Basejumper.com - archive

I've been jumping for about year and a half and have about 75 jumps (counting 5 static jumps from 1000 ft, 33 MFF w/equipment and a few civilian jumps on my PD 190). Understand that to learn something new you have to follow those who have made (and survived) a few mistakes. I am planning on working up from groundcrew, do a few plane jumps on a BASE rig (and learn to fly it), then progress to the real thing with the help of a guy I've been talking to who has 150 BASE jumps and is willing to mentor me in my pursuits. I am used to "sinking a canopy in" @ 1/2 brakes and have reasonably good accuracy on landing.
The little bit of research I have done suggests 200+ skydives, but I would really like to move on now and would like to hear any thoughts, suggestions, etc on the matter and what I can do to get the most out of it and survive my first few attempts.

coco makes some good points

please be careful and research everything you do really well

Hey Bro!

Well I can tell you right now you better put on your shit catching gloves because your definitely gonna be catching some shit with this post. If you wanna start BASE at 75 skydives with someone who has 150 BASE, go for it. I’d say you’re more likely to get yourself killed but it’s your life.

If you wanna be smart. Wait until you have some solid skydiving experience and take a FJC or go to Bridge Day.

Coco

P.S. 75 jumps over a year and a half?? That’s not very current either. You don’t have a very strong case there buddy!

Thanks!!

Be patient is my advice as well. Do alot more skydives,and just have fun. Do ALOT of canopy drills as well, not just a few. Find
Find someone with more than 150 jumps to teach you, maybe take a course, then he would be someone to go with and mentor you from there.

Why not enter a dangerous sport with the best skills possible?


My grandmother said it best "Better to be late then to be dead on time."

I totally agree with the patience thing. Why do you want to base after 75 skydives??? Are you already bored with skydiving?! Take you time my friend... enjoy the journey! At that rate, you might find yourself bored of Base after 20 jumps also. What will you do next? huh? Shark fu... ?
Enjoy the journey, Base is not going anywhere. If anything, it's becoming more and more popular! (for the best or the worst... I won't get into that). You will get a piece of it too in due time. Don't rush into it and bust yourself up because of lack of experience. Base is not a pioneer thing anymore. It's not the "cool thing to do" anymore. Lots of people are doing it and it' s not rocket science... (but it does require a few fundamental skills). So don't worry, it's going to be around in a year.
Regarding the experience level of your mentor you should not solely choose him based on jump numbers. To me, numbers of jumps is only a small reflection of someone's experience. IMO a jumper with a hundred jumps from 45 different objects of all types is way more knowledgeable than a jumper with 200 jumps with 180 jumps from the Perrine for example.
But in the end, it's up to you to make all the decisions... it's your life!

Mostly because skydiving per se really doesn't prepare one to base jump.

The CRW dogs and the accuracy people have a big advantage, yes, but just having a certain number of jumps doesn't mean much, especially when most of those jumps focus on freefall skills.

A friend of mine had nearly 3000 skydives at his first BD in 1997. He nearly killed himself, and you'll see that again and again. The skills required for a base jump are totally different, but the body does what it knows how to do, and then you're fucked.

I'm not singling you out because I know this doesn't apply to you, but it's really kind of remarkable all the "do as I say, not as I did" posts I see here.

rl

In general, I agree with you, but don't overlook the importance of freefall skills for terminal jumps, which are very popular with many jumpers.

I met a guy who had made less than 100 skydives and then started BASE, and had made a fair number of jumps from our little bridge here.

But, he was grounded and asked to leave by the instructors in Norway, due to poor freefall control. Which was funny, because he lives in Norway, and was in the position of having to travel to the US to make BASE jumps.

Oh, did I mention that the very first thing he said when he met me was "I've read your articles, and I have to say I disagree with needing 200 skydives before BASE jumping."

I admit that I was not thinking of this at all, and it's a very good point.

rl

I know a number of low-time skydivers who got into BASE. It's NOT the recommended route, but it has been done. We're all different and what may work for one person might not work for another. If you approach BASE in a responsible manner, know you limits and dedicate the few skydives you plan on doing towards specific BASE training. Then yes you have a chance of survival (keeping in mind that any of us who BASE jump could die on our next jump ... just look at what happened to Tom Manship ... one of the most current BASE jumpers out there). But if you approach BASE like a yahoo shred-head ... cow-a-bung-a-dude (not saying you're like this), then we can pretty much guarantee you a trip out of here ... in a body bag.

Good luck ... be smart ... be safe ... BASE is an order of magnitude more dangerous than skydiving.

Ah, the perennial debate...

I'd like to respond to one little corner of the debate that I've been musing about lately; namely, whether general skydiving canopy experience is applicable to BASE. I think those of you who have a lot of experience with different types of canopies miss the forest for the trees.

