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I was asked how many proximity incidents there have been recently and off the top of my head I said 3 but have there been more?

#98 Tony "Coombesy" Coombes - May 27, 2006 NORWAY
#115 "Stevo" Stephen Richard Anderton - Aug 14, 2007 NORWAY
#123 Yoann Lizeroux - Jul 01, 2008 SWITZERLAND

DW was arguably also proxy.

Tigern in Norway lasy year?

For some advice on flying proxy see this thread: http://www.basejumper.com/...te_username=FatSnake

The Baffin Island fatality in 2007

If you count "skydives" then Obi's death should be counted as well.

Stefan "Obi" Oberlander died during a wingsuit jump from a paraglider on the island of El Hierro on April 22.

His plan was to jump from the paraglider and fly his wingsuit over a small hill above the normal landing area. He got his suit flying as normal within a couple of seconds, but after making a turn towards the hill to set up for the pass he didn't have enough altitude to clear the hill safely. He deployed early, and had line stretch and probably 65% canopy inflation before 'landing'.

http://www.dropzone.com/...um.cgi?post=2788105;

 
Yes, proximity flights regardless of the launch point.

8 wingsuit fatalities total in just 1.5 years (from #112 May '07 to Nov '08).

More is coming, as lots of footage in the last couple of years clearly shows the new wave of jumpers who take wingsuits off cliffs without learning them in skydiving first: you see terrible wobbling and potato chipping, unstable pulls, unintentional low pulls...

Couldn´t agree more! Take your time! The walls are not going anywhere!!

Be safe

#909

Yuri, Id be interested as to what you think is a good number of ws jumps is, both in a skydiving and base environment, before you proximity fly, or before you ws base in general.

remember!! here numbers does not mean anything!!

Point well taken, but its always interesting to hear different opinions of some of the more experienced guys. JT might say 10 jumps and go for it, yuri thinks a lot more definitely. I remember seeing Dwayne Weston, king of the aerial, say something like before someone goes upside down on a base jump they should have 200 jumps.

actually, I am/was (still am) quite conservative approaching proximity wall buzzing really close. I first jumped a wingsuit off of mountain in 04 and it was just this summer and fall of 08 that i really started to see the lines and fly 'em like the good guys... and even still, the best flyers do way radder lines.

its like robi said, numbers dont matter here. if you see the lines and you know your suit, your skills, and you know you've got it, party. I think a lot of the close flying stuff happens spontaneously, you get into a flight and see you something and charge it.

it does not really seem like there has been much accidents with proximity flying. those who are really doing it the most and the best are very skilled flyers that are dialed in and doing consistently rad hard core things. they are not low jump number wonders with big attitudes.

editted for grammer

 
There are very few people who regularly fly proxy (at the moment) so for me the # of incidents is high.

I agree it is hard to put a number on the jumps recommended but for the average mortal flyer it should be a lot.

I agree JT, its mainly about if you can understand the lines and what a suit does in sertain situations. I think Stevos accident tells a lot about this. Its easy to think that you are doing nice carved turns that doesn't "slide" or loose altitude. The suit is still a fabric suit with a long way to perfection.

The main rule is to never fly in to things you cant recover from in a bad spot. Like the old rules from Espen/FatSnake, dont fly up to things jsut down to things. Its the same horisontally. Dont fly into things that you cant fly out from.

To do radical turns and corrections make you loose altitude... a lot! If ou are going close as hell, be sure to buzz it where you either have a vertical drop under your self. Or that you have a straigt line with a stable flight for at least 3-5 seconds before the buzz. Not like Joan and Dwain who flew in, doing turns and flying on breake.

Its all about control and knowledge. You cant get that from numbers of jumps, its about understanding you suit and the reactions. Reading the enviroment and start safe and slowly go towards more hard core lines. Nobody celebrates you after your dead. Flying cool lines its all about your self, most often people cant see your line. so take it easy and be sure to have jumped the mountain a lot before.

