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Hi guys,

I am wonderind what kind of helmet I should buy for BASE jumping. I'd definitely want to attach a camera to it.

My current favourite is the Optik Illusion, but I'm not too sure if it would make a good BASE helmet.

It surely is a excellent skydiving camera helmet with jaw protection, but I'm not sure about the visibility for BASE use. Though, as I can see from the pics on http://www.boneheadcomposites.com, it must be about the same as with the RatHat.

I haven't decided yet, since the choice isn't that easy, for my new helmet should be usable for skydiving as well as BASE.

Does anyone have some experience with that kind of helemts used in BASE?

This question comes up a lot. I'm just going to repeat myself here, so ignore me if you've heard it before. I have yet to meet a skydiving helmet that I like as a BASE helmet. I'm not saying they don't exist, and I'm not saying you'd be wrong to choose one anyway. My feeling is that the difference goes like this:

In skydiving, your primary concerns are small bumps and scrapes (with the plane, or a botched landing maybe near a small rock in the field) and larger hits from stuff that is, relatively speaking, soft (somebody's foot, for instance). Given that one sometimes experiences hard openings, the ideal helmet is lightweight, with a hard shell to protect from sharp trauma and a little padding -- usually just a quarter inch or so of pillow lining -- for comfort and to help distribute other impacts.

In BASE, your primary concerns are bigger bumps and scrapes (say, a large rock in the landing area) and large hits from hard stuff possibly at speed (like the object). These are the sort of impacts that will turn a skydiving helmet into a colourful spray of carbon fibre without dissipating much energy. What you need in BASE is a hard-shell helmet with an inch or so of crush material (foam), and optionally chin protection. There are some pretty light-weight helmets available that fit this description.

My suggestion is a good skate/ski/mountain bike helmet. ProTec has served me well in one pretty bad situation. Want to fly camera? Rivet a camera mount to one of the above (I can help you out there, as I'm sure a number of people can).

I would have to disagree with the other guys post.Carbon fiber is 1 of the strongest materials that they are making helmets out of today(except maybe the kevlar helmet).I think your optik would be great.As long as you stick with a top mounted camera you are doing well.That Illusion looks pretty bombproof.I am looking at buying a bonehead of some sort for base and skydiving.I use a Gath with a carbon fiber top mount.It works great for both base and skydiving.i HAVE QUITE A FEW BASE JUMPS WITH VIDEO WITH THIS CONFIGURATION.(MAYBE60-100)Hope this helps.
STAY WITH CARBON FIBER YOU CAN'T GO WRONG.
c-ya,mIKE

There is a lot more to helmets than just the strength of the outershell. Other critical factors include the material, shape and thickness of the inner shell (the foam), and possibly even more important the shape and tension on the outer shell.

Manufacterers of approved (Snell, DOT, etc.) helmets put a lot of time, effort and money into research that tries to find out how impact forces are distribituted across the surface of the shell. The shape and tension on the helmet plays an important role in this.

Ever wondered why helmets can't be used anymore after they have been involved in impact, even when they still look fine? It's because the tension and integrity of the outer surface may have been compromised. This is not some marketing bullcrap to sell more helmets, this is actually true.

I don't know how Bonehead helmets are manufactured or how many money they put into research, but I'll stick to approved helmets for my base jumping, just to be sure.

When you say it "works great" can you be more specific?

How many hard impacts has your setup taken? Any damage to the helmet or jumper from those impacts?

It's generally been my experience that skydiving helmets are much worse in terms of impact protection than a variety of other helmets available at lower costs. Most of the camera helmets I've seen are primarily camera mounting platforms rather than protective helmets.

Put another way, imagine if you had the hardest material imaginable. Nothing could break it. To protect your head, you build a helmet out of this material. Now imagine that you hit a rock because of an off-heading opening. The force of the impact will be transmitted directly to your head, because the shell material is so hard. Now, it might be spread out a bit spatially (i.e. instead of getting all the force on a sharp edge you'll get it over a large part of the surface of the helmet) but it will not be spread out in time. A good helmet does both, which is the point of having some kind of crush material on the inside.

