Basejumper.com - archive

I am new to this forum and am interested in base jumping. I have not base jumped but have skydived, which I have been out of for decades. I was on the sport parachute team at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point back in the 70’s and was considered a top competitor. All of our coaches there were former Special Forces and Golden Knights. I have several hundred jumps (I forget exactly how many ~400), an SCS, SCR, C license, and a jumpmaster rating. The last jump I made, I think was a military static line type at Ranger school. When I got out of the army, I no longer made any jumps.

I learned on an MC1-1 (modified T-10), jumped Para Commanders, then mini-rounds (ouch!), then StratoStar and SratoCloud squares.

I have several questions about base jumping:

1. Is it legal? If it’s not, then disregard the following.
2. Where can I get specific base training?
3. Is there an association like USPA for base jumping.
4. Is any of the equipment specialized, or is it all pretty much the same as for skydiving?
5. Are there group excursions organized to different locations?
6. Who here has jumped Las Golodrinas?

I am located in Houston.

Thanks,

Z

P.S. I am reading through these articles posted here. What a great resource! Looks like I will need about a year of preparation.

Many places it's legal to jump on public lands. Some freedom loving states let us jump off their bridges. Some companies run organized, invitation only events for publicity. Countries less litigious and backwards than the US let us fly chartered helicopters in their national parks to the tops of cliffs which we then jump off.

There have been legal jumps off all five object categories.

Trespassing is never legal. People making spectacles of themselves have gotten laws passed in some locations. Some nanny governments don't want people to have a good time. National park rangers enforce the prohibition on aerial delivery due to an old grudge. If your local geography does not have an abundance of suitably high and overhung cliffs which aren't in National Parks chances are you'll either be travelling, taking chances (very low objects like fire trucks have been jumped), or breaking laws.


Many of the gear manufacturers and Tom Aiello have courses at a popular legal bridge.


No. There are organized efforts to get BASE jumping treated like other out door sports such as rock climbing and hang gliding.


All specialized. Do some research.


A few. Jay Epstein runs excellent trips down in Mexico with van service, lodging, and helicopter charter all included.

Organized events where you get there yourself are more common - like at the big bridge in Colorado, the big bridge in West Virginia, Rotterdam, Kuala Lumpor, China, the Norwegian Heliboogie, etc.

Sometimes local jumpers organize events like the BASE Race in Norway.


It was fun.

Drew,

Thanks you for taking the time to reply, and doing it so quickly.

I will be doing more research on this when I get back to the US (Houston). I am overseas right now doing oilfield work.

Meanwhile, this website it appears to be a great resource for me to surf.

Cheers,

Z