Basejumper.com - archive

Due to multiple inquiries, I am posting this now:


I will hold a First Jump Course and BASE skills camp from August 27th to September 2nd, 2005 (Saturday to Friday) in Twin Falls, Idaho. Course will begin at 8am Saturday (27th) and conclude at 6pm the following Friday (2nd).

My goal is to make this the highest quality, most comprehensive, formal BASE education course offered to date. This is not a complete course in expert, or even intermediate BASE jumping. All BASE jumpers must continue to educate themselves throughout their BASE career.

The course will focus on basic BASE skills, with an additional emphasis on the history and ethics of BASE, and the teamwork necessary to many BASE jumps. In addition to standard First Jump training, the course will cover appropriate brake settings, advanced packing techniques, object avoidance techniques, object evaluation, and landing skills. Time and jumper aptitude permitting, we will also cover unpacked jumps, particularly as used for emergency situations, and multi-way jumps.

I will accept a maximum of five students in this course, although I would prefer to have only four. Students will be accepted based on my evaluation of their qualifications. I will give preference to students who have audited a prior FJC. This course is intended for students with no previous BASE jumps, but I will accept applications from jumpers having less than 20 jumps.

I will also accept a maximum of two non-jumping auditors in the course. If you want to audit the packing and discussion segments, I will also ask you to help out with some of the other parts of the course (such as ferrying cars). Auditors should be people interested in BASE who have not yet sufficient pre-requisite experience.



Course requirements:

1) Gear: Because we will customize brake settings during the course, you must have your own gear to participate.
2) Mentoring: You must make a reasonable effort to find an experienced jumper local to you, who can help you with your jumping when you return home. You must provide me with contact information for this jumper, so that I can talk with them. If you cannot locate someone, I will assist you in doing so. This requirement will be waived for jumpers in an area where I am unable to locate a suitable mentor.
3) Prerequisites: You must have appropriate canopy experience, as evaluated by me. I will ask for details of your experience when you contact me, as well as contact information for people able to verify your experience.
4) Reading: I will require all accepted applicants to purchase and read BASE 66, by Jevto Dedijer, and the micrometeorology portions of Understanding the Sky, by Dennis Pagen.



Course Syllabus:


Day 1: Packing

Discussion: The risks of BASE
Video and Discussion: Impact (Discovery Health), Over the Edge (Justin Kardi, Jason Fitz-Herbert)
Exercise: Letter to family
Packing
Discussion: Differences between skydiving and BASE cultures
Video and Discussion, Exits: Lemmings (Will Forshay)


Day 2: Beginner Exits

Exit Training
Discussion: Logging jumps
Landing Area Preview
Discussion: Jumps, landing, flight patterns
PCA BASE jumps
Video and Discussion: 2004 ABA Compilation (Australian BASE Association)


Day 3: Deployment

Discussion: BASE ethics
BASE jumps: Hand held
Discussion: BASE community
BASE jumps: Delay nomination, Hand held
Video and Discussion: BASE Community Self Regulation


Day 4: Floater Exits

Discussion: BASE History
BASE jumps: Stowed or hand held
Exit simulation: Floater exits
BASE jumps: Floater exits and/or stowed.
Discussion and Exercise: Appropriate Brake Settings
Video and Discussion: From Gravity Came Groundrush, Nobody But Me BASE Jumps Like I Do, Para-Care (John Hoover), Boenish El Cap Jumps (Carl Boenish), Gravity Sports (Dennis McGlynn)


Day 5: Object Avoidance Drills

Discussion: Object Avoidance
Avoidance Drill BASE jumps
Discussion: Insurance
Avoidance Drill BASE jumps
Discussion: Object Evaluation


Day 6: Object Avoidance Drills

Avoidance Drill BASE jumps
Packing, Part 2: Packing without tools
Avoidance Drill BASE jumps
Discussion: Recognizing Skillful BASE jumps
Video and Discussion: Radix (Jimmy Halliday)


Day 7: Landing Drills

BASE jumps: Landing Drills
Video and Discussion: BASE malfunctions and correction.
BASE jumps: Landing Drills
Video: Lemmings Extreme (Will Forshay)


Space is limited, so I will accept the best prepared applicants. If you want to come, you must contact me via email (tbaiello@mac.com).

When you email me asking to come, please include:

1) Your total number of skydives.
2) Your total number of CRW and Accuracy jumps.
3) Your primary skydiving discipline.
4) The names and contact info (email of phone) of:
(a) any BASE jumpers in your area who know you,
(b) a BASE mentor who has agreed to help you progress,
(c) any skydiving instructors who are familiar with your skills,
(d) either the DZO or S&TA of your home drop zone
5) Any other relevant experience (paragliding, rock climbing, etc)
6) An explanation of why you want to BASE jump
7) Anything else you think I should know about you, or your preparation

I will begin accepting students on June 15th, but I will hold at least 1 spot open until August 1st. Applying early will improve your chances of being accepted for this course.



I believe that all BASE jumpers should make contact with, and learn from, their local BASE communities. If you have an experienced instructor in your area who is willing to travel to a legal span to provide instruction, whatever they charge, I will not accept you into this class without an agreement with that instructor.

I will continue compiling a list of instructors in specific areas. If you are an experienced BASE instructor who wishes to be included in my list of areas, please contact me via email.


There will be no charge for this instruction. I may require students to make a $100 donation to a local Twin Falls charity, but I have not yet determined an appropriate charity.


If you have any questions, post here, or PM or email me.

Ok, this announcement is back up.