Now, if you were building a helmet for minor impacts and light weight, you would probably be smart to choose a light, strong shell with a lightweight liner for comfort. That's what most skydiving helmets are built for. Like the other posters, I don't really know what testing the manufacturers of these helmets do, but I know I'm not really comfortable using them in the BASE environment.

Michael

           I have modified the gath with some impact padding on the inside.My setup works for now,but I would rather have a Bone head of some configuration.The Bonehead would take a hell of an impact,and would not break,and if you are wearing a chincup you would have some face protection.Unlike most of the inexpensive helmets you talk about.They do not offer any facial protection.
Also with the inexpensive helmets they do offer in most instances more padding,but they would split open easier than a Bonehead.
OF COURSE THIS IS JUST MY OPINION.

I would do more research if I were you.Bonehead makes more than just a Skydiving helmet.They make several DOT approved motorcycle helmets.They also make equestrian helmets.They also make helmets for pilots.I would have to say I would pick a company that made all these different tipes of helmets before I picked A skate company,BUT THAT'S JUST ME!
What is your approved basejumping helmet?

A helmet that breaks on impact is not necessarily a bad thing. Breaking any material takes energy. That's energy that's not transfered to your skull, and thus not hurting your head.

Helmet theory is very complicated and involves many fine balances between different factors. It's not just a matter of getting the strongest material. Sometimes a softer or more fragile material can actually work better!

Because making a good helmet is so complex, I prefer to spend my money with the company that makes helmets designed for impacts similar to the ones encountered in base. Preferably a company that has a large installed user-base. The more customers a company has, the more money they can put in R&D. Hopefully, this improves the quality of their helmets.

Check out the Snell Memorial Foundation. They are a non-profit organization and their website has a lot of useful information. I challenge any skydiving helmet manufacterer to submit their helmets for Snell testing. They'll never get approval, but just to see where they are on the scale of protection.

I agree ,and if you were to take a bonehead ,and put some impact padding in it you would have an all around great helmet.If you choose one of those skate helmets you are only getting the padding and that's it.When I get a bonehead I am going to put some impact padding in it.

I HOPE THIS HELPS THE PERSON THAT STARTED THE THREAD.PUT EXTRA PADDING IN YOUR ILLUSION,AND YOU WILL HAVE A VERY SAFE HELMET FOR BOTH SPORTS.

So you still have not told me what helmet you use.Also I do see your logic,and I do agree with some of it.Maybe we should take this up with Bonehead,and have them make a Base specific helmet,and camera helmet.Does this helmet you use have facial protection.If it works so great let me and everyone else know what it is.

I was unaware of that. My apologies. I just checked their website and haven't been able to find out more about their non-skydiving helmets. Do you have a link? Thanks!


I use a Mace full-face with chincup mountainbiking helmet. For skydiving I use an NVertigoX freefly helmet. For on my motorcycle I use a Snell approved Shoei helmet. For skiing and snowboarding I use a Giro helmet. For outdoor climbing I use a Petzl. On a bicycle, I use a cheap unknown brand shitty helmet.

I'd love to wear my motorcycle helmet with everything I do, but it's always a trade-off between comfort, weight, visibility and protection. For base my parameters are different than for skydiving, that's for sure.

"A helmet that breaks on impact is not necessarily a bad thing." If my helmet breaks open most likely so is my head.I would like to have the best off both worlds.A helmet that will take an impact and will not break,but that has enough padding to give my head some protection.

Here is a thread I started about helmets a while back. It has a picture of the Mace fullface helmet I wear.

So far I've put 16 base jumps and about 8 skydives on this helmet. I absolutely love it. Peripheral vision is great. Protection seems to be good, but untested so far. The weight is good. It fits snugly and comfortably and doesn't shift around even at terminal velocity. Finally, it has a protruding chincup that stays between my face and a rock.