I think most of us experience events as if what we apprehend through our senses is more or less everything there is to sense. But the reality seems to me to be that, when we take up a new discipline, we have to learn to sense things.

A couple of examples:

When I watched the first Star Wars movie (long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away), I was amazed by how "realistic" it was. Of course, now that I've learned to see movies better, it doesn't look so realistic anymore.

When I took up running in earnest a few months ago, I thought my running shoes were fine. I could have run in just about any shoes and only noticed the grossest of differences. I other words, I could not tell a really good shoe (for my foot) from a mediocre one. Now even different really good running shoes feel remarkably different to me. I've learned to feel them.

The same is true for canopy experience. Before I started skydiving, I had no idea what being under a canopy was really like. It took me a couple of jumps before I really noticed the difference between the DZ's 200 and their 290. I spent plenty of jumps just learning what that first sabre 170 could do. I was learning to feel it -- and, more importantly for this discussion, learning more generally what a canopy was. The more canopies I have jumped, the more I sense generally about canopies. The difference between my experience of a canopy flight on that first jump, and my experience 200 jumps and several canopies later was really significant. And a huge part of that difference in experience is applicable to canopy flight in general.

NOTE: I'm NOT arguing that BASE-specific drills during the posited 200 jumps wouldn't be imensely better than the typical skydiving progression, or that all ingrained responses from skydiving are healthy for BASE, or that different people don't learn disciplines at different rates or in different ways, or ...

...just that simple canopy experience is generally significantly better than none.

Do you mean tracking skills or freefall skills?

i only ask as they are to me two different animals..

i remember a time when i was around 100 or so jumps on a large sit fly jump... 12 or so of us...Yea...a while ago...that at break off i remember tracking and actually looking back between my legs and watching a few jumpers just like they where laying flat and not getting horizontal distance as i felt speed as everyone just got tiny quick.... After the jump a far more experienced guy from the jump asked me how i learned to track like that. I never thought my freefal skills exceeded my jump #'s but maybe my tracking skills where better than my freefall skills??

I am currious...I totally agree that you need a huge bucket of skills for a Terminal jump such as Kjreg...but if you had to choose which was more important ...tracking skills or freefall skills...which would you put weight on?

I guess i mean if you can already stick the exit..which are more important....

This is my lame ass question of the week so go ahead and flame me....

Just currious.....

I would think he meant tracking skills...ya need to get the hell away from that big rock!


*but..then again..I definately could be wrong as to what he meant.

Freefall skills.

If you fall straight down, but have a good launch, you'll get enough separation that they won't ground you. It's being unable to maintain stability and heading in freefall (at terminal) that get you grounded.



Freefall skills (meaning ability to maintain/regain stability and maintain/regain heading) are a necessary pre-requisite to tracking skills. You have to say "freefall skills" first, because without them it's impossible to have "tracking skills." If you can't hold heading, you aren't going to be able to track effectively.

Ok i am with you there...i guess i ment if ..and if you can hold heading, regain stability...but cant track to save your life...... and that is another hole subject ..after reading some of han-solo's and your old posts about different tracking methods for different terminal objects..... but i wont get into that as to change the subject of this post..

Thanks as always......Chris

Thanks to all who replied. I kind of went the wrong route and made it sound like I wanted to do a BASE tomorrow. I have recieved messages from a few of you and am learning a lot-which is what I needed to do. With what I have now-I WILL be waiting for a while and at this point would like to make my skydives count towards a future in BASE. I did make the statement that I wanted to forgo gaining another 125 jumps (when I now know that another 400-500 would'nt hurt things). I hope I didn't piss a bunch of people off-I'm trying to gain a little better perspective of what BASE is about. While a part of me certainly resented being refered to as a "lemming"-I'm sure I deserved it and it made me mad enough to consider what I was looking at getting into, and compare my mortality to my current level of (limited) experience.
I also appreciate the tips on my "friend " who offered to help. I'm now getting the picture that his offering to teach me to BASE jump would be simular to me teaching someone to freefly.
I would, however like to continue to learn more and possibly find a more experienced BASE jumper to fill an apprenticeship with when I am better prepared to start in the sport. I might very possibly be commiting another BASE faux pas here by asking, but--How do I (as safely as possible) learn more about the sport and find an experienced BASE jumper who I can learn from?

For years, the official Bridge Day video was called "Lemmings," so many of us have been referred to as a lemming.



Start by reading through everything you can find. Personally, most of my advice is in the article entitled "Getting into BASE" which is linked at the top of this forum.

You've already started finding experienced jumpers. Check in with the people who contacted you, because they have already demonstrated (perhaps tactfully or perhaps not) that they are concerned for your safety.

