Re: [JSBIRD]
Hi Jay,
Boy, isn't it hard to believe that was 22 years ago! Where did the time go? Good thing you and I still look totally the same, LOL
.
That guy with the jet hat, his name Ron or something, was a very enterprising fellow. I think it was the next year, in '88, that he brought ten thousand small booklets he had printed up. They were BASE guides for the spectators. They actually were pretty good, and I still have one or two stashed away. They explained BASE in a way the spectators could understand. He sold them for 50 cents apiece and made a killing!
He was also the guy that was going around skydiving with his small dog. And he made the news a lot for that. I also seem to remember he got into some serious legal trouble a few years ago, but I've forgotten what that was all about now.
This was also the year Phil Smith, BASE 1, almost got killed when his slider-up Cruislite pretty much sniveled all the way to impact. That's him, and that jump, with the camera and doing a two-way with Nick Feteris in the opening scene.
String bridles were hot in skydiving in '87 and since most were jumping skydiving gear it's why you see so many of them in the vid. There were Velcro closed BASE rigs at the time, if you built one yourself, or had a skydiving rigger build one for you. But there was nothing commercially available at the time. And of course there were no BASE canopies yet.
All of us who were BASE jumping outside of Bridge Day did have long bridles and big BASE pilot chutes but we were still mostly jumping our skydiving rigs. In fact it wasn't until the next year when I got my first BASE flap rig from Todd (who later became Apex BASE) when he built one of his first ones for me.
But for the typical once a year Saturday jumper there were no rules for BASE specific gear, or rules of any kind really. About the only concession to BASE were some of them removed their deployment bags and most still used small skydiving pilot chutes and stock length bridles. Those of us on the Bridge Day staff knew this was a recipe for disaster but the fact was Bridge Day was already in it's tenth year or so, and well, so far so good . . .
There was no formal BASE instruction for first timers back then, however the BD staff would spend the day prior helping skydivers pack up for the jump. And we counseled them all on the virtues of using BASE pilot chutes but that advice fell mostly on deaf ears. Of course all that changed when Steve G. towed his skydiving pilot chute to impact right in front of everyone the next day. When Steve mounted the rail for his third jump of the day he was told again by the staff member running the launch point that his wasn't the hot setup. And that's when Steve uttered his famous last words. "Its always worked before."
Over the course of the next year we campaigned hard for a bigger pilot chute rule and actually ran afoul of the "No Rules for BASE" crowd, but we eventually got it. And if you were in the biz of building BASE pilot chutes and 9-foot bridles you turned a tidy profit from the sale of them over the next few years. In fact it can be said it was Steve's death that begat the entire BASE gear industry we know today. It was this early seed money (from the sale of big pilot chutes) that allowed guys like Todd, Adam, and Dennis to start purchasing the multiple sewing machines and the other equipment needed to set up proper shops.
To those of us (like me and you, Jay) that have been around for awhile it's easy to see what a gem Bridge Day was and still is. And probably how different this sport would have developed without it. These early Bridge Days, since they were legal and accessible to the masses, were the breeding grounds for hundreds, if not thousands, of future BASE jumpers. And without these new BASE jumpers the fledgling BASE gear manufactures would have faced a much smaller market for their products, and probably would have all folded up before they really got going.
Over the years we've seen it all at Bridge Day. We've seen BASE jumpers hauled off by federal agents at the rail. We've seen fights and arguments between BASE jumpers and Rangers and between BASE jumpers themselves. "Meet me at Bridge Day, you fucking bonehead," was a popular challenge between BASE jumpers back in those days. We've seen the registration fare rise from the $15 it was the first year I attended in 1985 to the $85 it is now. We've seen ourselves run Bridge Day with almost no outside support to the armed camp it's become now. (In the early days if we needed an ambulance we had to get on the phone and call one).
Over the years we've seen everything from weddings to bungee jumps, spectacular flights to spectacular mishaps. We've seen the brave, the foolish, and the just plain lucky. In the early days you could lean on the rail for an hour and see every BASE jumping mistake that's possible to make. In fact, one year I looked over at Moe Viletto and said, "Man, this place is a freaking F-One-Eleven laboratory!" His reply was, "Oh man, good thing this is a bridge and not a building. We'd need a giant squeegee to scrape off all the remains." We've seen countless river saves and a wingsuit make it pretty much all the way to the sand bar in freefall.
I'd say it was in the early 90s when things began to change for the better, skill wise, at Bridge Day. We went from putting on a circus to putting on a show. We went from first timers, and yes, even some experienced BASE jumpers, going ass over tea kettle to something that even folks who'd never seen a BASE jump before would call, "in control."
But there is one thing that never changes at Bridge Day. It's the joy and enthusiasm first timers feel after a successful leap. I've been to every kind of skydiving/BASE party you can imagine, but the Saturday night Bridge Day parties are, hands down, always the best of them all . . .
NickD
BASE 194
