JaapSuter

I know at least two guys that give free courses and end up sending students into the world that realize they have a duty to try and give something back to the sport. The wheel will keep on spinning...

Hi Skyglider, I think most of us realize your posts are well-intentioned. In fact, myself being somebody that talks way too much, I quite enjoy reading your posts. It seems you've put thought into it. That said, please try to understand that most people who have experienced the essence of base have a different opinion on some of the subjects you touch. What is the essence of base you wonder? In the words of the late Hunter S. Thompson: That's why some of us think it matters whether or not you have done any base jumps. It may not sound fair, but it puts your thoughts in a different background. Speaking for myself, I have definitely changed my opinion on a few things now that I have made some base jumps. Things I thought I was pretty sure of before I started. And when some of us sound a little harsh when we ask whether or not you have made any base jumps, that's just because not everybody has the time to put his thoughts down as eloquently as yourself. Some of us have jobs... Speaking of which; I should really start shutting up more. Thanks Skyglider. Don't stop posting. You did start a thread that had some interesting discussion in it.

Any hookknife that is actually worth using will slice through a loaded set of risers like it goes through butter. I was actually taught this was one of the main risks when using a hookknife. Make sure you cut only the offending line. Stay away (above) from the risers, and preferably from the other lines as well. If you can't cut your risers with your hookknife, throw it away. Cheers, Jaap Suter Disclaimer: I will not buy new risers for the person who, after reading this post, cuts them to tests his hookknife.

Absolutely! And I'm sure plenty of other people would be very interested! To think that maybe we might be doing something other than drinking the evening after a boogie day full of jumping. Unheard of!

Thanks Tom! Do you trust its hold-strength on opening-shock well enough that you would dare using it on slider-up jumps? If one would use flat toggles (as opposed to big-grabs) you could release the toggles and then punch them through the slider-grommets on a line-over. Substantially slower than WLOs, but an interesting concept, and maybe safer and faster than hookknifing the line.

Let's try to remind ourselves about how utterly irrelevant this forum becomes as soon as we're at the exit point, doing our countdown, ready to jump. Three... Two... One... CYA! Isn't that what it's all about? Competitions, marketing, media exposure, objects being burned, accidents, laws, getting busted, politics, the NPS, MTV and Ronald McDonald... They all fade away. In the end it's all about hanging out with your friends. Then again, I'm known for a having a little hippie inside me.

And I forgot to add; I did two first jump courses. One free one, and one for 1100 dollar. Both were great!

I've heard several people say that, but always in hindsight, after they actually got those qualifications. I think everybody will agree that more experience never hurts. So why would you only get 50 demo jumps and 500 skydives? Certainly 1000 skydives and 200 demo jumps would be better? As others have pointed out, it's important what you did on those X number of skydives. It's also important what mentality you have (are you adventurous or do you prefer to watch other people being adventurous on television) and what other activities you participate in besides skydiving and BASE (climb, paraglide, mountaineer, run, any sport sport where body-awareness is critical). I believe the combination of mind and body preparation forms a logarithmic curve where additional preparation starts having diminished returns. Take a look at the picture attached. On the horizontal axis we have the amount of preparation you put into BASE. On the vertical axis is your chance of survival. Note that you're definitely going to die until you're preparation hits a certain point and the curve crosses the horizontal axis. Different people will tell you this point is at different levels. What I see happen a lot though is that people start moving this point up as they themselves move up this scale. I don't believe the accident and fatality statistics justify such a line of thought. What some people forget is that preparation for base can suddenly become a lot more efficient and effective once a person has made some base jumps. I certainly noticed that my understanding of threads on this board and conversations between jumpers went up significantly once I had done a few packjobs and jumps. Even my participation in skydiving has become a lot more useful, not just from a gear point of view, but also from a psychological point of view. I would say that the most critical requirement for any involvement in base jumping is having the ability to assess your own skills. Based on that assessment, having the ability to say no to an object if the type of jump or its conditions are too dangerous. There is a massive difference between jumping from the Potato bridge or jumping a wingsuit over a talus from a cliff with a five second rockdrop. Being able to judge these kind of things is critical. If you have this skill, your chances of survival will be considerable, even if you have no experience anywhere else. Most would say I started base jumping much too early. So take all these comments with a grain of salt. One thing I definitely do want to add to Whatever's excellent list is a first aid course. Preferably an outdoor oriented one. Some day this will be the most useful thing you ever learned.

