Basejumper.com - archive

Who can tell me about the first BASE experience offered at Kjerag? I've heard there's a 'course' there a bit like AFF, including accomodation, hire of rigs and coaching by top jumpers. Any idea how much it costs, how many jumps you must have, what the deal is, useful websites, etc. etc.

www.basekjerag.com

nice site

http://www.thebasepoint.com/

The other site is a bit more up to date.

The info is all given on the BASEKjerag web site.

The instruction is first rate. The full time instructor is both a top notch BASE jumper and a good teacher. The teaching facilities (mainly the pendulator) are probably the best in the world.

Accomodations are not included, you purchase them separately from the campground.

I'd tend to prefer a bridge to a cliff for a first jump, but that's the only negative I see to learning there.

The first jump course SBK arranges at Kjerag really is worth taking, especially the pendulator is a good help for the exit training. BUT I'd like to emphasize that the FJC is a basic course for jumping at Kjerag. It doesn't include too much about jumping other objects or places, lower or higher. And therefore one must get coaching for those objects some other way. Of course SBK's instroctors are incredibly experienced base-jumpers also regarding to other objects and worth asking advice in any base related subjects.

Vesa
#845

...........but as a "complete" BASE course how would you describe it?

The only negative for a FJC is that its a cliff? - Tom, I think this is misleading. To say that the instruction is "first rate" - without giving the shortfalls of the course as a "complete" BASE FJC is not giving the complete overview here - as someone else says it only trains you to jump a terminal wall.

Hi,

I had the FJC in Kjerag last year and it was perfect. The team is great and learns you a lot of things. The aim of this FJC is to give you all the information and training to have success in your jump.

I think that beginning with a cliff is not a big issue in Kjerag. With 1000 meters and nice exit points you have plenty of time to track and to get away.

Personally I would recommend this place for beginners especially if you are in Europe as it is the nearest place to learn.


Take care,

Franz

There is a misunderstanding that Kjerag is a 1000 m freedrop! At most you have 12 sec to impact! Very importent to remember, if you start to struggle with your exit!

Have a nice day!

I did the FJC at Kjerag under Chris and JJ a few years ago and it was fantastic. Since then, the pendulator has arrived and it adds a lot of value.

Personally, I prefer a large cliff to a bridge for a first jump simply because, the rock drop is 12-14 seconds. New River Gorge has 8 seconds.

Last year I saw a group of people from Brasil doing their FJC at Kjerag. One chap did his first few jumps well, then on this 3rd jump, he went unstable and pulled after 8 or 9 seconds. Had this been a bridge, would it have been different?

Meeker

A stable or unstable pull after 8 sec, doesnt make you far from the wall, and if you have offheading with linetwist it could be a difficult case! I guess it would be better to pull unstable from a bridge with base gear!

My post was just a reminder that Kjerag is not 1000m freedrop, and everybody get to know that when they arrive, but not all know that before they arrive!

Have a nice day!

It sounds like the guy you saw was lucky. Not lucky that he had a nice high E (it didn't stop him from pulling unstable did it?) but lucky that his unstable deployment didn't put him in to the wall. Where would you rather be with a 180 and line twists, flying under an S or flying towards an E?

I have several skydiving friends who've said to me "are you going to Norway this summer? I'll come!" but will gladly admit they don't want to BASE jump - and it worries me.

Gus

12sec before impact should be 1485ft/452.74m(aprox) from impact,take that and a unstabel exit and a pull whith posibly line twists,will give you sweat on your head...

At most S it dosnt matter if you have an offheadding/twists(ie water below most times).

The S is deafently more safe..

nope its known as a low skydive jump.. but IS a BASE...

edit: just realiced that it might sounds like i respond to you 434,it were meant to the person you responded to,sorry

Yes, you are right.

I'm only on line about 5 minutes a day this week, as I am travelling, so my responses are rather brief.

I wasn't describing it as a complete FJC.

#33 Sebastian Dectot, August 16, 1996
Cliff Jump
Impact
Lysbotn, Norway
Sebastian over delayed in a back to earth position while filming other jumpers.

#36 Stina-Ulla Ostberg, July 29, 1997
Cliff Jump
Lysbotn, Norway
Impact
This jump began with an unstable launch and it took the jumper 12 seconds to recover stability and deploy her main pilot chute. However, impact occurred at 12.7 seconds. It is reported this jumper is offered instruction prior to the jump and that she refused it.

#37 Valentino Ventori, August 5, 2000Ê
Age: 30
Cliff Jump
Lysbotn, Norway
Impact
This jumper launched unstable and remained so all the way to impact. It is reported this jumper is offered instruction prior to the jump and that he refused it. This fatality and number 36 (Ostberg) are eerily similar down to the same impact point.

