Basejumper.com - archive

Is there any way I could make my first BASE with my wingsuit? And land in one piece

I've been thinking about BASE for a long time now, but I've got a fear of heights (or rather, lows). The low stuff here in The Netherlands? No thanx...

I realise a lot of people get hurt from big walls, esp with wingsuits, that the low stuff is safer in a lot of ways. But I'm not interested in other jumps then WS, really...

Just got back from Extreme Week. Didn't go there to jump, I was staff for the swooping comp, but I did my first WS helicopter jump there, awesome! And seeing the videos of Loic etc ... Well....

I have just the one (hovering) helicopter jump, and may get 2 balloon jumps this weekend, if the weather co-operates.

I'd like to jump off a big wall, preferably with my WS. Or switch to WS really quick.

I almost always have my WS on these days, either that or a FS camera suit, I feel naked without wings...

I've got a Classic2 and a S3.

Is this a really stupid/dangerous wish, or somehow doable?

Anything is possible...but why tempt fate?
Sounds like a very bad Idea to me.
~J

If you are looking for someone to tell you, yes you can do it and you will be fine, that is unlikely to happen.

But even if someone did say that, it won't be much use to you when you are head down and sliding towards the cliff.

You and mixing up two different issues here, BASE jumps with long freefalls V short freefalls and WS v Non-WS.

There are so many variables on each jump, I don't think you can say that a jump is safer because it is a long freefall or a short freefall.

I think you can say that a BASE jump without a WS is less complicated than one with a WS.

BASE is a very different animal to skydiving. Just because you have lots of WS skydives doesn't mean you should complicate your early BASE jumps with a WS.

If you are dead set on high jumps and traveling, maybe you should look into getting PF tracking Pants & Jacket, it will give you a good degree of WS like drive without the complications. Once you are competent with that - think about moving to your Classic.


C-ya

Let's not sugar coat our replies to this guy. The fact that you even considered using a wingsuit for your first BASE jump shows that you're 10x more likely to be hauled off in a bodybag. Stick to skydiving or try bowling.

hmmmmm. I thought I went pretty easy on the sugar.

I so wanted to base wingsuit right off the bat..... I changed my mind after my first BASE jump. I now have 83 BASE jumps and am not considering it until I get alot more.

Please do a FJC and get the proper training. You will understand after you make the first jump. There are recoomended minimums for a reason.

This idea is, IMO, dangerous and far from intelligent, and should not be attempted.

Low stuff is really safe especially sub 200'


About bowing while wearing a WS?

I do a good job of flying my wingsuit in the skydiving environment and I have a reasonable number of BASE jumps (72). But I won't be doing a wingsuit BASE anytime soon because I lack experience in the terminal BASE jumping environment. One really should do a shit load of wingsuit BASE jumps in the skydiving environment plus do a shit load of terminal BASE jumps before one mixes the two together.

I'm no guy...

I'm just asking what the quickest way is to do WS BASE.

If I should definately do say 500 BASE jumps first, or if 50 balloon jumps and a couple BASE may prepare me too. Or, whatever.

Don't worry I'm not going to jump off a cliff because somene on the 'net says I can

We have some BASE guys here that do WS but haven't asked them yet, and not all of them I'd go to for advise anyway.

Just looking for other peoples progression, really.

You're one exception, Kevin.

After reading this thread, it reminded me of Nathan back in 2000. Nathan had few base jumps, but decided he should try a triple gainer through the steel on his first jump at our regular bridge. He apparently didn't know the sport very well, let alone his own limits. He pulled off the triple as far as we could see from the ground. But, a few months later, Nathan burned into the talus in Moab at about 60 mph after jumping a daisy chained rig. He was lucky to be alive, as I saw only 1-2 fully inflated cells. You haven't seen shit until you've seen a daisy chained rig open.

Sorry about the gender confusion. There are only a few BASE wingsuit chicks out there today.

As for progression, I'd personally recommend at least 100 BASE jumps before you try WS BASE. I had 400 before I tried it and it scared the crap out of me on exit.

Short answer: real bad idea.

Have you read this article?

At an absolute minimum, I'd do 50 terminal (or nearly terminal) BASE jumps before putting the suit on. If you're dedicated to that idea, you could do this in a single longish trip.

If I were you, I'd start with a tracking suit like the PF suit, which will allow you to get some of the feel of a wingsuit without so much of the added dangers. From there, you could transition to a Prodigy, then back up to your regular skydiving suit fairly rapidly.

If you're looking for more positive responses, try posting in the wingsuit forum. In general, BASE jumpers are all going to tell you that going straight to a wingsuit is a very bad idea. You can actually find some European wingsuit jumpers who've done exactly this, but in general BASE jumpers will not be approving.

Be aware that we're running close to half of current (last couple years) BASE fatalities in wingsuits (and way less than half of total jumps done).


