Re: [elduderino] accident-/death-ratio? how many active basejumpers?
Those above are correct. It's hard to boil some things down to numbers. You can do it broadly with certain things like single bullet Russian Roulette but BASE jumps are singular and differing events one to another.
Even jumps at the same site are different because of WX, pack job, gear variance, type of jump performed, and jumper state of mind. So instead of looking at the "one out of whatever numbers" I've resorted to looking more at the currency vs. safety equation. And in BASE I've come to the conclusion it's backwards to almost anything else.
In almost anything else the more you do it the better you'll be at it. But in BASE I've come to the conclusion the increase in skill level that comes with very frequent jumping isn't worth the extra exposure to the inherent dangers.
I think in the beginning you need to hit on it regularly until you attain a certain level of expertise but then you should slow down. That point is different for everyone but it's when you stop learning big time on every jump and start doing BASE more just for the fun.
(Yes, I know you never stop learning, blah, blah, blah, but you know what I mean).
BASE is like full scale thermo-nuclear war in that the only guaranteed way to survive it is not to engage in it. But add in a little skill, a big dose of common sense, and don't do it too much, and it becomes limited thermo nuclear war and that is survivable, but you may not escape completely damage free.
I'm older now, but even when I young and just starting BASE I was following this logic without realizing it. I'm perfectly satisfied to travel across the country, to say Bridge Day, and makes a single jump. But I hear folks grumbling they only got three in and could have made more if the line was moving faster, they had packed faster, or the WX was better, etc.
And if a group of us were out camping at some middle of nowhere site I'll make one jump, maybe two, while everybody else was doing five and six a day. I made peace with myself early in my BASE career that I was only going to get so good at it and that's it. I'll never be a Jeb, or a Slim, or a Dwain as far as skill level. I'm more a Joe Sixpack type of BASE jumper, I'm certainly competent, but plain vanilla as far as "wow" factor goes.
And it was demeaning sometimes, not because anyone would say anything about it but it was hanging in the air. Driving home in the van we'd count up the total number of jumps we made. "I got twelve," one would begin, "Fifteen for me," said another, "Twenty right here baby!" exclaimed the third person. And then the moment I dreaded. "How many did you get, Nick?"
"Ah, I did five . . . "
But I didn't really care. BASE is what it is to you, or it isn't yours at all.
And I don't like irony in BASE. I don't like the fact that Carl Boenish, the man who popularized BASE jumping, died doing it. I don't like the fact that Dwain, the man who showed how to think outside the boxman, died doing it. I don't like the fact that Dick Pedely, who survived over six thousand skydives back in a time hardly anyone had that many, died on his 26th BASE jump. And I don't want to add to the irony be being the man who keep track of BASE fatalities and then wound up on his own List.
In talking to Jim Wallace, a skydiver with over 10,000 skydives, he'll say, not much surprises him in the sky anymore. And when he does have a problem it's not so much what is this? It's more like, oh well, this is it. He knows which side of the numbers game he's on . . .
So sure, we all have to BASE jump at our own pace. Just be careful about getting too comfortable with it . Sometimes, like an alluring member of the opposite sex - it's better to keep a little distance. And as my reflexes are getting slower and my mind probably dimmer I still have more BASE jumps in me, but, I'm doling them out even slower now and enjoying them more.
So don't give your Mom numbers, just tell her the same thing early aviators told their Mothers. "Don't worry Mom, I'll fly very low and very slow . . ."
NickD
