jeb
Hello everyone, I need a little help getting some information. What were the names of the first two men to jump the empire state building. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you... Basejumper.com - archive
General BASE
Re: [jeb] jeb
Hello Jeb, I can help you get in touch with Mike mc.I am close to his brother.E mail me if you are interested. VRANK
vranklp@hotmail.com
Re: [hookitt] jeb
Alistair Boyd and Mike McCarthy if I remember correctly. Both were daytime static line jumps. I'd have to go look up the year, but it was probably the late 80s. NickD
BASE 194
Re: [Zoter] jeb
Yes, static lining it seems a bit weird by today's standards and some of us even questioned it at the time. If I had to guess the reason I would say Alistair and Mike were both from Europe and at the time, they didn't have a lot of tall objects to freefall. The Brits, especially, were the kings of static line BASE. And this was during a time it was being shunned in the U.S. in favor of direct bag. The advice in those days, if you wanted to learn static line BASE, was go find a Brit.
The changes that have occurred in the last twenty years, in terms of gear, techniques, and available objects is hard to judge unless you lived it, but the older I get the more I appreciate what the Brits were able to accomplish at the time.
In the end, I'm sure Mike and Alistair knew they could freefall it, but they probably figured it was such a high profile jump they'd be better off sticking with what they were the most comfortable with. And that makes sense . . .
Besides they were probably sweating the landing more than the launch.
There's a video (I have it somewhere) and they didn’t seem to have any trouble getting over the fence, hooking in, and going. Of course meaningful security on the ESB observation platform was almost non-existent in those days.
I must add the following because it did occur. There were more than a few American BASE jumpers pissed at them (not me, I was global before it was cool,
) for bagging such a premier American object, not because they burned it, that wasn't a big worry in those days, it was the fact the bloody wankers did it first . . . Jake's book "Groundrush" gives a good account of the state of BASE jumping in Great Britain at the time and it's a little jewel of a BASE time capsule if you can find a copy.
NickD
BASE 194
Re: [NickDG] jeb
Boyd and McCarthy were on the Johnny Carson show a few days after it happened. It was very funny and positive for the sport shown as fun not totally crazy. Mike did most of the talking and Johhny loved it and showed the video. I think it was Boyd's canopy that wrapped around the top of a light pole so he was hung up and the cops got him. I think it was Mike that got away but could be the other way around. Talk about some jealous American BASE jumpers back then who all felt that King Kong's building at least deserved a freefall. Rick Harrison
Cliffleaper@aol.com
Re: [jeb] jeb
An old post which will help illuminate: http://www.dropzone.com/...ring=aj4218;#1746483
Al
PS It was Mike who got a line caught. You wouldn't believe what else the publicity led to for them! It was April 1986.
Re: [tfelber] jeb
Yes but that particular photo is from the Eiffel tower. The ESB pic is in the first posst of that thread. 