Basejumper.com - archive

Not really, folks--

But WHAT IF it was closed tomorrow? We're flirting with it right now... Every Memorial day and Labor day I stay far away from TF, and close my eyes and cringe when my phone rings or when I fire up the computer the next time to see [who] if any of my friends went in or won't walk again.

What are your thoughts on what impacts that S has on our sport, both positive and negative?

Would the (actual) interest in beginning BASE jumpers decline?

Would the new jumpers getting into the sport have less cavalier attitudes (generally speaking) about BASE?

your opinions, please...
pope

If the brigde was made illegal.....I think there is a strong chance it would reduce numbers getting into the sport. You could also argue it would further reduce proportion of wrong type of new people getting into the sport too....ie the flakey wannabes who arent prepared to put in the hard yards but just want to treat base as extension of skydiving.

As a result it would probably reduce the fatality rate......

first and foremost......

please never scare me like that again.

I am still a beginner and took my fjc at the bridge. Luckily I was graced w/ an excellent teacher/mentor and now feel as if I am headed in the right direction. He clearly stated the no rush attitude/ the object is going nowhere attitude which all new base jumpers need to have. I have been jumping back home and all is well.

Would the interest decline. I don't think so. Once you see base for the first time, I believe you know right away if you're in or not. Although some may lack the experience right away, they know if base is for them or not.

Would people starting off be less crazy. Maybe. Although a great training tool...it can also lead people to think base is safer then it actually is. You can never assume that the canopy will open on heading or even take a bridge for granted. I believe the list speaks for itself ( much respect to all that are gone).

Would closing it down be a blessing in disguise. Maybe! What is the solution on regulating a sport which at it's core should hold no regulations.

Educate and bring awareness about the sport to those interested in a relentless and powerfull fashion.

Those are my two cents.

I agree 100%.

well said.

No. With the current and increasing interest in "Exteme"(I hate that word) sports, abd the different types of media promoting the sport(no offense) I see no decrease in interest. Only increases. Those that aren't willing to put in the time through a traditional mentorship, will "find" other ways. There is already 4 or 5 on the list.
You will also have people with 30-40-50 jumps teaching others Since there won't be enough experienced jumpers willing to mentor the ever increasing numbers.
Ethics will go out the window, and site burning will become a wildfire. Mainly through ignorance.

Probably the majority would because they would really have to work for it. But, there will always be the ones that do 5/10/15 jumps and figure they know everything there is to know.

What if…:
I would move back to Mexico and open up a FJC with my Mexican friends at our span there. It has the same height as the S in TF. And the graduation jump would be of the pillar of the same span which allows to do up to 5s Slider up jump.
Check out the video “School of BASE” in the video section of Mexbase.
We would probably offer different types of FJC. Death camps with PCA’s for jumpers without any experience, normal FJC for people with skydiving experience. We could make a “Gringo Discount” for US Citizens if the groups are bigger then 10 people. As the span is close to Acapulco, a night there with Hooters, Cliff divers and a Building jump could be offered for maybe a 150.— USD extra.

And because Tom is a friend and I owe him he could rent the bridge for some weekends for his FJC and would have to pay us only a minimal amount for each student.

Gabo, what do you think? Sounds nice…

That first video on the site was scary....
I've never seen a PCA done like that.....pins popped and then PC released...opened fine though.

That sounds like a pretty good business plan. You could create a BASE vacation package where people could qualify for their BASE # in a weekend...

What would that do to the quantity of BASE #'s being issued? It might even leave the student with slightly more appreciation for the sport. At least they would have a few different glimpses...

The span is high enough to do this. As soon as the one who holds the pc sees that the student is stable he can let go the pilot. It is a 46" pilot chute. This way the student can enjoy freefall a bit longer.

If the PC holder removes the canopy from the container, but not to line stretch, and then releases the PC, he can easily induce line slack in the deployment, greatly increasing the chance of a malfunction. For this reason, in my opinion, "Freefall Assist" PCA's (where the PC is released once at bridle stretch) should release the PC while the container is still closed.

Great canopy control skills on that student video

Sounds logical.

All the jumpers that you have seen in the video have between 500 and 1500 skydives. But it was their first jump on a BASE Canopy. And during this time of the year there is very limited space to land, you have to land in half brakes. For that they did not do to bad...

That last canopy ride ( the strike on the bridge support) looks like a canopy set with a 'too deep' brake setting as its stalling (or at least partially stalling) all the way down ....
I didnt see him release the brakes to let it fly....as you know these guys Mikki....is there a story on that one? or another cause/reason?

Only my opinion: if closed, it would have had a negative impact on my brief time (~2 yrs) in BASE. For personal and security clearance reasons, I don't do illegal jumps.

