Basejumper.com - archive

Can I start this now?

Just wondering, how many "legal" jumps total in the history of this legal "19 day" event?

-A

Well, it's actually more than "19 days." That was only between fatalities, and the first Bridge Day was held in 1979, so it's "27 days."

From 1979 to 1982 there were only a handful of jumpers. Then Carl Boenish wrote an article about Bridge day and the number of jumpers started to grow in 1983. Jason Bell may have some better numbers but here goes . . .

In 84 there were 563 jumps made and could be considered the first "big" year. The rest of the years are as follows. Note: Most of the years Jean Boenish was organizing the amount of jumpers allowed to register was 300. This number slowly rose over time as BASE jumpers became more proficient at packing and jumping.

85 – 650
86 - 450 (Approximate)
87 – 450 (Approximate)
88 – 450 (Approximate)
89 – 50 (Jumping was cancelled due to bad WX)
90 - 400
91 – 550 (Jeans last year as organizer)
92 – 450 (Approximate)
93 - 450 (Approximate)
94 – 450 (Approximate)
95 – 450 (Approximate)
96 – 450 (Approximate) (Andy Calistrat's last year as organizer)
97 – 500 ((Approximate)
98 – 500 (Approximate)
99 - 500 (Approximate)
00 – 500 (Approximate)
01 – 0 (Cancelled due to 9/11 attacks. Bridge Day Ass's. last year of organizing)
02 - 745
03 - 836
04 - 645
05 - 829
06 – 804

Throw in another 100 jumps (a generous estimate) for the years before 1984 and it comes to approximately 11,075 jumps. If you want to go further and throw in all the bandit jumps made, I don’t know, another 1000 maybe?

Don’t gig me on the math, I did this kinda fast . . .

NickD
BASE 194