I think that would be a great idea! I'm worried the market might not be big enough to justify the R&D. If you send them an email though, you can tell them I'll be interested too.

Most modern helmets are designed to break in an impact. It's the same principle as crumple zones in an automobile body.

http://boneheadcomposites.com/

Actually all of their shells that they used to sell that where the open ear design like the Crusier and some othre ones were specifically marked as not DOT approved and were not legal in helmet States.

I'll do probally the best thing that can be done and alert Bonehead to come take a look at this thread and give their thoughts on certification of their hemets and just what their intended uses are.

The Optik Illusion is a great helmet, I personally jump one myself and am very happy with it for what I use it for. However, if you're looking for a helmet to provide you with some protection specific to BASE hazards there aren't any skydiving helmet on the market that would give you the protection your looking for. The PRO TEC/Cascade is a fair prospect if you upgrade the liner. The basic foam liner that it comes with is pretty much crap for anything beyond falling off a skateboard. However, if you upgrade the liner with the liner upgrade kit from Oregon Aero you will have a pretty good protective helmet. It's what we're authorized to use for HALO ops and actually turns that cheap plastic shell into a decent helmet.

The amount of money the liner kit costs will be money well spent if you ever do hit your melon on something hard

Bonehead here. Our helmets are not and never have been DOT rated. You would need something like a motorcycle helmet to get the impact absorbsion you would want for base jumping. Our military helmet is BIG because we have put in some styrofoam in it to help with impact absorbsion but it still won't pass the Snell test past a ski helmet penetration. Some of the other posters here are right, it's not just in the shell, you need good shock absorbing padding in a helmet to protect your skull.
As one poster put it, our helmets are basically made for scuff and rash protection and not designed to disperse an impact. You guys wouldn't wear something that big, it aint cool!





I hope this clears things up.

Thanks for joining us Linda!

No problem. Nice to be here.

My apologies.I was under the wrong impression about those brain buckets that you were making.What would it take to make a basejumping helmet that would do all that we are saying here,and acomodate a topmount camera.Ofcourse it would have to be lightweight,offer good vision,have some facial coverage,and take the impacts we are talking about.

You mean something like this?

I would say you already do....


but, let's talk about helmets:

- I'm astounded that someone with the amount of basejumps and skydives stated in your profile would have such ignorant views on helmets.

- several people have contributed a lot of valid information here and even the manufacturer of your most beloved camera mounting platform a.k.a. Bonehead Composites Helmet have pointed out they do not make DOT rated helmets.

- if impact protection is important, buy for that and modify to accomodate a camera, being careful not to compromise the protection by adding the camera

- if camera mounting is your only priority get a camera helmet

cya
sam

PS - 2k Composites make far better carbon shells than Bonehead.

Where the hell did you come from?You should read my last post.I apologized about being misinformed about the helmets being DOT.Also I said that I would also modify my bonehead with extra foam.tHAT IS ALSO WHAT i SAID TO THE ORIGINAL PERSON WHO POSTED.
READ EVRYTHING BEFORE YOU POST!!

SOME GUYS ALWAYS HAVE TO GET IN THE MIX?

Foam will not help, you need to use crushable polystyrene if you really want to assist in protecting against brain injury.

To use an anlogy (I hate tem, they only muddy things up) for helmets: If you think of an egg as your head what would you rather have around it... a painted on layer of epoxy that might keep the shell of the egg fine but will send the yolk slamming into the shell on an impact and breaking it or a protector that breaks and collapsesaround the egg preventing the yolk from moving around inside?

The hardest shell in the world might just prevent a puncture, but it will do nothing to prevent your brain from slamming into the insides of your skull and killing you that way. A better shell is one that absorbs some of the impact while sending as much energy as possible into a crushable liner and a breakable shell. Most the energy is absorbed before the brain has a chance to move inside the skull so what little energy being transfered will not cause near the internal damage.

