Basejumper.com - archive

Together with several other wingsuit BASE jumpers I have written some guidelines for BASE jumpers thinking about starting wingsuit BASE.

The pdf file can be dowloaded from - you need to do a right click -> "save target as":

http://members.fortunecity.com/...echarlie/wsbase1.pdf

Note the file requires Adobe Acrobat 6 or later.

You can download Adobe Acrobat from:

http://www.adobe.com/...robat/readstep2.html

If you have any constructive comments please email, PM or post. I hope this document generates some discussion.

Long flights,
J

I can't seem to get it...

Hmmm. Third time was the charm.

The second time I clicked the link I got this:


Got it now, though.

Good, so it's not just me.

Oh...me too! Strange.

seems it is blocked

I have successfully downloaded the .pdf, so if anyone wants it and can't get it off the link, send me an email and I'll forward it (it's too large to attach to DZ.com postings).

Tom, talk to Sangiro about adding it to the Archives here then just post a link to it.

Also mirrored here.

Thanks for the info

Why do you recommend just 50 jumps?

One having just 50 jumps doesn't know anything about base yet, neither I think the sub-terminal tracking skills are good... I'd rather see that around 200-300s are better (as the same applies for skydivers)...

I would suggest that the overall number of base jumps is not the qualifying factor. I cannot imagine one can achieve the needed skills even with 200-300 slider down jumps. 50 terminal jumps is in my counts much more. Subterminal tracking skills are good to have, as then you have learned to exit in a "restricted" track body position compared to normal "relaxed" exit and then starting to track as the airspeed increases. I would emphasize ones abilities as whole in the numbers and quality of base-jumps and ws-skydives, with some mental stress and "new thing" handling abilities added in. But what do I know.

Vesa

Vesa pretty much summed it up but I'd like to add my thoughts on this subject. From my point of view 50 BASE jumps doesn't tell very much about ones abilities to make successfull ws BASE jumps, neither does 200-300 jumps. Which one do you consider better equipped to make a ws BASE jump, one jumper with 200 slider downs or jumper with 50 terminal jumps for example ? From my point of view, it's not the number of jumps you have, it's the quality of jumps you've made and the skills you've learnt during those jumps. Also taking up ws BASE (or any other "special" field of BASE) requires lots of background work, training and finding information, making the skydives, preparing yourself for the discipline of your choice. The way I see it it's all about getting ready, building up the necessary skills and feeling confident with your stuff. And that requires much more than just a certain amount of jumps.

Just my thoughts...

Edited to add:
Great document though, very good points and that will be a must to read to anyone who is considering taking up wingsuit BASEjumping.

The jumper with 200 slider down jumps is probably more capable of recovering stability (in or out of WS) after a bad launch. Unstable exit and inability to recover stability has resulted in wingsuit fatality in the past.

I have seen many people who think that many wingsuit skydives will make for safe wingsuit BASE. Unfortunately, this is only one of the two major inputs.

Thanks Tom.

I think all of us agree about the jump numbers, I did not want a enter a "what counts more for XY than something else..." discussion.

So one might ask why you recommend any numbers if they can be interpreted sooo vaste?

(I just wanted to say that 50 jumps in total on whatever configuration is nothing...)

Another question: Is anyone at 50 jumps confident about his exit skills?

As Vesa: "But what do I know ;-)"
...

Well, if I had to choose, I'd still take those 50 terminals rather than 200 slider ups. But that's just me. With terminal jumps one should have accustomized with the transitional speeds, gathering experience about altitude during a "long" jump, keeping a good heading during an efficient track. And in my opinion at 50 jumps one shoud have no question about exit confidence. If one has, he/she really is in a wrong place.

Of course it's good to have some recommendations. But the problem is that people ussually follow them if it suits them. Especially in a sport like this where there is no one to say NO. If the recommendation is too low, we know what happens. If it's way high, people will do their own things. But the problem stays. How do we define the number...

Don't know nothing, still have opinions. Yours may differ.

Vesa

The document does not say that 50 jumps is all you need. It says “With minimum 50 jumps (But more are strongly recommended)”. And it clearly states other skills you should have in addition or acquired within the jumps that you have.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Excerpt from article:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
An intermediate BASE jumper:
- With minimum 50 BASE jumps (but more jumps are strongly recommended!)
- Cool under pressure, very comfortable in the BASE environment
- Always performing solid exits, also when exiting with arms by your side
- Have good sub & terminal tracking skills
- Have excellent canopy flying skills and landing accuracy
- Have consistent record of stable deployments and on-heading openings

An intermediate wingsuit skydiver:
- With minimum 50 wingsuit skydives (but more jumps are strongly recommended!)
- Who wears a wingsuit as if it were pyjamas, not feeling physically restricted by the fabric
- Always able to find the PC quickly and cleanly, with good on heading openings
- Well practiced at recovering from instability
- Able to unzip arm wings instantly after deployment - like 2nd nature
- Familiar using arm and leg cutaways in freefall and under canopy immediately after opening
- Able to fly the suit comfortably without “potato chipping” achieving reasonable fall rate and forward speed - Ideally have performed some wingsuit balloon jumps to simulate the exit & sub terminal flight - See Appendix B for specific flight drills to practice whilst jumping the wingsuit from the plane.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I was preparing to get into Wing Suit BASE, I had nothing like this to fall back on. It would have been invaluable to my venture into Wing Suit Base. In fact, when I was getting into BASE Wing Suit flying, I posted several questions that only the authors of this document took the time to answer at the time that I posted them. They further confirmed some of my discoveries with BASE Wing Suit flying by writing this document.