Hey Jeffrey, good points. For the record, I've slept comfortably on floors on many occasions. I've seen haircuts done for 5 bucks with nothing but a clipper that looked great! I've spend some of my best times with homeless people who's beards hadn't been trimmed in a year and whose clothing came from the local trash facility. If my post made it seem as if I believe the things in my poll determine the quality of a person, then please let the moderator remove it. I'm glad we agree. No, and I apologize if this thread made it seem that way. Nonetheless, I would assume that most people have a certain sense towards aesthetics. Everybody, to some degree or another. I hadn't until now. Through Google that actually turned up some good reads. Thanks! It this statement was coming from some poor sweatshop boedha buddy from a tiny sweatshop in the middle of India, maybe I'd agree. Coming from a skydiver I'm not sure if such a thing makes sense. Who are we to judge somebody that spends money on expensive products when at the same time we are burning massive amounts of jet-fuel for 20 bucks a jump?

Five questions... I'm trying to dispel the notion that outdoorsy types can't appreciate the beauty of high quality shoes, the elegance of a great haircut, the uniqueness of a locally made artsy dress and the softness of high thread-count bedding. Are we just too cheap and do we rather spend money on the activities we love? Are we just too tired when we get home from a long day of adrenaline and exercise? Thanks, Jaap

One of the jumpers already contacted me. It's not suitable for public discussion. Anyway, I walked by that place tonight and holy crap is that ever one of the most advanced sites I have seen. Lightyears beyond anything I'll ever be capable of doing. At least it is these days. Wires everywhere. So much for that plan... If somebody in the base community can make C++ compile a little faster, I promise I'll spend less time visiting these boards and stop reading the archives. Thanks Dexterbase! When are you finally going to grace Canada a visit?

If anybody knows the jumpers involved in this incident, please PM or email me. I would like to get in touch with them. Thanks, Jaap Suter

I'm guessing that was the last time that rig was jumped? Was the three-ring setup inspected by multiple persons before the second time, reducing the chances of misrigging? Does this person still jump three-rings? Did any of these three incidents lead to injuries?

Ha! I'd like to see that! Forget about the canopy, just dress up as a clown. I'd like to see a come-back of the adventures of Boozy the Clown. Back when Whiskey was cool, and MTV hadn't stolen the idea and turned it into Jackass yet.

I don't think we disagree that much. We might lay the blame elsewhere though. I am very worried about what the media is doing in our world and how their misrepresentations, illusions, one-sidedness, lack-of-impartiality and subjectivity are causing the general population to lose their ability to think and increase their fear of doubt. I don't have television for this exact reason. However, I don't blame the media. They're just providing what the people ask for. In a capitalist world (which I think is the least harmful economic system, sans too much Laisez Faire) providing what the customer wants is the only way to stay alive. What really needs to change is how the public consumes media output and their level of skeptisism and doubt toward it. For that to happen, we need to invest more in education and change our opinions about those who teach. Is there a more noble thing than to share knowledge? Maybe the media is evil. But they can be only because the people is stupid. Change the people, and the media will follow. I have a dream... wanders off in offtopic rambling soapbox style To bring it back on topic; is the media image of base really that far from reality? I'm not sure. The public believes it is dangerous. The public believes it is mostly illegal. The public realizes that it is a sport and not a lunatic's passion. The public thinks lots of people die doing it, and that it causes a lot of grief. If anything, the people think it is more dangerous than we think it is.