#39 Terry Forrestal, 1999Ê
Age: 52
Cliff Jump
Lysbotn, Norway
Cliff Strike and Impact
This is Terry's 8th BASE jump. A videotape shows him having trouble with directional control and tracking. He deploys with a 180 whereupon he hits the wall very hard. Terry comes to rest on a narrow ledge and later probably sees a rescue helicopter approach and then turn back because ofÊ fog developing in the immediate area. The full extent of Terry's injuries are unknown at this time but speculation suggests both his legs are broken. At this point, but unknown to Terry, a foot launched rescue effort is advancing on his position. When they arrived, 10 hours later, Terry is gone from the ledge. No one knows if Terry tried to self rescue himself by jumping from the ledge using his reserve canopy (this is done by another jumper several years earlier) or if sometime during the night he simply fell. Friends say he probably thought rescue was not in the immediate future. And the 52 year old former member of England's SAS is the type to take matters into his own hands. Terry is a movie actor and stuntman. Some of the movies Terry worked on are Moonraker, Octopussy, A View To A Kill, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Titanic where he played the doomed ship's Chief Engineer.

#45 Kirill Goretov, August, 15 1999
Age 30
Cliff Jump
Lysbotn, Norway
Cliff Strike
It's reported this jumper made no control inputs after canopy deployment and hit the wall coming to rest on a ledge. He appeares to have died from severe head injuries in the initial impact with the wall. He is not wearing a helmet.

#62 Lori Barr, July 23, 2002Ê
Cliff Jump
Norway
Wall Strike (in freefall)
Lori launched and lost stability on her first cliff jump. With five previous Perrine bridge jumps and the required amount of skydives Lori is on an organized BASE expedition to Norway. The trip included a site specific BASE jumping course taught by very competent instructors. However, Lori hit the cliff wall in freefall at about 11 seconds. What makes this fatality a little more chilling is the fact Lori did everything right as far as following the current advise on how to get into BASE jumping.

NUFF SAID???
mh

Good call. And, notably, in the six year window you chose, the overall toll climbed by 29. Considering the number of participants, that appears a tad grim. With the ever-greater influx of participants, it's gonna get downright bloody.

Gardner

 
Wow... that seems rather Grim
So you are predicting lots of Blood
and Guts, all over the point of impact.
How many do you think are going to Crater In this year ?

Hi Folks

As well as looking at the CHILLING statistics from the BASE fatality list on the number of fatalities in Kjerag, Norway, you have to consider two extremely important points:

1 - Most serious injuries and or fatalities occur on opening (and in freefall).

2 - Most injuries occur on landing.

You need to have a closer look at the psychology of injuries and fatalities as well as many other factors when trying to derive a root cause. One thing I have noticed in all my years of jumping is that many people seem to get comfortable when you say the words "3000 ft". They treat it like a skydive. Someone else in this topic has already pointed out that Kjerag IS NOT a skydive. What I am getting at here is that there is a psychological higher sense of urgency to "get something out" on a lower jump whereas on a higher jump there can be a misconceived notion that I still have time to resolve my problem. If you had a person unstable on a lower bridge, they are more likely to throw a p/c.

All this meandering leads to my point.

To remove the opportunity of object strike, you should jump from an object that you can't strike. Generally speaking, this is a bridge.

To reduce the likelihood of landing injuries, you should jump an object with good/open landing areas (plural is intended here = outs). Hence a place like New River Gorge Bridge IS better than Kjerag for a low time / new jumper.

If you look at the list of Kjerag fatalities, it is more than likely that each person would have survived if they had of been jumping NRGB instead.

Kjerag is only GOOD for jumpers who are known to have excellent survival skills and trackign ability with some low airspeed exit experience. I don't think it is the ideal spot for a low time skydiver to learn how to BASE jump. However, if you had to choose a cliff, it would be high on the list for first choices.

Stay Safe
Have Fun
Good Luck

Tom B

this, i think, sums it up

http://www.basejump.org/...les/differences.html

I went to Norway with a skydiver (1000+ jumps) and his attitude was "its a skydive from a cliff" - but at the edge it turns into a BASE jump and things become different for you.................

dont think that height means safe........ a BASE jump is a BASE jump and will never be "like a skydive"

>>I agree. This is extremely dangerous way to look at a terminal BASE jump; sometimes people think that because you can take a 10-15+ sec delay off an object you have plenty of time to recover from an unstable exit...

>>A terminal BASE jump is not a skydive, even from 3,000ft and especially from an E...with dead air launches every little move you make in those first few seconds is accentuated, and if you lose it by the time you can grab enough air to recover it may be too late...

The list from Tom is a good start, for analyzing a first jump, or any jump! But I think I can add a little importent matter!

