Basejumper.com - archive

I've been working thru some material that documents the first 20 BASE jumps in Australia and preparing it for online archiving for all to see. Some of the stuff doesn't fit in the Aussie category and so I'll put it here as I come across it.

Shortly before Carl's death in 1984, Aussie skydivers Mark Hay, Trevor Yates, Steve Daskey and Peter Bran did a BASE tour in the US (I think this was after(?) Nic Feteris' US tour) and after having all their stuff stolen from their car during a jump, Carl and Jean put them up for a few nights and took them jumping. Mark describes to me a scene of much generousity and hospitality from the Boenish's. Mark and Carl had been previously in contact (scans of letters to be posted elsewhere soon) regarding the BASE scene in Aust (1982-83).

A word of much thanks goes to Mark Hay for his pics and interview and also to Anthony D. (Worm -OzBase55) his generous access to his collection of BASE history.

More later....

g.

(Click images to enlarge)

epic.
thanks for sharing...

Awesome!

Phil Smith had a couple of the original Handbury rigs, and they were more rectangular than that one..maybe there were different versions. I know that they came with a tertiary reserve on the belly. They were weird colors, like bright yellow and red. I am pretty sure that he scored them from Jean, but he might have had them made by Handbury.

I used them several times until I got my own sewed on a singer sewing machine on an old harness. Cost like 50 bucks. I gave it to John Hoover and he used it up until he died. Black sucker. All you could GET was black...

You wouldn't believe the crap we used. Of course at the time it seemed like NASA made it.

Hey Mr. 104, (MH). Great to hear from you. I looked up your BASE number to see if you were who I thought. Long time no see. About the early BASE rig from Hanberry, the first we saw was early 83 when Carl, Jean, Me, Randy and Smitty were going to CDC to do the first freefalls there. It was legal and we had an NPS permit. Carl brought 2 new Velcro BASE rigs that Jim H had just made. We looked at them, then Smitty and I asked Carl what if you had a real head down or head high opening, you'd have to rip a lot of velcro at slow speed from a 580 cliff. (Very low at that time, maybe the first freefalls from below 600). The rigs had no shrivel in the flap. We sort of thought about it and figured there had to be a way to let it slide, but we didn't invent the shrivel flap. We just noticed that if you were going to use velcro, you better do something about a vertical opeing. Then both Hanbury and Billy chappel in Tx. (Billy Lee also had ideas) came up with shrivel flaps and good Velcro Rigs were born, just in time for our train jumps.
Cliffleaper
38

Yep. I was informed of the shrivel flap straight off.

The advantage of velcro over a pin kinda bugged me. I still don't really get it, although I used mine quite a bit.

I agree. Even in 83,Randy and I told Smitty, Carl and others that a p;n still made more sense. Same pull pressure regardless of attitude. Velcro was nice crawling around on a tower since you could hear if your bridal caught something and stop before you were dumped. Nowadays, I still think curved pins are better since they pull at any angle, but we should put a velcro patch like some rigs have that make noise if the bridal gets caught so you have time to stop before it dumps.

Yeah, Rick, that is why I did 90% of my jumps on my old vector, packed in a bag with the slider down on occasion, and none of those newfangled line mods or tailpockets or that crap.

That stuff is dangerous. Look at how many people who have gotten whacked vs. back in the day when only a few got whacked.

I got a ton of pictures if you don't believe me.

And anyone who takes this seriously needs to go breathe some fresh air.