Basejumper.com - archive

I have been looking into posts regarding those who have been and gone in BASE.....
I have read alot about Dwain Weston and I'm struck by the fact that he was one of the very best.
I would love to see some footage of him in action.....
Can anybody point me towards some links ..?

Cheers

Try picking up copies of the ABA yearly collections at http://www.basejump.org. The 2003 one contains great Dwain footage. I haven't seen the 2002 one, but I assume it contains more great Dwain stuff.

Also Beyond Extreme, available in the US from Apex-Perris, has a ton of Dwain footage.

has anyone started to collect his various posts, writings etc to add to the overall knowledge base? the bits i've read here and there have been incredibly insightful, it would be a shame to have all that great knowledge and insight collecting dust when it could be compiled and shared to the benefit of those (like me ok i'm selfish) who never had the honor to meet him personally

Various people have been thinking about doing this for his and other people's posts. Both Blinc and Dropzone contain an amazing number of great threads. Unfortunately there are certain copyright issues that need to be worked out.

Last time I checked, neither Blinc or Dropzone mention copyright in their EULA, which as far as I know means the original author retains the copyright.

But IANAL so we'll have to wait until Lawrocket joins us.

What's that supposed to mean?

and for those who overlook Veter's smiley

Seems to me blinc and dz.com have already collected his posts. I read all 12 of Dwain's from this board. Why collect posts from collections of posts? His knowledge is here and on blinc and in the minds of many others.

because there is apparently much more than just the posts.....

Because the signal to noise ratio is very high on both Blinc and DZ.com.

One could argue this is a good thing. Now at least it'll take some effort to find information. It won't be long before information becomes so accessible that somebody that buys a rig on Ebay will actually have a decent chance of surviving a few jumps.

Is Base For Dummies our future?

Regardless, it would be great if many of the existing threads would move to a more controlled yet still interactive format. Something like a moderated wiki, where people can add comments to pages, and rate the quality. Then eventually the noise filters out.

Blinc has some features that support that, but I find its interface too clumsy.

Now, that's a book!

LOL, that's killer, Japp!

NickD
BASE 194

i give it a broken leg, 3 bruised ribs, and 2 1/4 thumbs up

You know, there is nothing wrong with someone giving a version of what Dwain said, so long as you state that Dwain said this.

Exapnding on his ideas and education by giving personal experiences will help.

It's pretty easy to just click the poster's name and hit "see all posts by."

I like the Wiki idea, though.

Hmmm...

I've done that in the past and still do when I see an intelligent post.

It still takes a little work though, and not everybody has the time, energy or computer know-how to comfortably browse around these forums.

How many people know how you can quickly reach the 78th page on the Blinc Archives? Only some people eventually learn that you can change the page=XX in the URL at the top instead of clicking "next page" 78 div 3 times.


Agreed. I use Wikis at work and for Boost and have great experience with them. I would first go with a comment system though, where people can append remarks to existing read-only pages. If a certain group of moderators agrees that a comment is useful, they can add it to the page itself.

Another problem is how to seamlessly integrate it with existing forums. If it's just going to be a third source of information besides Blinc and DZ.com, it will only cause another dichotomy. There needs to be cooperation in some form.

Finally, I'm still not sure if this is even something we want. I recall a post by Nick Digiovanni about offering instructions on how to make your own base-rig. He got quickly reeled in by a base manufacturer, asking him what the hell he thought he was doing. Probably Nick can fill in more details.

Edit to add url to Nicks post.

Shit dude, and i thought i had some time on my hands.

Faber... you got a mention dude.

 
The book I'm working on won't make much sense to wuffos. When I started it I made a conscious decision not to go for cross-over appeal. The goals of the book are too preserve our history for future generations of BASE jumpers, to allow Para-historians to track how we went from living breathing sacks of potatoes to the competent flyers some of us are, and to ensure our place in history as legitimate contributors to humankind's age old dream of flight.

I doubt you'll ever see it on the shelves down at Barnes & Noble . . .

On the subject of what Jaap mentioned about my story of homemade BASE rigs, you have to put in context of the times. The first issue of my BASE magazine in 1989 had an article like that and it reflected what people are doing.

Before there were real BASE gear manufacturers people are tearing containers off existing skydiving rigs leaving only the harness. They would then have a local skydiving rigger, or in some cases do it themselves, build a simple Velcro closed container and attach it to the harness. Some of these people actually became the BASE industry we have today.

This is a time when nobody thought there would ever be a BASE gear industry and I know several BASE jumpers who built complete rigs themselves with no prior rigging experience. The point of my original story was the same as my point has always been; get as much information out to jumpers as possible. I know out in Arizona Ritchie S. and J.D.W. are actually hand sewing rigs together when neither had, or knew how to operate, a sewing machine.

I think the article was called, "The BASEment Rigger . . ." and again it merely reflected what was going on at the time. Todd got mad at me as he was just starting T&T rigging (what would years later become Basic Research) and while he was right on the a practical level he was wrong on a historical level.

I'll upload the piece here if you want as long as you guys read it with all the above in mind.

To me the fact jumpers wanted BASE jumping so bad they resorted to hand sewing their own BASE rigs together told me we were on to something. That BASE jumping wasn't just the passing fad so many of our distracters said it was. In those days I called it, "having the BASE fire in your belly," and now, all these years later, that fire still burns . . .

NickD
BASE 194

Thanks Nick!


That would be greatly appreciated!

Hey Jaap, I can't open the E-mail you just sent, and also some others, as the I keep getting timed out. I tried the usual like deleting the cookies and logging back in, but no go . . .

Didn't want you to think I was ignoring you

NickD
BASE 194

How many people know how you can quickly reach the 78th page on the Blinc Archives? Only some people eventually learn that you can change the page=XX in the URL at the top instead of clicking "next page" 78 div 3 times.
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I know NOW ...thanks to you bailing me out with an answer a few weeks ago! Wish I would'a asked before my marathon click'n sessions with the archives on this forum. Thanks Dead Jaap!