Basejumper.com - archive

DZ.com has an instructor's forum for skydiving. I wish there was a way BASE instructors could more easily share teaching techniques and general BASE techniques among each other. On some topics, I am out of date. On other topics, I am far better than most... I sometimes contemplate attending a first BASE jump course just to see what other instructors are doing.

It's a good idea
Would you make it available everyone? If you did then you'd have 20 jump wonders thinking they could teach because they read the forum.
If not, how do you decide who gets to be in on it?

USPA once put forth a spy program. They even started recruiting experienced jumpers who were otherwise not well known. People who weren't faces. There are still a lot of DZs still jumping rounds so we got a hold of ourselves and said forget it. It would have been fun though, secret agent-man in the first jump course. When you got bored with that you could see how far you could push them and they still let you jump . . .

Sooner, or later, you'd get a punch in the nose for adding more pressure to an over-worked AFF Instructor who doesn't need anymore pressure.

As for taking all the available First BASE Jump Courses right now – you'd probably get killed if you made a job of it . . .

NickD
BASE 194

It's always been a fantasy to find a podunk DZ somewhere and pretend to be a FJ student, just so I could get out there on AFF 1 and have a tracking contest with the instructors, blow through 5000' and suck it down low, disconnect the RSL, chop the main, take it down to the basement, and finally do a fat 360 deg. front riser turn to the landing. I'd then need to have a cooler of coldies in the LZ to give to the instructors right after so they didn't kill me!

I told my friend how to "entertain" his tandem instructor while under canopy. Nothing like putting his foot through a toggle!

A forum would be fine rather than seeing other instructors in action.

Some BASE instructors should not be instructing...... whos going to control this?

maybe the ones who shouldn't be teaching would show no interest in learning about how to teach.

or if access to the forum was limited, require several references from experienced jumpers for access to this forum.

 

no. maybe you have a suggestion. i just want to know what other instructors are succesfully doing. that's the real issue, not regulation. for example, Spacy Tracy has several techniques that are great for teaching first timers to exit properly. Now the pendulamator is out there.

I think Tom A could give some great advise to people that are teaching. He'd probably have to know you though.

, that's a classic.

Instructors


Here is your problem

 
It's always been a fantasy to find a podunk DZ somewhere and pretend to be a FJ student, just so I could get out there on AFF 1 and have a <snip>
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i did this ~ 3 years ago at a small Dz in oregon.
it was a static line class so i didn't completly fulfill YOUR fantasy,
BUT
i had a great time.

My last words to the jumpmaster as i climbed out onto the step were, "jumping borrowed gear is black death".

her countenance was bemused / angry / priceless.

beer did go a long way to soothe the DZ owner, but the jumpmaster was still pissed.
oh well

be safe
kleggo

The point is not to spy on other student programs. The point is not to have some fun at the expense of some instructor dealing with an experienced jumper pretending to do his or her first jump. The point is a forum for information exchange for instructors and prospective instructors.

Chris,
man, im going to do this someday. Ill go to hell for it, but its worth it. Ill do it in Wisconsin. of course, ill need 300$. damn.

I think it's kind of okay - if you leave without blowing the caper.

If you don't - it makes you a dirty first jump course burner . . .

Besides, the ones who couldn't pull it off would get tripped up long before they reached the door. The not very experienced would give themselves away either over or under playing it. Watch a person with 700 to a 1000 jumps play student in an AFF cert course for the first time and they pale compared to real students . . . A good Instructor would spot you before lunch . . .

NickD
BASE 194