In the end a good rule for all hard core jumping.. allways fly/jump/do 80% of your abilityes. You might need those extra 20% when shit happends.

in reply to "Reading the enviroment and start safe and slowly go towards more hard core lines................... so take it easy and be sure to have jumped the mountain a lot before. "
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This must be THE best advice. Too many inexperienced people seem to think they can skip the in-between steps. Do inexperienced people even know there ARE in-between steps?


in reply to "In the end a good rule for all hard core jumping.. allways fly/jump/do 80% of your abilityes. You might need those extra 20% when shit happends. "
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Not to split hairs here as I believe your advice is very positive. ..especially for any would-be hard-core pilots . Sadly when the real shit happens 20% may not be enough for any-one.

Safety margins may be drastically increased if the wingsuit & wingsuiter had enough performance at 50 -60% input to do the job rarely if ever needing 100 or even 90 %.
ie if they were flying mostly mid-range as opposed to mainly upper range.
This would allow plenty of room for good acceleration to 100% as well as still being able to readily decelerate if necessary.

At 50-60% input flying is much more relaxed if perhaps less efficient with current WS's.
When more relaxed other senses are wider enhancing overall awareness which tends to naturally increase safety margins.

If you are already going 80% you are approaching maximum without much more to give and your senses may be narrower due to extra input effort. Added to that, to achieve 100% with most WS's you may have to take your eyes off the flight line just when you really need to see where you are going . I suppose flying like that really is hard-core.

This % attitude difference is apparent in BGSteve and Coombsies deaths . They were already flying up near maximum until there was just no % room left.

''This % attitude difference is apparent in BGSteve and Coombsies deaths . They were already flying up near maximum until there was just no % room left. ''

well, don't be so sure about your conclusion!
For Coombsies death no one is really sure what was the reason as nobody really saw it, so we all can just speculate forever..
Stevo's case..
You are not right here at all. Unfortunately, Stevo did mistake way before he hit the ground. Even boost of power up to 200% would not be enough to get himself out from very unfortunate situation were he put himself :(

Im not sure what you meen with your % attitude. Either you think that one should fly on 50-60% of your abilitys, strictly when it comes to the risk your taking, but still as fast and hard as you can. OR you think that one should fly in about 50-60% of your speed, to create an easier enviroment to see dangers and to be able to fix mistakes in time.

Im not sure excactly what was your conclution, but this is my opinion, It might be close to what you said but anyway.


Never fly slow just to be safe. Flying slow on purpouse is just unsafe, flying slow is stalling or pushing the breake on your wing. Allways fly agressive and as fast as your suit can go. The suit is made for a speed and a sertain amoutn of preassure. Use this and fly the suit the way its suppose to fly.

Though The 20% Im talking about is the risk and you need to lower your risk with 20%. For excample , If you know you can fly 5 meters from the wall, take a step back and fly 15 meters from the wall. You will probably have a ride of your lifetime, If you fly on 5 meters you will be scared shitless and probably say to your self, "oh fuck that was sooo close" then brag about it in the bar later....

just be a grown up and say to your self that its ok to go 80%.

its just a hint how to survive a little longer.

Robi and Martin: This is a really good discussion. It is from what I read, a potential lifesaving discussion.

As far as we know after some years of proximity flying, the two keys are (1)a good flight plan from exit to landing, and (2)putting a margin into that flight plan. How to actually fly with a good margin has been described before in this discussion.

Thanks, buddies. Lets welcome the summer:)

The question is, are we living as we teach?

But as you say Espen, the plan is esential in the jump. And so is the margin.

Though. Are we allways fly as we planned, or do we sometime just fly and then play with the enviroment on a new cliff? Are we allways giving us the margin...even on well known jumps?

I would say that we don't. And this is one part of the truth about safety in proximity flying. Even the ones who preach for margins and planning aren't allways doing it them self.

This is one important part of the safety work one should do for them self. Not only should yoube a good flyer with a solid tecnique. You should plan, give margins AND soul search your own beaviour.

Its just as important to understand your own weekness. One weak beaviour is to fly by the rules even if you are experienced.

Other than that, the method of surviving is simple. follow the rules of aproaching the flight, the mind set and take a critical look on your own beaviour, and you will have a greater chans on surviving another year.

See you in the summer Espen!