Basejumper.com - archive

Been Searching around a bit and saw a few people talking about the Sherpa's a unit which shows altitude, wind meter and weather information.. and the Extrex Vista. a GPS unit which also shows a variety of information including altitude. and also rangefinders.

These posts were fairly old are these the devices people still use? or are there new better ones? and what is the main use of a GPS unit. mainly only cliff jumps?

Also looking at buying a camera helmet for skydiving soon what would be the best type that i could eventually transfer over to using for base filming. or are they all really to bad protection.

Also been looking around at the full body armors and stuff whats the main thing a base jumper looks for in there armor. and what brands do they tend to use.

Thanks in advance

I'm sure somebody who's around here more could point you at a dozen or more discussions of armour. Still, I'm not that person. So here's my two cents...

I can personally vouch for Pro Tec helmets and Dainese armour. My feeling on helmets is pretty straightforward. Without any exceptions I have seen (which isn't to say that there aren't any), skydiving helmets are meant to (1) protect you from knocking your head against the doorway, and (2) look cool. Anybody who thinks that a sixteenth of an inch of carbon fibre and a quarter-inch of comfy pillow lining is going to offer real protection is only kidding themselves. Any decent skate/ski shop will stock a half a dozen helmets which are more than suitable from a protection and line-snag standpoint, and onto which one can mount a camera with pretty minimal effort.

I also jump wearing a Dainese Shuttle Pro suit. It's fantastic protection (everywhere -- including my personal saviour, the back protector), and it's more comfortable than any elbow/knee pad set I've tried on. It also costs about 10 times what a decent set of elbow and knee pads will run ya. If you're going the separate pads route, look for something low-profile where the plastic is sewn on, not riveted on (which creates snag points). I've got a pair of Bauer pads I used to use that are pretty great. If I were going to buy another pair of knee pads, I'd hunt down something with shin guards, which not only protect your lower leg but should also help hold the kneepads over your knees.

Have fun!

Did you have an experience in which your back protection helped? I'm interested. I wear one most of the time, but I've never heard about a situation in which it helped.

There is a post here about High Velocity brand armor. It appears to be significantly cheaper than the Dianese armor, and the manufacturer claims better results for long term use.

Definitely worth checking it out. You might also want to search this forum for a couple other threads about body armor.

In terms of knee/shin guards, I've been quite pleased with my Dianese pants, of which I believe a counterpart is also available from High Velocity at a lower price.

I've also got a couple pairs of Fox (that's the mountain biking/motorcycle folks, not the BASE canopy) knee pads that have built in shin guards. They're low profile enough to go under pants, but still very protective.

I used the back protection the very first time I wore my Dainese armour on a jump. It's worth noting that I wasn't even going to wear it on the jump, since I didn't really figure I needed it, except that I'd owned the stuff for a few months and thought, hell, I should wear it SOMETIME...

The jump was a local 165' catwalk over ice. Everything was normal until I noticed late in the opening that it didn't feel like it had "finished" right. I looked up, and saw that the rear of the canopy hadn't opened. My first thought, having recently seen video of such a thing, was "tension knot". "Tailgate hangup" (the correct assessment) was quick on its heels. I managed to pump the brakes twice before I looked down and thought, "Enough with fixing the problem. I need to get ready for impact." I hit less than a second later moving down at about 30 km/h (timed from the video, a little over five seconds top to bottom) and backward at maybe 10 km/h (the front of the canopy had opened just fine).

PLF's backward suck -- this one went something like feet-ass-head. I absorbed what I could with my legs, but took a lot with my back (which I found out some months later I had broken) and head (splitting my ProTec up the back). My ground crew was pretty surprised to see me get up at all, and I credit the fact that I walked away (or ever again) in large part to the armour I was wearing. You can check it out under "Tailgate.mov" on skydivingmovies.com.

I got two more jumps that day thanks to a helmet loan from crwper, who I really can't thank enough. Scariest jump I ever did was that next one.

Lessons learned... (1) Black elastics = black death. I keep the one that hung up (it was still holding on when we examined the gear later) in my pocket; it's the only one I've still got. (2) Armour up. Think this jump doesn't really call for full armour? Armour up anyway.

I've nothing to add except this aside on body armor.

No one, in general, used it before Dick Pedley's death in 1989. It was then we realized if he'd come away from his initial building strike conscious he might have had a chance. It's a nice tribute to Dick that his fatality actually changed things for the better. In those days we thought nothing of jumping buildings bareheaded and garbed in shorts and sandals.

We laughed, at first, as some overdid it (or so we thought at the time) with shin guards and things like that, and wondered how "robo jumper" would get rid of it all should he need to flee or blend in . . .

Originally, we took to calling it body armor and I wrote a story about it for the second issue of the Fixed Object Journal in 1990 called "Knights of the Air." No one was really wearing boots as rule yet, so I included a section on shoes. The most popular at the time were "Hi-Tecs" trail shoes." These had an energy return system built in by way of switchable rubber balls and I dubbed them, "Ranger Evaders."

In the years that followed people started calling all this stuff "battle gear" and that stuck for a while, but now it seems to be back to body armor.

NickD
BASE 194

As far as Robo Gear I personally do not use alot,but do think it is a great idea.I am looking for a fullface helmet for base,and think that is a great idea.As far as cameras,as long as you stay topmount(my opinion)you will be okay for base,and skydiving(Bonehead is a very strong helmet,you can't beat carbon fiber).Just make sure you have some sort of quick release.Laser rangefinders are still being used.Suunto watches,anemometer(wind guage).GPS mainly to mark exit points on cliffs,or finding an exit point that has allready been marked.Armor can be found at your local motorcross store.Hope this helped
C-YA,MIKE BASE#812