Basejumper.com - archive

I'm a big Penn & Teller fan so when I heard about their show "Bullshit", I hit their site and browsed through some of the episode clips.

One episode was called "Safety Hysteria".... I was treated to this.

That page kicked my ass. I had to TRY to down load three applications to view it, but no dice. What is the page trying to show, a video? Anybody have trouble checking this out with OSX?

Try Navigating to this link and then click on the Watch Video Preview link. It brings up a popup window defaults to Windows Media Player, but there's a link up top that will let you change your player settings.

Nothing new there....

http://www.aerialegress.com/index.html

http://www.apcoaviation.com/...ls/exec/execman.html

http://www.blincmagazine.com/help/1.shtml#17

About 10 minutes after the WTC buildings went down many lofts around the country came up with designs like these. We had one at my old job. You'd be surprised how manu companies are offering these and how many are being sold.....

As I'm still in dial up hell here, so I didn't d/l the video posted, but I'll assume it's the same one, or similar to, the one that's seen in Michael Moore's movie “Fahrenheit 911”. It was very funny.

When I worked at Basic Research and we decided to market the HOPE (High Office Parachute Escape) system it wasn’t to make a fast buck off the hysteria of 9/11. It was only after we saw non-jumping companies, like Executive Chute, or whatever they call themselves, a company with no parachuting experience at all, start to market these systems. It was a very short step to thinking if they are doing it, we who actually build parachutes that we jumped, could do it better.

And we did. Is it necessary? I don’t know. I think the potential is certainly more in the vein of fire and earthquake, rather than terrorism. But, I do know this.

Donald Trump hands out HOPE systems like party favors to his favorite employees.

Historically, there was a pretty good system designed for tall building escape back in the 1981. Jimmy Tyler, BASE 13, and some others came up with it.

The system involved round parachutes (they used Piglets) and a stainless steel cable long enough to reach the ground. In an emergency the steel cable is dropped from the top of the building. Rescue crews on the ground hooked the cable to the a hard point on a fire truck that is backed away to form a 30-45 degree angle from the building. Escapees hooked their harness’ onto the cable with a carabineer and jumped. No steering, or parachuting ability was needed, as the open round would slow the decent and the cable would bring you down into the waiting arms of rescuers below.

At the time we all thought this was nuts, until Jimmy actually tested the system and it worked like a charm. They did it a number of times and it really worked every time. The round showed no tendency to wrap around the cable and the only thing that kept it from being implemented was the whuffos inability to know a good thing when they saw it.

When I think of all the people who have perished in tall building emergencies since that time, it makes me shudder.

Nick
BASE 194

Well, like I said over at Blinc, it's not so much the concept as he, as the salesman, was obviously having a hard time using the system himself. Quite comical actually.

Then I saw some of the rig closeups. I think I'd rather take my chances rigless than wear one of those things. They were that scary looking.

But that's the nice thing about being a BASE jumper, a rig and metal mallot will get you out of most any high-rise pickle.

Now there is darwinism at it's finest. Put that guy in a high rise fire with one of those systems and I'll give you 5 to 1 odds he'll cook with the rig on his back! I mean come on! How hard would it have been to figgure out to hitch the cable around the handrail, and clip the carbeiner back on the cable itself?

"We don't need no water, let the muthafu......."

WTF is in the APCO rig? A tiny round?

Good grief, how many more models of HOPE and BES are we gonna come up with???? What's next, a freefall HOPE? I've got one of those Or maybe one with a high performance canopy. I know, tandem HOPE rigs!!

all i gets is


well guess i dont need one huh...

Ya know, even Darwin would shake his head at this one...I'd have to say this dude would DEFINATELY be goin' in...especially with the bridal routed around his leg strap the way he has it!...why even bother hookin up the carabeener???

I can see the headlines now..."Well dressed man dies due to parachute failure"..........

Tom

Canadian Aerosports Inc. is building emergency rigs- a company called Pocket Parachutes is purchasing.
I worked on graphics for instruction....static line & rig with handle. Round canopy in sleeve, no steering ability. Now they want more instructions made for a tandem harness (children) ??????????????????

Ya- step #1: hook up static line----buddy,
http://www.vancouver-skydiving.bc.ca/emerig.html
uploaded sample of instructions for static line (not anything to do with vancouver-skydiving just using their server for sample)- lrg. file, you have to scroll around instructions........

SMiles

"I think I'd rather take my chances rigless than wear one of those things"

Hey Ted, I recall discussing building escape parachutes here, just after 9/11....aha, here it is...
http://www.dropzone.com/...cgi?post=48395#48395

Upshot of that chat was that some flame retardent overalls, gloves, a smoke hood, and a chem light stick stashed in a wee baggie would probably make more sense.

Its a legal requirement (here anyways) that people are trained in the use of any specialised emergency equipment that they have to use, so this might give that excuse to finally take up BASE.