If TF bridge wasn't available I probably would have done a couple jumps at NRG, then gone to Norway (with ensuing 6 months between jumps); rather than get a few dozen jumps in at TF, including a few three weeks before going to Norway. Overall: the legal status of the bridge has been a good thing.

Do my choices & rationale reflect the "average" BASE jumper (whoever that person is) - probably not.

I've stopped jumping for the time being because I felt I wasn't doing it regularly enough to maintain the skill set that I judged necessary. I plan to return to BASE in a few years; selfishly, I want the TF bridge legal & open.

Marg

it was a tension knot

More jumpers would go to nearby Moab instead. Some people would make their first jumps off Frozen Pizza.

Yeah, and THEN what?

not if but WHEN...

I think the S is really positive to our sport its some of the people showing up there once in a while you need to change..

We got this great place and it tend it aint enough to some people they need to do stuff that the population dont like,which one day will ruin the place..

I dont think that any of the incedents or fatalityes off the S will close it(as of now)..

Oh and dont get into fight about its bad red bull peopel doing this regulary jumpers also do it,they just dont get that much attension..

I think the S is THE best place to start jumping at this point..
Many S´s might have the same advatange they just dont have all the FJC arround..

Shutting Perrine down will just lead people to other places..

What came first the chicken or the egg?

Throughout the 1980s one question we constantly asked ourselves was, "Where is everyone?" Some, like the gear builders, are anxiously awaiting the hoards that would need new gear, others, like the regular jumpers, saw only gloom and doom as too many jumpers converged on too few objects.

There's some marketing going on here. The term "extreme," used in connection with sports, first began with a company called Northface in the 1970s, but it didn't really catch on until the 1990s when mainstream advertisers started using the word "extreme" to promote everything from suicidal ski runs to breakfast cereal. But it couldn't be a single word alone that caused the influx of new BASE jumpers that occurred around the year 2000.

It could be the growth spurt was caused, not by one thing, but by several.

The chief among them was publicity. In the late 1980s BASE jumping was still kept more or less secret. There have always been glory hounds in BASE, but in those days the amount of damage they could do was limited by their ability to distribute their jumps. There was no reality TV, no You Tube, and no truly low-cost commercial video cameras. I remember when you almost never saw a video camera at a launch point. Now you almost always do. The impact of these types of videos (hundreds of them) circulating around can't be discounted. After all it was Carl Boenish's El Cap films that started the first generation of BASE jumpers.

The Perrine Bridge is a factor. But if you look at BASE in a world-wide sense there are a lot of BASE jumpers who've never been to Idaho and BASE jumping exploded worldwide, not just in the USA. The main effect European cliff jumpers feel from the bridge is the crowd who makes a few Perrine jumps and it's off to the Continent . . .

Economics plays a certain role too. I know, in the long run, when you factor in travel, and the eventual medical bills, BASE jumping isn't any cheaper than skydiving. But it will appear so to newer jumpers.

But, I don't think it was really any of those things.

No matter how good the marketing, you can't put lipstick on a pig. BASE jumping is popular, despite the pitfalls and dangers, because it really is what many other sports pretend to be, it's the real deal. So all this growth was inevitable, and not because of anything any of us did, it was just a matter of time.

We knew it back when we were BASE jumping with skydiving canopies in 1986 and Moe was always saying, "Keep your head's down, the tidal wave is coming."

So, actually what I'm surprised by is BASE jumping's "lack" of progress . . .

Where's the fully dedicated 2000-foot BASE jumping tower that should have been built somewhere in Kansas by now? Where's the legal BASE jumps that should be a normal part of any tall object's grand opening? Where's the Las Vegas casinos, and why aren't they sponsoring "Three Shows a Night" from their rooftops? Why doesn't Wal-Mart have a beginner's BASE rig hanging next to the complete guitar starter set?

We haven't seen anything yet. Moe, was right, he was just a little early. Hang onto your hats everyone, the real wave is still coming . . .

NickD
BASE 194

I've purged a lot of the wandering discussion from this thread.

Although there are no specific forum rules mandating common decency, I'd appreciate it if we could try to be a bit more sensitive to the feelings of other posters, especially where a fatality is involved.

Unless and until I'm overruled on this, I'm going to remove comments of that nature.

Also, let's try to keep the one liners and banter out of the more serious discussions in this forum. I'm reluctant to move all of the banter type threads to the Bonfire, because I've tried that before and it seems to lose a certain amount of the human interaction and flavor of the group. I'll continue to remove posts that I think are meaningless noise, and encourage everyone to remember that the primary purpose of this forum is to communicate--not to get your giggles at the expense of others.

Please respect that there are others here who really want to use this forum as a means for communication, and conduct yourselves accordingly.