Don't remember giving you permission to post one of my shots on a public forum, moffy....


(In fact, don't remember giving you permission to live in my country; note to self: must follow that up and get you deported)

Sam, play nice. The whole point of communicating on safety issues is to get people to change potentially unsafe practices. Slamming people after they've already learned something quite useful is really going to be counterproductive.

Consider this my nice warning speech.

Dude, if you turn that caps lock off your posts will come across as a lot less confrontational.

Just keep it quiet, Jules took the other pic.


I'm just here for the free dental care.

I was not trying to be confrontational.I was just trying to make a point.I'll just underline it next time.This is getting a little like the old bitch board.

I just said foam for a lack of a better word.I am not sure what the name of it is,but it is alot like the Tempurpedic bed foam.It is used by NASA,and also alot in racecar seats.

If you think of an egg as your head what would you rather have around it...

When I was in grade school we had an "egg-drop" competition. We each wrapped a whole, uncooked egg in some type of protective packaging and then in a box. The boxes were all dropped from a Cessna from probably 1000 feet. After we'd searched and found as many boxes as we could, we opened them to see the results.

The winner was the egg wrapped in bubble wrap. The egg was perfect (but I don't know if the yolk was broken inside or not). It was simple, effective, and easy. Since that person only used one material and still had a whole egg, she was judged the winner.

So I guess I should line my Bonehead RatHat with Bubble wrap????

I never did find my egg-in-the-box...

Peace,
K

>.I am not sure what the name of it is,but it is alot like the Tempurpedic bed foam.It is used by NASA,and also alot in racecar seats.

Thats way too soft of a foam if its the ones used for comfort. A good safety styrene is one that if you push hard on it can can hear some of the tiny air pockets breaking. Clearly if its so soft that a push with your thumb dents it, its too soft.

There is a reason Bell, Arial and the others charge big bucks for a solid helmet... it takes a lot of money in R&D to get materials just right. After seeing the results of my brothers bike helmet after he totaled his cycle... I became very interested in helmet design and wanted to see what a plastic shell probally 1/8 inch think just split open. Well he got out with out a single head injury but the helmet took the impact like it should.

Bubble wrap with thin walled bubbles will almost always protect something in a fall since it has give and prevents the egg from slamming into the side of the box when it deceleates. Another good choice for egg protection in a box is crumbled newspapers. Foam peanuts was one of the worst choices. (I was a science geek and actually did the same thing many times in many classes including physics, material science, and shop )

pretty much the same place skreamer did


I did.


indeed you did


which won't achieve your goal of providing significant impact protection, unless your Bonehead was WAY too big to start with and you manage to get hold of some expanded polystyrene foam too and go through the trouble of shaping and fitting it without damaging it


I did read the whole thread before I posted, I usually do.


just trying to help you see that whereas Bonehead make very good skydiving camera helmets, they are not any good at impact protection and cannot practically be modified to provide the same level of protection that a downhill mountainbike helmet can provide at half the cost, or a BMX dirtjumping helmet at about a sixth of the cost

it seems you have made up your mind that your Bonehead will provide you reasonable impact protection, even though several others have given valid reasons why it would not, even if modified.

I've attached some pics.

They are of 3 of my helmets, my 2KC ff2 that I use for skydiving, my TSG dirtjumping helmet that I use for skydiving, rockclimbing and basejumping and my 661 Full Bravo Carbon downhill mountainbike helmet that I use for basejumping.

the TSG I bought in England for £25 and it provides better protection than a ProTec due to the expanded foam construction. I wear that on some skydives and basejumps where object strike is not an issue and the landing area is fairly friendly.

The 661 I bought off the internet for $133 US. I wear that downhill mountainbiking and on basejumps where object strike is a concern and/or the landing area isn't too friendly.