In a sport as young as base I don't think we can take our past safety record as any sort of garantuee for the future. Especially not considering the rate our sport is growing at and the alleged mentality of the new generation. Nick once pointed out in a discussion about L-bars that they allow us to stay ahead of death instead of chasing after it. If we can invent something that reduces the number of things to worry about on a base-jump, that can only be a good thing, right? There have been numerous occasions in skydiving where three rings have failed. It is a matter of time before base jumping becomes statistically large enough for such an incident to happen as well. Don't forget that base canopies are packed and used in environments that tend to be harsh on materials. I always dress up my riser-covers before dragging my container towards the canopy to stow the lines. Not everybody does this, and this can easily fray your three-ring loop.

To attach our canopies to our containers we have the option of three-rings, L-bars and sewing them on. Why haven't we come up with a system that provides something in between L-bars and three-rings? Something that requires less frequent inspection than three-rings, but would still allow for fairly quick releases. I'm thinking something climbing-karabiner like, releasable without tools. Somebody else pointed me to the capewell system, but I'm not entirely sure how it works. I'll have to look into that. Thanks, Jaap Suter

And look, I'm sponsored by Amazon!

I'm just as confused. This is a complicated topic and something that our community is going to have to deal with increasingly. I don't think there's a clear cut answer. I admit that there's a certain romantic notion to the fact that base is fairly underground. At the same time, if a person would get sponsored and as a result thereof advance the state of the sport, ultimately the sport would benefit. Sponsorship can come in many ways. Some are good for the sport, some are good for an individual, some are good for the company, and some are good for nobody and end up hurting us all. My comment applied to most other sports. I'm less sure about base for the reasons mentioned in the previous post. From a strictly analytical point of view I would say there is zero harm. Even if McDonalds were to film some jumps and use them in commercials. Of course it would look ridiculuous and I doubt any base jumper would ever consider it. Edit for spelling.

However much advertising and MTV may suck, let's not diminish the incredible things that some sponsored riders accomplish in the other "extreme" sports. He may even have his own video-game, that doesn't mean that Tony Hawk isn't a great skateboarder. If advertising means that people can put more time and energy into the things they love, so be it. I don't think it has hurt skateboarding, snowboarding, or any other sport for that matter. Base is different in many ways. Parts of it are still illegal. Doing competitions is nearly impossible. The fatality rate is a lot higher. And let's face it, to most whuffos all basejumps look the same. You jump, you chill, you pull.

With those new exploding bowling balls, that might get pretty extreme though. Just out of curiousity, have you done any base jumps? Obviously you don't have to share this if you don't want to. After I had made some jumps beyond the Potato bridge I changed some of my opinions and thoughts on base, including the ones on how to deal with the public.

I was really hoping that I had lost my record for lowest opening without injury. Heal quick! We can't have the legal owner of the bridge be hurt. Who else is going to sell jump-tickets for labour day?

Yeah, we forgot about those when I was in LA. My fault. Can you send them back? No hurry.

Good thing I live in Canada. Seriously though, I've used the bellymount before when taking my base-container and -canopy for some skydives. I see no reason not to use it on this one either. I agree, but this wouldn't be an intentional cutaway. Am I grosly overrating the effectiveness of WLO toggles here? I would have figured that my chances of just clearing the line-over with WLO and then landing on risers would be very big. Is that not so? Mmm, good question. I figured I would take the steering line, wrap it arond the top of the canopy before pulling it down back to the risers to stow them. This will distort the packjob but I think not enough to cause a problem. I would still do a line-continuity check if that's what you're referring to. I only want my steering line to go over, not my C or D lines. From your post it seems like there is a more obvious or easier way to pack a line-over that I am overlooking. Can you elaborate? Thanks, Jaap Suter

Thanks, but I don't want to be too much of a bother. I'll come check out the setup next time I'm in Twin Falls Tom, thanks!