A bad exit is not the end from an cliff like Kjerag!(jumpers had to stop thinking, and focus on this matter, you should not be afraid or terrified about a bad exit, it can happens anyone)
Visualise a unstable exit, try to relax, or go relaxed with the force ! After a few sec, you got airflow enough to recover! Dont work against/struggle the force! If you do, you end up using valuble time , or putting in some more power to the unstable exit, resulting a unstable fall for a longer period!

Make it simple but good!

I agree 434, BUT,

The main reason for doing / teaching fundamentals is to prevent the need to recover from a bad exit in the first place. Learning a skill in a potentially fatal environment is not a smart thing to do IF you have other safer options.

One should definitely highly respect the unstable exit.
There may be a misconception here,
Head down is not necessarily unstable.

An unstable exit is exactly that, unstable on all axis´, This doesn´t mean head down or even a half front loop on to the back(one axis). These are normally recoverable. Once left/right orientation control is lost (added to fwd rotation control loss) , it´s game over for aerodynamic recovery phase, just arch as hard as you can until the allotted deployment time and deploy using the parachute for stabilization (no matter one´s body position)

Unstable exits are virtually impossible to correct aerodynamically at this alt in time to deploy safely. And also if one has the ability to recover from an unstable exit acrobatically, one wouldn´t be in that position in the firstplace probaly.

The 2 unstable exits in Norway that I witnessed, that resulted in fatalties had what was termed a hyper-rotational exit. Much rotational energy was induced into the exit via diving headown and thrusting up the buttocks and legs simultaneously. The unfortunate lady with 2000+ skydives, did recover around one second before impact. The other unfortunate jumper with 200 skydives did not recover any stability before impact.

Do not underestimate the the jump. The first big year (1997) for this site was hard for everybody. Skydivers didn´t understand why they should not jump their stilettoes,sabres etc. as they thought it was a 1000m jump with a grassy LZ.

The truth is:
For #7,
570m vert, (870m asl) with grass growing amongst boulders. If you have a good track, you could have the extra margin of 300m.

I hope this helps,
Take care,
space

Argue with me for Krists sakes. I dissed your post, lives are depending on our observations....
take care
space

O.K. I'll argue with you. Your funny looking and your feet smell

Hi Space!

I have been at work, and could not response your post!

I said when you have done your home work!(Enough air time from plane, trained for surten situations, jumped helicopter etc) You should also visualize if you got a bad exit! I dont like people pretend it cant happen to them (dont think or talk about bad exits)! I do not think a huge arch is the way to go, often they go out from exit with feet together, high arms (no upwards movements on the exit), go out arch, and kick their ass! So what happens? all force is going out and down, put them directly in to a headdown! they arch more and fall over to one side, struggle to arch, and put more power/force to the energy that already have started, and out of controll. If they go out with one feet in front of the other, low arms, trow them up when they exit, try to have a relaxed body position, and if they have a headdown, do not arch and kick your ass, try to fly it out. I still believe a calm handle of the situation the first seconds, would be better! but if you are out of controll, do what you need to do, pull in time!!! A lot of near misses I have seen is overreacting to the situation. Be with it and dont struggle! I dont know how to explain better, but will try if someone do not understand where I try to point! But if someone think I am way out there, I will shut my mouth! I just try to say It is not always a good idea to overreact in surten situations, but I do agree with you space if you cant handle the the way I try to explain, do like you did when you had your first static line, arch like hell, pull in time, and hope it will save you!


Have a nice weekend

 
>>Hey 434

>>Haven't had one but I know it's in the mail so I have some questions/comments about some points you made:


>>I've seen this too, sometimes people treat it like a diving exit from a plane; the down angle on launch puts them into a head-down position, and the feet on their ass serves to keep them there, until they freak and try and roll over and maybe start tumbling...


>>Good advice but I'm curious about the one foot in front of the other part can you elaborate?


>>At first I thought you might have meant "visualize a stable exit" but now I see you didn't. So when it happens, it sounds like you can make the situation worse by overcompensating and getting panicky, and you can make it better by feeling which way you're losing it and and adjusting your body position to compensate yes?

That is not arguing, ya gotta challenge my post Kev.
I know my feet smell and my nose runs, does this mean I am hooked up backwards? Visit me.
Take care,
space

I agree with you that a huge arch exit is not the way to go, Throwing ones hands/arms back during the exit induces a headdown vector. Try it now, put your hands spread out 30cm in front of your face and pull them back, Notice how you head goes fwd? Add this to the weightlessness of the exit and you gotta prob if you don´t compensate otherwise.
The major prob with an extended body position on exit is that one can not slow down the induced rotational energy acrobatically,
http://www.blincmagazine.com/...;listing_type=searchwanting
The task now is to get this info to the skydivers.
Take care,
space