On some terminal jumps, a significant crosswind will act like a relative wind. Initially, the jumper will have to keep an active flat turn with the body to maintain a heading while transitioning to a track. I have had to do this on some towers with winds in excess of 50mph down the wire.

don't fret.

keep reading this forum and you'll quickly realize posts like yours appear quite regularly. you were treated typically. these posts seem to continue an ongoing dialogue. did you notice how few replied to YOUR post?

be happy and pat yourself on the back. it seems the "shock" treatment worked well for you. instead of arguing, you adapted. that is a good sign.

There are a few BASE disaster videos on http://www.skydivingmovies.com (cliff strikes looks really scary). Go take a look. I do want to do BASE but I think I am going to stick to doing a few hundred skydives first before revisiting the matter. (and also that I don't have the budget for a large accuracy canopy or BASE canopy for pratice for now.)

There are many more that are not on public servers. Many experienced BASE jumpers have "carnage reels" that they can show you if you need motivation to proceed cautiously.

just to add a little bit.
about a year ago i was a cocky arrogant bastard and decided to make a post about "jumping anyways so F*&# off post".

yeah dude, there being nice to you. take the long route and hunt it out and read all you can about jumping. watch all the video on malfunctions and videos on exiting and all that. umm. i dont know what you are going to get out of this. but yeah.

outskis

To the general posting public - I'm going to cut the crap (for those that like 2 second responses), if you don't think skydiving experience is beneficial than you are an ignorant idiot!!!!!!!

Analogy - In laymans terms, self gratification can be a benefical precursor to love making.......

The main reason I got into skydiving was with the intent to BASE jump (and from what I understand this is a growing trend, good or bad not really sure). Anyways, I got the minimum number of jumps (100) and then I was off to the FJC with vertigo (75 of the jumps were done 2 weeks prior to the FJC, so I guess I was as current as possible with that few of jumps). Then I arrived at class with around 6 other students, all with jumps in the 1000’s, ok now I was a bit intimidated, what the hell was I thinking. But I pressed on, learned as much as possible about every bit of detail on packing, then away we went to make our first jump. The first guy to jump was an instructor, then I opted to go next, my adrenaline was already peaking as it is, and I didn’t want to watch other nervous jumpers go first. Kept my eyes just above the horizon and bailed off, everything went fine, chute actually opened, and I landed fine. Can’t describe what I felt, I just knew I wanted to do it again. Anyways I watched the next guy go (had around 8000 skydives). Immediately went head down and he felt his lines hitting the back of his feet as the canopy deployed, scary as shit. His thoughts afterwards was he was trying to correct his body position like he would in a skydive jump (pushing off the winds at 120), learned instinct from all his skydives. So for his exit (one of the most important parts of a jump), in his case his skydiving experience didn’t help him. Even some of the other experienced skydivers had issues with there exits initially.
So what does all this mean to me:
- As far as the exit goes, since my skydiving experience is limited, I had none of those instinctual habits to unlearn or be more aware of. So for learning how to exit, I felt I was at least at their level, if not a little higher, and I am quite comfortable with my exit.
- However my canopy piloting is not even close to their abilities. But I recognize this and only jump things at my level with several outs. On lower objects (sub 300) I will only SL when other jumpers may take a 1-2 sec FF. Also I have a much smaller tolerance to the weather conditions. If things aren’t perfect, I don’t jump. For every one jump that I have made I have probably walked away 2-3 other times. Even when others have made the jump.
- Now as for my learning curve, its going to be a hell of a lot steeper than someone with more skydiving experience. Slider jumps/Cliff’s/terminal jumps are not even an option for me at this point. After a few hundred of tracking/CRW jumps, and a few hundred BASE jumps, maybe. But until then, I am quite satisfied doing SL off a 240ft span or a 1-2 sec FF at a certain 486 footer.

Lastly, this is not advice or a recommended way of getting into the sport, only my experience and what I felt comfortable doing. BASE jumping is all about learning the limit to your abilities. However in order to do that (without ever jumping) you must read and talk to as many people as possible so you can start to build some sort of context to go off of. Then when you feel ready (100 skydives or 8000+) take the proper training at a safe object with a jumper with a few 1000 jumps, and take it slow.

Anyways, that’s my 2 cents, stay safe,

Rob

Tracking occurs during freefall!!!!!!

It IS a freefall skill. It is a one subset of skills that include the control/deflection/awareness/etc of relative airflow.

Tracking is VIP in BASE. But it is not as important as exit skills. By this I mean that if you can't get yourself into a tracking position in the first place, who cares how good you are at tracking!!!

The next most important "freefall" skill is 3-d awareness.

The next most important skill is knowing how to get your body into a suitable position following instability/imperfections/aerobatics/etc.

You can break tracking down into skill subsets.

One is the ability to gain stability and initiate/accelerate away from an object.