The 2KC I only skydive with.

I have a bulletcam mounted on the TSG in the pic and I have used that on many basejumps and some skydives, with good results.

It's far easier on your neck, presents no real snag hazard and if you choose the bulletcam well, will provide much better lowlight footage than a Sony on nightshot and since I mostly base at night...

if you have any questions about any of the helmets or my bulletcam setup and my experiences with them, I'll gladly answer them

cya
sam


Tom - thanks for making the warning nice.
is this more helpful?

at least give me some credit for having resisted the urge to work his username into my reply...

Steak & chips ?

LMFAO!

Score one for the brummie, nice one Adrian.

Brilliant Ade


ian

Dear Mr Lou Diamond,

I appreciate that you are not neccessarily qualified in the field of protective helmets however in your opinion would an Optik or other similar helmet benefit as much from an Aero upgrade as would a Protec?

 

I a bit off-topic - your bulletcam is mounted on your helment pretty sturdily - yet you seem to also have video of it being handmounted - are you really putting all that work into mounting and realligning the cam on your helmet after every time you put it on your hand ? Or do you just use alternate between 2 different bulletcams with the same accessory pack ?

Also - I assume that you just taped the cable(s) all the way down to where the helmet ends to less snag potentintial.

---------------------------------------------------
On a helmet note - I would like to thank my half-shell protec that was on my head when I decided to do a totally uncalled for 180 after 7 seconds of canopy flight on a 220ft SL. And would like to kick my own ass for not wearing elbow pads.

Adding the Aero kit would be a far cry better than the comfort foam in all current skydiving helmets IMO. The Protec is nothing but a flexible plastic shell where as most skydivng helmets at least have a carbon fiber shell. The addition of the Aero kit to the Protec was substantial enough that the military airborne board approved it for our use. Having used both the Gentex helmet( same thing jet fighters wear) and the modified protec/cascade helmet, the addition of the Aero kit made the protec IMO just as protective as the Gentex helmet which consists of a plastic bubble liner and a comfort pad inside the hard shell. I think that if one were to add a Aero kit to a current skydiving helmet that it would improve it substantially to impact forces. however, I think it would still be a far cry from a DOT or SNELL approved helmet. I have used different versions of the Bonehead M3T and the last one I saw had substantially more protective bubble type material inside than the Gentex helmet. I think the M3T would be a good choice for BASE and it's already Black in color.

If one is concerned with the protection of their head then an approved helmet is the way to go. I know how cumbersome a motorcycle helmet would be on a jump( we used to use open face motorcycle helmets back in the day on HALO ops) but it would provide you with industry standard protection, which is still no guarentee your brains will remain unscrambled after an impact. In lieu of wearing a full on motor cycle helmet I think either an Aero upgraded skydiving helmet or the M3T would provide one with substantialy more protection than a normal protec or similar helmet. The only thing that comes to mind is if one could install the Aero kit in a skydiving shell and still have it fit. I am thinking one would need a shell one size larger to install the kit and still have the helmet fit one's head.

Lou Diamond,

Thank you for the lengthy and informative reply.

not really it's on there with rather big tandem linestow rubber band and then covered in gaffers tape


I have used it handmounted a number of times, but I have had it taped to the top of the TSG helmet like that for a while now, I do mainly night jumps now and I like the top facing forward better for that.

It's only about 15 minutes to change it over and aim is not critical as I have a very wide lens in the bulletcam.


I certainly do, I always wear clothing that will cover the cables too (Cameye Sport cable running to my wrist etc.)

Minimising snag potential is where it's at, as I mainly do slider off jumps and if you snag a line on your camera helmet or setup on one of those, I'm pretty sure you will be landing whatever you have happening above you or be flown into the object by it.

Snag your bridle on a camera setup at slider off altitudes though and I'm pretty sure that's a guaranteed place on Nick's list....

video is cool but safety is cooler

cya
sam