Basejumper.com - archive

 I found out that at the beginning of base most people used to jump with their skydiving rig (for exemple VectorII and Sabre 1..)
For terminal jumps - big walls- did it work well enough..?
Some of you might know more about that...

Ok-btw- what height does a Sabre 1 to get to full inflated at terminal? 150-200m? pretty much anyway- I guess

Maybe a couple decades ago. Don't BASE jump. But if you do use a BASE rig. A simple search would have yielded numerous threads saying why this is not a good idea.

I thought the same way so I did a search

Old skydiving canopies were bigger and more square.
Modern freefly friendly containers require more time
and air speed to properly deploy... hence you are
better off sticking with the Troll your profile lists.

Not sure about the Sabre1 but my Sabre2-120
definitely takes lots of time & airspeed to open.

ok- I am just wondering about how others have survived doing this way...

my Sabre 150 opened amazingly fast, which let me consider opening lower than certain, official guidelines.

still, it would be a poor choice for BASE. it's a 9-cell that would open, generally on heading, with no guarantees.

a lot of those main parachutes used back-in-the-day more resemble current BASE mains than skydiving mains.

why do some many eager newbies consistently want to re-invent the wheel?



ps
many survived but have the limps, bad joints, and metal to show for it. some do not... why risk it?

Just asking is not a mistake..
That's the reason this forum is made for..

you do realize questions like that get asked far too often?

we encourage people to read, lurk, and search before posting. it let's them fit in better and helps prevent them from asking the same questions.

asking the same, basic questions actually tends to drive away some of the more knowledgeable jumpers who would rather not read them, yet again.

BASE has no organizing body, and no rules. that means participants must have a high sense of personal responsibility, an inquisitive mind, and an eagerness to learn. these traits keep them alive and uninjured. potential newbies who lurk, search, and read demonstrate these abilities. those who attempt to re-invent the wheel do not, in general.

your actions will determine how well (and where) you fit in.

it's BASE, make your call and live with the outcome.

didnt you just break your back skydiving with a baserig?

  Thanks everyone for the kind advices! I try to learn as much as I can from others experience..so I do not intend to reinvent the wheel or repeat others mistakes..

I just watched a video on youtube with some people jumping in 1994 at Karskratind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=xy6PhR2hG88&feature=related
There I saw some having a Vector II container..I remember somebody asked about jumping a Stilleto in Base in some other post..
That is why I asked about Vector and Sabre...
I have my own base specific gear...I am not a kamikaze to "do one try or die"..
Yep, I had an accident last year ..but I'm almost recovered now

There are several reasons why people survived the early days of BASE using skydiving gear:

1) Unlike today, almost everyone who started BASE jumping was already a highly experienced parachutist, so they knew what they were doing with the gear.

2) They tended to jump from higher altitudes (back then, doing 350 feet was _rad_).

3) Skydiving gear in the late 1970s and early 1980s was very much like BASE gear today: Large, low-aspect ratiio 7-cells, big risers, and minimal riser covers, tuck tabs and other stuff that keeps rig closed at slower speed.

4) Much more deliberation. Back then, almost everything was a new site, or minimally jumped site, so everyone was much more cautious generally as they approached each jump, as opposed to an almost DZ-like atmosphere today at many sites.

5) Just doing it at all was showing off enough and cameras were few and far between enough that there wasn't as big an urge to do stuff beyond your skill and equipment level as there is today.

6) You also were not a DZ hero if you BASE jumped; the opposite, actually. Many jumpers were literally kicked off drop zones if word got out that they BASE jumped, or if they packed their BASE rig or talked about BASE jumping at the DZ.

All these things combined to make the BASE jump environment way different than it is today. If the people jumping today had to use the gear from the late 1970s and 1980s, most of them either wouldn't start, would quit quickly, or would die.

Having said all of this, I much - much - prefer today's environment because, showboats and silly people notwithstanding, the gear is way better, the sites more plentiful, and the sport more developed overall - and like other posters have said, there's no reason now to use skydiving gear when you can use BASE-specific gear... unless, of course, you get a wild hair to swoop a Triathlon off the Royal Gorge Bridge and forget to pack it before you jump...



44

Thanks for the kind and extremely detailed answer!
Now I have a better understanding of all that.

In the early days of Kjerag (1995-1996) it was very common that people jumped skydive riggs with big 7-cell canopies such as Ravens. It seemed to work well. There were a few jumps with less suitable canopies as well, remember seeing a Sabre 107 which probably wasn't the best choice for that site.

I jumped a modified skydive rigg with a Raven 4, even with a bag. Worked very well for 130 jumps off Kjerag. Not a single linetwist. Then I switched to a state-of-the-art BASE container with a FOX and started to get those multiple linetwists...

/Micke Nordqvist
Team Bautasten of Sweden
BASE 268

Kudos, thank you!

Dont woory dude, u get full instructions before you go for skydiving.