How fast you track is not as important as how efficient you are (this is a relationship between height consumed and horizontal distance travelled). If you are the fastest tracker in the world but you fall 1000 ft for everyone else's 500 feet, then . . . . . this is not so good on the underhung/talus sites.

You're flamed!!!

 

I was there too. I remember it well. We were all thinking "Ruh roh".

What was really cool though was what came next. Eric can tell the story if he wishes, but he wound up slowing down a bit and next thing I know we're out at the bridge again and he was a totally different jumper.

I got to talking to him about aerials and it turned out that he was a longtime gymnast. Next thing I know he's throwing off gainers (and I think a double or three) that weekend and then ices it with a slot in the 21-way.

The main point with Eric's story is that he started off a little cocky, but he wound up getting the fundamentals and now, in a very short time, is solid as hell. If he puts half of his gymnastics experience into it (as I'm sure he has) he's gonna be a scary aerialist.

So don't rush, get the fundamentals, and then throw it down. You can believe in yourself and do things at a sane pace. They don't have to be mutually exclusive and you'll be much happier in the long run.

I'll try to wrap this up as neat as i can.

Look, when i started skydiving my sole purpose was to start BASE. Little did i know, that BASE jumpers werent just skydivers that did a few skydives and learned how to fly a canopy and then get into BASE. The guys in BASE loved their sport and would protect it against people who were too eager or would be a (you'll like this one guys) "statistic" in getting hurt, giving it a bad rep etc etc. So, i just figured all the guys who BASE jumped were all assholes because they wouldnt tell me anything about jumping when i only had very few skydives.

Despite what everyone else said here on the posts and in real life. I did the opposite. I figured out how to get a rig, did just the bare minumum number of skydives and took it upon myself with the help of a few other jumpers who didnt mind teaching a crazy person, to learn how to BASE jump. I remember posting that "65 skydives and i'm jumping off the bridge" post thinking, i'll show these assholes how phuckin tough i am. and made a base jump the next day, flew downwind and ruined my ankle. but hey, i jumped and they didnt teach me. so i was better.

all these guys thought i was the asshole, noone wanted to teach or talk to me about anything. i was noones project and i was to fend for myself for a while longer till i stopped pretending that i was a badass and i actually didnt know shit and wanted to learn.

its not like i stopped jumping, i just started jumping with and learning from people who had quite a bit more experience than i had, which was none.

yeah, base jumping is a hell of a lot of fun. i'm not going to stop jumping anytime soon. but seriously. if you dont have adequate knowledge in flying a canopy, landing a canopy, dealing with malfunctions so on and so forth. BASE will hurt you, WILL hurt you, may kill you. i'm no expert. but i took the wrong road, delt with a lot of shit. but somehow made it out alive. and with a bit more knowledge of the sport than when i came into it.


SO. take your time. by the way, i hope i never have to ruin your day by writing this much EVER again.

The key though, and the most important lesson out of all of this was the desire to learn.

I've always told people "there are as many ways to BASE jump as there are BASE jumpers". And I still believe that to be true.

But it's the constant desire to learn, to understand, to be open to others ways of doing things... not necessarily because they are better, but because they give us insight... that makes us better jumpers.

The day we think we know everything, the day we end our desire to stop learning, even from the most inexperienced of jumpers, is the day we should hang the rig up.

For example, I still enjoy watching other people pack. I may ask "Why are you doing that?"... but it's not a challenge, it's a sincere question because you never know whether that person may have an insight, a method, that makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Upshot? Don't go into this thinking you know everything, and once you're in it, don't stop thinking you don't know anything.

Peace out.

Please do not allow yourself to be influenced by those who are not intelligent enough to see the value of your posts.

Short posts are, most often, only good for a quick laugh. You can't get much real content into a one-liner, after all.

I, and others, like your posts just the way they've been all along because they're a valuable educational tool. Don't withhold that because one person isn't quite bright enough to see that.

rl

He he he. Don't worry RL, I will continue to torment the unsuspecting and the expecting.

My excuse for being brief: I went rock climbing yesterday and did about 5 hours straight on grade 5.8 to 5.10 after not getting an ounce of sleep the night before. My fingers are hurting so much that I could not be bothered typing!!!!!! Tender office boy hands you know!!!

p.s thanks for the compliments to both yourself and Tom.

And folks. My opinions are exactly that. I could be right. I could be wrong. It us up to yourselves to do your own due diligence!!!!!

Wow, I am impressed. I have a two person fan club. Your cheque (check) is in the mail.

So when does mine get here?

You have three....Very much enjoy your posts as i actually get allot out of them....

Gosh - you BASE jumpers will do anything for money..

Stop being facetious!!!!

p.s my previous cheques (checks) are going on Nick's list. He is just not sure which one!!! if you don't get it . . . . . . . .

Sorry guys and gals. Membership has just closed. I need some money left over to feed my kids...