The funny thing is that if you search on Blinc or skydive.com on my username, you’ll still see questions that are unanswered that I posted last year. Again, this article answered those unanswered questions / confirmed my own discoveries.

So with all that said, I have to ask, why do we immediately attack someone’s effort to introduce an invaluable baseline document by fixating on things within it. And in this case, what was being fixated on wasn’t even accurate because it wasn’t quoted in its entirety. But yet, so few ever answered my newbie questions that have been posted since last year. Sometimes we as a BASE community take things way to literal. This document, as was clearly stated in the introduction of this document, was posted simply as an “initial information source” and not as an “instruction manual”…

SBCmac (Michael)

I don't know which I'd take. Fortunately, I didn't have to make that choice when I made my first WS flights.

Seriously, I'd rather that everyone have _both_. If all 200 BASE jumps were terminal BASE jumps (and they had 200 WS flights from a plane, too), they'd have much lower chance of accident. Heck, if we all had 1000 terminal BASE jumps and 1000 airplane wingsuit flights, we'd probably have very few accidents on first BASE flights. But we both know what the chance of that happening is.

I hadn't read any of this discussion as attacks. UncleCharlie did ask for discussion, and I think this thread has some pretty healthy discussion.

For what it's worth, I expect this document to save lives in our sport--and not just a few of them.

Again... Too literal... You took one word out of my entire post and fixated on it and not the entire message…

How about "poke at someone’s effort" instead of "attack"... And I wasn't just talking about just this post. For the most part, the main reason I stopped going to the Blinc site was because most of the posts ended up with people picking apart each others replies instead of discussing the topic at hand.

My point of my post was that the discussion was based on something that the article never stated… It never stated that someone should huck off a cliff with 50 BASE jumps and 50 ws skydives… Again the first opening discussion was a question of why the author stated that someone only needs 50 BASE jumps in order to WS BASE…

SBCmac

Apologies. I wasn't trying to fixate.

I read your entire post, and agreed with all of it except that bit. So I responded to that bit.

I wasn't trying to start an argument.

My bad, I should have chosen better words, less aggressive ones, to state my opinion.

My apologize extended to my BASE brother …

SBCmac

"Where no information exists any is welcome."

I don't know who said that, maybe it was me?

Very well done, I thought, and it gave me the shivers . . .

Nick
BASE 194

I think doing your first BASE ws is simular to do your first BASE so i think it is a good idea to have some kind of instructer by your side like my good frind was this summer

My apologies, if someone feels attacked. I also think the purpose was to discuss one aspect of those recommendations, and why not also the other aspects. As discussion can't be a bad thing? As I stated in a wingsuit forum: "A very good piece of advice indeed." and still think so. I wish I also had this document in hand when I made my decision.

Vesa

this is always forgotten...................

Because:

42 + 8 = 50



Ok a more serious response...

Q. Why 50?

A. 50 jumps seemed like a good number, the minimum (in our opinion) for a heads up, focused jumper to develop the skills required.

But like people have already said, its the quality that counts not the quantity.

Hence why we put 50 jumps ++ and a list of skills/ attributes.

5 jumps = reckless
100 jumps = nobody is going to wait that long

BASE jumpers aren't very good at following "rules" and even worse at following "advice"

We hope people reading the document will be self critical..
"do I have those skills?"
"do I still get really nervous at the exit point?"
"does my tracking suck?"

If I do an update I may add:
----------------------------------
Ask yourself - "Do I satisfy all of these requirements?" and "Do I feel ready?"

If you have any doubts ask that experienced WS BASE jumper who you want to be your mentor - " Am I ready?"
----------------------------------
Long flights,

J

good job guys

I dont think you can put a # on how many jumps before starting on WS BASE,as you already said you´ll need the skills to do it....

hopefuly nobody follows BASE "manuals" dead straight,they should have some common sence and self justice...

I see all this as a guide,and i hope i can use it even as i have over 100BASE and not the skills to WS BASE yet(only 1 slider up)

This article is up on the Dropzone.com home page. Thanks James!

The HTML version can be found here:
http://www.dropzone.com/...tail_page.cgi?ID=506

The PDF can be downloaded locally from here:
http://www.dropzone.com/...oad.cgi?d=1095678886

 

It was a team effort

Long flights,
J

Good article James !!!
#726

thanks james and all other guys who worked on that information! I think it will cover a lot of questions someone will ask when preparing for the first drops!

...you forgot to mention the 10sec rule

the way to go!
andi

www.pressurized.at