Basejumper.com - archive

Damn, many So Cal jumpers, including me, cut their teeth on this tower. I have many BASE memories there. Note: Fullerton airport is close by this tower.

Attached is an photo from there, the year I think, is 1986.

And yes, none of that is BASE gear . . .

L-R: RalphM, ToddS, TroyF & NickD

NickD
BASE 194

The Associated Press
Sunday, December 19, 2004

A small plane crashed this morning into a radio station tower in La Mirada, killing two people aboard and temporarily knocking the station off the air,
officials said.

The single-engine Cessna plane struck the KFI Radio tower about 9:49 a.m. and the tower tumbled to the ground, said Andrea Hawkins, a dispatch
supervisor with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Television footage showed the 900-foot tall red-and-white tower in pieces on the ground
surrounded by plane wreckage.

A man and woman were pronounced dead, Hawkins said. A small fire also was extinguished.

KFI, a talk and news station, was off the air for about an hour following the accident, said Leslie Lotto, an editor at the station.

A telephone call to the Federal Aviation administration was not immediately
returned.

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/regstate/articles/1154417.html

Maybe they'll rebuild taller.

or join with the conglomerate and consolidates on 1 tower...

Yeah, probably. Satelite radio is going to just ruin things for us.

I was talking to a whuffo at Bridge Day this year and he asked me what other kinds of objects did we jump. I told him, in a round about way about towers, and KFI in particular. He said he was a Ham radio operator and for about an hour a night and at 27 hundred miles away, he could hear KFI very clearly.

He said that once in a while static would block out the signal and I told him that was me, or some other BASE jumper, banging their three rings against the tower . . .

NickD
BASE 194

Dig those tight pants!

>>Dig those tight pants!<<

LOL, yes in those days when you had balls you showed them off . . .

NickD
BASE 194

Strawberry Fields Forever . . .

Here are some photos of the now gone KFI Tower . . .

The first shows the base of the tower and the small maintenance shed next to it. On the roof of that shed was 10-foot wooden plank. It was first put up there by M.H. in about 1985. Amazingly, that plank was up there, undisturbed, for many years. There was also a boarding ladder from an old crashed Twin Beech stashed out there. We used it to hook over the barbed wire fence and then scamper over.

The wooden plank was necessary as this was an AM tower and touching it while being grounded meant instant death. In fact, broadcast engineers referred to this tower as, "the 50 kW flamethrower in LA." We'd climb to the top of the shed, push the plank out toward the tower close enough, but not too close, and jump across. (This is freaking nuts, do not do this, ever!!!!)

The second photo shows the strawberry field that surrounded the tower. This photo also shows the early construction that began to spring up in the 90s. There was a time when there was nothing there at all, and I always wondered what the strawberry farmer thought when he spied footprints appear out of nowhere and then walk off . . .

No one that jumped this tower had a pair of shoes without the red strawberry stains.

The third photo shows how the landing area looked more recently. Even though we have learned that playing around with AM towers isn't a very healthy idea, a lack of objects in the LA area caused this tower to be occasionally jumped right up until it was knocked down.

NickD
BASE 194