Note that I have altered the course dates slightly, so that it ends on the Friday before the Labor Day weekend. This will allow students to meet and jump with other jumpers during the Labor Day weekend, when there are usually many jumpers visiting Twin Falls.

I will begin accepting students for this course on June 15th, so applying early is to your advantage.

I will hold some slots open until August 1st, when I will admit the final applicants, in order to allow people who aren't sure what their schedules will be like that far in advance a fair shot at the course.

How many pages does my essay have to be? When is it due? Do you accept late work? Will I get extra credit if I turn it in early?

bugger this dirty little kiwi will be dropping his arse into twin falls some time after 10/9 i think i will have a talk to jonney utah

Spoken like a 4.0 Student.

Just a reminder that you have only a few weeks left to apply if you want to come to this class. I've got two slots left that I'm holding until August 1st, at which time I'll pick up where I left off in sending invitations. If you've applied, but not yet heard back, hang in there, because there will be a few more folks who I can't invite until August 1st.

I've had a total of 27 applications for the 5 slots in this class, so competition is fairly tight. If you need to know sooner, to plan things, and you haven't heard, feel free to email me and I'll let you know where you are on the waiting list. The top 2 on the wait list will be invited unless I get a better applicant by the end of the month.

Thanks!

well I'll be there the 26th-28th for the FJC with Apex. Sure am glad I spent 1100.00 on the course when I could've done it for almost nothing!

Gun Powder Eric

Roflol, with a nickname that reads "ericmillionaire" that's pretty funny.

I have done both Tom's free course as well as Apex 1100 dollar course. Both are great and worth the money.

Honestly, I think it's worth the money. Apex has probably the most experience teaching of anyone on earth at this point, and I recommend them to anyone looking to take a first jump course.

And much more importantly, Jimmy and Niko will sing along some Tenacious D, whereas Tom is a fan of country music.

That alone is worth spending 1100 dollars to take Apex and not have to go through Tom's course.

Just kidding, both courses complemented each other quite nicely.

Yeah, I figured both courses were basically the same but I choose the one with Apex because it is just 1 weekend as opposed to an entire week.

I''ll have to brush up on my Tenacious D -- only thing I remember is something about a Clevland Steamer??

Gun Powder Eric

Fair enough, but Tom's week long course does cover a lot more than what Apex's weekend course is able to offer. If you have a great mentor back home, Tom's extra curriculum items might not be necessary for you. But to equate the three day course with a weeklong one is not entirely fair.

That said, Apex does do more than just huck you off the bridge. They spend a fair amount of time discussing various objects and the required skills and analysis that come with them, as well as ethics, gear, etcetera.


You'll fit right in. Nice work!

Back off the country music before we send you home to Denmark...

Roflol. Still waiting for your BASE video with the corniest but most applicable song ever...

Nothing againist country music Tom, I just prefer listening to musicians with talent!

Gun Powder Eric

You guys have any tips on things I can practice before getting there? I'm worried about packing because my pack jobs on my skydiving rig are horseshit they are the ugliest pack jobs ever. I don't want my BASE pack jobs to llok like that.
I've tried some things under canopy with my rear risers but that is it.

Gun Powder Eric

Check out Adam Filipino's Consolidated Rigging Canopy Drills. I think that Jimmy will send you a set of drills he wants you to practice as well.

For packing, there's no substitute for practice. I'm a big fan of the uber-controlled pack job, but I'd recommend just learning what Apex teaches you, and sticking with that until you've got it down. Lots of different pack jobs work, and you're better off to get good at the one you learn before you start trying variations.

If you have a local rigger, watch some reserve pack jobs. That'll give you some good ideas for how to start into a BASE pack job.

Having found your way onto the forums is a great first step. Now try the search button and the archives and you'll be golden. There is an amazing number of existing posts that give great advice on many things you can do before your course.


There is much more to it than just trying some things with your rear risers.

Try stalling your canopy to the point where your pilotchute dangles in front of your canopy for a long time.

Back up immediately after opening and turn your canopy around.

Maintain a log of your heading performance immediately after opening.

Find the stall point of your toggles.

Play with your front-risers too.

Pack intentional toggle releases and linetwist.

Try several rear riser only landings.

Do a few intentional downwind landings and PLF.

Do a few intentional ultra-low approaches and low flat turns and flare-turns.

Work on accuracy.

Do many high hop-and-pops with large seven cell canopies.

I've tried some of those such as stalling the canopy so the pilot chute is in frontand backing up after opening. If also tried that thing where you completely disassemble your gear. I bought a new canopy last year and hung it up on my clothesline so I could hook it up to my risers and a strong breeze came along and turned my lines into a pile of shit.
My DZ has a 7 cell I can use. Maybe I'll jump it this weekend and practice some more. I got that tape from Jimmy and Ive watched it a couple of times and read the manual too.

Thanks for the advice.

Gun Powder Eric

You as a low-time skydiver are giving this advice to another low-time skydiver? Jesus, I can just imagine all the chops when all the other newbies reading this decide to try it out.

Jaap, I think your intentions are good but maybe you should be a bit more careful with the advice you hand out so freely. This guy is on a Sabre2 loaded at 1.3 - I don't think packing intentional toggle releases and line-twists is a great idea.

Where's your sense of adventure skreamer?

I now have 3 confirmed students for this course, and have sent out the last 2 invitations. As soon as I get confirmation from those students, I will declare this course closed. Should one of those decline the invitation, I will move down the list to the next applicants.

I had a large number of qualified applicants for this course. So, I will hold a 3 day FJC in late September. I will give preference to folks who were high on the waiting list for this class. I'll make a separate post (and send emails to those people) as soon as I have confirmed the last students for the labor day course.

Tom, PM sent