydiver. Which obviously wouldn't exactly be the case.

BASE 1384

[dragon2 2]

Quote

So using your B.A.S.E. jumps to get signed off for a pro rating, even though I sort of agree with what your saying, isn't done, yet. Maybe someday.

I do know one guy got his wingsuit rating (the in-air part of it) off Brento: he'd shown he could fly his suit and catch a student

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[NWFlyer 2]

Quote

300 skydives isn't appreciably more descriptive than 300 parachute jumps where in both cases the majority of the jumps could be classic accuracy hop-and-pops, freestyle, skysurfing, solo or flocking wingsuit jumps, head-up, head-down, atmonauti, or something else which is at best tangentially relevant to whatever sort of jumping you plan on doing.

Quote

How you perform in person and the reputation which precedes you are much more indicative of how you're likely to do on whatever sort of jump.

Yep, that's why I was very careful to say "can" instead of "will." I jump with some folks with 100 jumps that I've known since they were pre-A jumpers and I've watched their freefall progressions and I've seen how they've taken advantage of every coaching and skill-building opportunity out there. I know what they can do, and it's more than some people with 300 jumps (hell, it's more than I could do when I had 300 jumps!). With an unknown person, the conversation is usually more detailed than "how many jumps do you have" - I often ask jump type as well, which would suss out the situations described above that would also change how I'd plan things.

But, at the dropzone, I think it's generally assumed that the answer to "how many jumps do you have?" is "jumps from aircraft."

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[ManagingPrime 0]

If someone wanted to do a ten-way with you and a group off the potato bridge and they told you they have 600 "jumps" you would be ok with 599 of them being skydives?

I'm assuming you would not be ok with that. As noted by other posters the inverse is also true in skydiving.

Should they be accounted for in some situations...like say for the accuracy portion of the pro rating or water training for a B license.... that's arguable, but I doubt we will see a change anytime soon.

[manseman 0]

Quote

Say if I have 200 BASE jumps from 1500+ft with a tight landing area and 200 full altitude skydives and there is a dude with 400 jumps and 90% of them are hop and pops with a huge LZ.... who is the better flyer, better canopy pilot, more knowledgeable, more heads up in group skydives, ect??

Say someone has 20 skydives and 300 hours of tunnel time. He'll be a total badass in some aspects of a skydive and in others, not so much. Does it make sense to give this person ratings for skydiving activities with less jumps than normally required? Being super skilled in one or several parts of the whole doesn't really make up for being a beginner in others.

[Joellercoaster 6]

Quote

Say someone has 20 skydives and 300 hours of tunnel time. He'll be a total badass in some aspects of a skydive and in others, not so much. Does it make sense to give this person ratings for skydiving activities with less jumps than normally required?

This is actually topical.

In the latest(?) Skydive Radio, they were talking to a tunnel instructor who had only recently got his A license. He and a colleague had just gone through a USPA AFFI course - obviously it was just an experiment, they were ineligible for the ratings due to time in sport and freefall-from-a-plane-time restrictions, but it sure was interesting to hear about how they got on.

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[base283 0]

Quote

In a base jump you're already very close to where you're going to land, and you have very little time to maneuver before touch-down.

Is that really true? I really didnt realize that while I watched from the LZ 2km away from the the 1100m aLZgl exit point. It just goes to show that one man's edge is another man's horizon.
Take care,
space

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

Quote

In a base jump you're already very close to where you're going to land, and you have very little time to maneuver before touch-down.

Is that really true? I really didnt realize that while I watch from the LZ 2km away from the the 1100m aLZgl. It just goes to show that one man's edge is another man's horizon.
Take care,
space

I believe it's true for most base jumps. I don't know what "aLZgl" is, but of course there are exceptions for particularly high cliffs jumped with wing suits, where longer distances may be covered. But I don't think that represents the average base jump.

[Martini 0]

Above LZ Ground Level

Sometimes you eat the bear..............

[NickDG 23]

Richie Stein, BASE 74, had over a hundred B.A.S.E. jumps before he made his first skydive in the late 1980s, and it was sort of a faker at DZ Xray.

He was schooled on how to walk up to manifest, along with two other experienced skydivers for a garden variety three-way. (Look nervous and keep touching your handles, LOL.)

In the door it became de-facto AFF and he did fine except under canopy at 3000-feet he wondered why he'd pulled so high . . .

(I only a little to do with it.)

NickD BASE 194

[jonmurrell 0]

Translated into 'merican: He didn't realize how close to the LZ he was, standing at the exit point more than a mile and a half away and 3000' above it. Chances are that LZ is nowhere near the size of

If by "closer to the where you're going to land" you mean closer to the ground in general, then yeah. We'll all hit the ground eventually. Maneuvering still happens regardless of altitude, I've seen jumpers fly a standard (downwind, base, final) landing pattern from 200' exits-two hundred feet, that's approaching 10s of canopy time. Forward throw and winds aloft? Spotting your airport size landing landing area from 14k under a sport main doesn't compare to spotting your house sized landing area and planning your flight to it from below most skydivers' pull altitude.

BASE and skydiving compliment each other, but they very are different. PRO ratings are for skydives so it wouldn't make sense to include both.

This isn't flying, its falling with style.

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

If by "closer to the where you're going to land" you mean closer to the ground in general, then yeah. We'll all hit the ground eventually. Maneuvering still happens regardless of altitude, I've seen jumpers fly a standard (downwind, base, final) landing pattern from 200' exits-two hundred feet, that's approaching 10s of canopy time.

What I was thinking by that statement was "not very far horizontally from the exit point". Whereas with an aircraft jump in just a moderate breeze you can easily exit a half-mile from the landing point. Kick the wind up a bit and you can start a mile out.

Thanks for the explanations and good points.

[base283 0]

Hello JohnRich,
Please,
a. Define an "average BASE jump".
b. Define "particularly high cliffs"
I dont want you to think that I am attacking your credibility. I want to address your misconceptions.

For Example:
I have seen Aerialists not track, deploy, and nail the target on the LZ (my folded up T-shirt).
I have seen Trackers and Wingers do the same also.
--------------
3600ft aLZgl (thanks Martini for the clarification) exit
1.25mi away. Compare that to an accuracy comp jump agl exit and horizontal dist.

One has no idea what represents what "the average BASE jump is" if one has not researched it throughly.
Would you not agree that if "particularly high (to you) cliffs" is the norm (which is probably true), the statement you made would be very inaccurate?
ALso I would like to state that BASE jumping is just as legal as Skydiving and Bicycling.
That is a much more common misconception that it is illegal.
I agree with your point that they are 2 different sports. I just didnt like the blanket statement you posted.
Please post your source of knowledge rather than "I think" or "I believe" it to be so.

Take care,
space