Basejumper.com - archive

June 2007. Three-way: All three flew into a gorge and had to pass a ledge on their way out. All three was low (0-10 meters), and almost flew into a situation without exit-possibilities. One touched vegetation on the ledge while turning hard and flattening angle of flight.

This is the most serious situation among those I jump with so far, but I have experienced similar situations three times earlier: The surprise of how fast I am about to put myself in a fatal position during proximity flying. It can be compared with an inexperienced skydiver who are trying to catch up with his group. Suddenly he passes the group in high speed. Just like the inexperienced skydiver, I can`t see my speed until I am very close.

All incidents has occurred while having to fly above or away from hazards. I have earlier mentioned the rules of only flying (1)down to ledges(etc) or (2)turning towards ledges(etc), instead of flying above (changing angle of flight to get above) or turning away from ledges(etc).

I hope to hear some comments regarding this subject.

Espen

Hey Espen.

THat sounds fuckin scary. And yeas as you say proximityflying is becoming more popular and more refined for every day. In the same time it becomes very(!) dangerous in a way we never seen before. look back and we see several events when proxiflying among cliffs have both been fatal and attended in close calls.

My self have on ocations had situations where I found my self closer than I wanted or expected. Soo far I have allways flewn by the rule of NEVER fly close above an obsticle, always on the side. THis have saved me many times. Maybe that brings me away from the coolest places but still, I think that is one of the major points of surviving in the long term.

I cant give any smart wors but this is probably the most horrifying story I heard.

I had a scary moment on Bispen two weeks ago. I flew very close to the road ant the last second before the road I felt my self in a possition about 2 meters closer than I planned. This sounds small but when you play with 1-2 meters away from obsticles you need to be firm in your dicipline and YOU NEED TO KNOW THE TERRAIN

I still agree with your words Espen. fly DOWN to ledges, dont fight to get "up" to a ledge. Also Allways keep energy in your suit enough to left your self in the flight. A bigger suit helps with saving your ass on ocations. small suits have a ability to "fall through" sometimes while in trouble.
Allso fly straight towards obsticles and make your turns in free air and give your self time to aim.

Turning a wingsuit will make you loose energy, will make you loose altitude and will make you side-glide a littele.

Espen, what cliff where you flying???
What route did you take?

The exit was Katthammaren. We flew "jumpers right" for a while. Turned 180 degrees and towards the backside of the tree-island. I saw we would get to low a brooke off. My two jumpmates kept on going. They both passed the three-island in almost stalled flights. I was also low (and got surprised), but luckily I had an eye on that tree-island during our flight back again.

When the popularity of WS BASE increased a few years ago we saw a spike of WS incidents. Maybe we are now experiencing a similar trend as proximity / terrain flying becomes popular... as we are still learning the rules and best way to start this new sub-discipline.

hi james,...not maybe....
we will for sure...unfortunatly...

we try swoop as "close" as we can and when we do it, we get "comftable" with it...
get a strange feeling of saftey..."i can handle it"
only when you ever get the feeling" shit, that was to close" you realize how fast things happen...
everything looks slow and smoth and suddenly...bang!!!
before you couldnt imagine how fast things happend and nobody belives you....
everybody who trys this must be aware that he is simply doing cool, but sick shit....
we have no afterburner

its funny,...tracking gears and WS gave us the possibility to get far away from danger...and what is our concluesion?
we Fly as close as we can get....
we are strange, arent we?

it appears to be another example of how we reduce certain risks only to accept new risks...

hello everyone
i hope people will listen to espen and martins posts, they are 2 of the most onto it big wall base jumpers on this planet. when they speak, we all need to listen. i have spent 12 months of my life in kjerag, norway, and although i am not an experienced wingsuit pilot, i have done alot of proximity tracking on these walls. there are great videos out there of proximity flying, both wingsuit and tracking but i dont think people fully understand how long it takes to learn these skills safely. it took me and coombesy 3 years to be able to stay close to the wall in kjerag. just a little at a time over and over again, learning every inch of the terrain to make sure we would be safe through out. coombesy went on to do similar stuff in romsdale, and although we will never no what exactly happened, he did die close proximity flying before he totally knew the terrain.
please be caeful everyone. i love being close to the rock at terminal but is it really worth losing your life for. steve was an amazing guy and very talented but this one mistake has cost him his life and many of us have lost another friend. it is becoming all to common.
please listen to people like hans, espen, martin and the other few super experienced close proximity pilots.
it will save yours and your friends life
shine on
douggs

very well said.
It is fun, it is cool but it is also very risky. Here numbers of jumps does not really count. The maturity does!!! Flying suit in terrain flying has not so much w standard flying, so better get to know your suit very very well before you even think of try it.
Next rule would be not to rush w this game. Check w well informed and experiance jumpers what is good place to start.

robibird

"The maturity does!!! "

yes robi, thats right...many of us act like bulletproof kids ....
with shocked eyes and crying when they realize that this is not a videogame...


the wried thing is that even when you konw this, you go on....

I agree with most things here. Taking this to the level where Robi just took it.

Main rule is to know your terrain before you go into real proximity. MOuntain and cliffas are not formed by man. It is structures created in many unlogical ways. There is no way to meassure whit the eye , how amountain side is built. You can not learn a wall fraom videos or a couple of jumps, you need to spend time in an area.

And even thoug Espen and his friends knew the area around Katthammaren htey still failed in meassure the distance to an obsticle, mainly because they took a new route or saw the obsicle from a new angle.

Anyway. most of the jumps you dee on the internet made by experienced big wall flyers are a mix of expericence, time, knowledge about the wings you are flying and offcource a mix of balls, luck and awearnes.

If you are interested in doing cool flights from big walls, make sure that you have a plan. Dont go with the flow and just do it (if you want to survive) Try to put up a plan ad create it from knowledge and humble awearness about your self and the enviroment yopu are about to attack.

How come we die from big walls more often than small slider down walls? I gues sbecause we have no idea about how big walls are formed and we trust in the altitude to save us. But hey people, it doesnt matter if we are jumping fropm 1800 meters if we are flying at 10 meters above the cliffs.

As I said before. Keep your self on the side of objects, dont fly close above ledges. Know the angle of attack of your wing, keep energy in your wing, keep skydiving (even though it sucks ass) and be honest about your level. Be honest to your self. Jumping a wing suit from a clif with a 6 seconds to impact , then flying 5 meters abopve undiscovered ground is not Ok. even for a very experienced proxy wingsuit flyer. remember this.

have fun, stay cool and take your time