Why try to skip steps in the training progression? To experienced BASE jumpers, your questions sounds about like a non-jumper walking into your DZ and asking "why do I have to bother with this AFF stuff? I just want to go straight to those cool 4 way head down jumps."

hey...maybe she is a natural blonde..anyway maybe you should see how many dead people there are on Nicks list before you even spend yor money on a course for BASE...watching the big boys pull it off on video at some boogie doesnt make it possible...they have done hundreds of jumps,got very lucky on a lot of occasions and what you see on the video is one half of one percent of the successful jumps they made to get there...

go do some crw,do some accuracy on a big 7 cell,do some more crw,do a lot of wingsuit flights...think about it some more do some more crw/accuracy/big 7 cell jumps then maybe get your name down for a course in the states or with one of the european vendors...then look closely at the list and see how many dead experienced people there are on it...once you are happy take two broken femurs and call me in the morning

Saskia

you have gotten some pretty harsh replies here and I think I understand why:

most any BASE jump looks simple and easy when everything goes well and wingsuit BASE jumps even more so....

but a look at the BASE fatality list kept by Nick Di Giovanni reveals just how dangerous wingsuit BASE jumps are

the list is here: http://hometown.aol.com/...e/base_fatality_list

I have reformatted the wingsuit BASE fatalities in the attached spreadsheet.

Nick, I know you read these forums regularly and I'm sure you do not mind this use of the information, please say if you do and I will request a moderator to remove it.

I have included Dwain Weston too, as his fatality involved more aspects of a wingsuit BASE jump than of a wingsuit skydive.

it shows 8 wingsuit BASE fatalities out of 20 overall BASE fatalities since the 1st wingsuit BASE fatality, which seems around the time that wingsuit BASE started picking up speed

3, maybe 4, of those fatalities were by very experienced wingsuit BASE jumpers, who at the time of their deaths were very close to the top of the game in BASE or wingsuit BASE or both.....

despite these statistics the call of wingsuit BASE is still heard by many and the draw is very strong

I, myself, am drawn to wingsuit BASE and when I just started BASE and wingsuit skydiving, I thought when I have 100 BASE jumps and 100 wingsuit skydives, I should be/feel ready to take up wingsuit BASE.

I have 141 wingsuit skydives and 136 BASE jumps now and even though I've become pretty competent at wingsuit skydives, I still see myself doing a lot more preparation before taking a wingsuit off a cliff (or other fixed object).

My plan is to stay really current on my S3 and go to the Herc boogie in Sweden next year, to do many wingsuit skydives and be highly familiar with my wingsuit.
( I might opt to use a lower performance wingsuit than the S3 for my first few wingsuit BASE jumps and if I go that way, I'll be using that suit mostly during the Herc boogie)

Then it's off to Norway and the big walls right after the Herc Boogie and I'll work my way from terminal BASE jumps ( I have none yet ), to BASE jumps with a tracking suit ( I really like the PF suits ), to my first wingsuit BASE jumps.

It might seem overly conservative to some and several experienced BASE wingsuit pilots have said with my wingsuit skydives and BASE jumps I could be doing wingsuit BASE already, but I like the conservative approach to BASE - even though my time in the sport vs. my jump numbers might suggest that I'm more of the going hard school of thought - I'm just a really active jumper.

If you feel unbelievably drawn to wingsuit BASE, read all the guidelines available on here on how to start, but also read the guidelines on how to start BASE.

wingsuit BASE is an entire order of magnitude more dangerous than BASE itself

so, if you cannot accept the risks of BASE, you should never even consider wingsuit BASE


so, the short answer is that it is a stupid and dangerous idea to do a wingsuit jump for your first BASE jump,

but then, looking at the statistics, it seems stupid and dangerous to wingsuit BASE at all,

but then, looking at the statistics, it seems stupid and dangerous to BASE jump at all,

but then, looking at the statistics, it seems stupid and dangerous to skydive with a small canopy and swoop....

DAMN!!! I might have to stop just about all the fun stuff I do....

seriously, though, they are all steps in risk level, take your time through them to minimize your chance of injury/death or maximize the number of jumps before injury and/or death

cya
sam

The harsh replies only mirror the environment imho. I've seen even the most basic base jumps go awry for the smallest reasons, and that is without the restrictions that a wingsuit brings to the table.

Hello Sam,

That's all cool with me . . .

NickD
BASE 194

Having seen a certain pretty damn good BASE wingsuiter foul up the occasional exit, I can only hope to God you're joking.

Edited to add:
What a waste of a perfectly good wingsuit.

 

Yep, they'll all tell her to give it a go!

Then they'll argue what wingsuit is better for her first try at it.

Besides, there's WAY too much DRAMA in there right now to even think of jumping, of any kind.


Be safe.
Ed

Not a bloody chance!!!
Edited to add: Well I wouldn't...but there's always one!!

 


I was being sarcastic....notice the at the end? lol

Be safe.
Ed