Basejumper.com - archive

 
so I've searched the forums and read what I've found. I'm not about to ask if I can wingsuit base for my first base (cant see a scenario where that sounds like a good idea) but I do have some questions.

for me personally, the interest in base is wingsuit base. That doesnt mean that I want to do it right off the bat, and I'm sure I'd have fun doing a regular base jump, but everyone has their personal draw to the sport and wingsuit base is mine. (I've always had a facination with airplanes since I was a kid, and something about a wingsuit turning me into the airplane is a big draw.

I started skydiving when I saw a video online with wingsuits and needed to try it, so I started skydiving and got my suit (now suits) and pretty much havent taken it off since i started.

because my interest is bigwalls I worry about an offheading into a building or antenna in my attempt to get current enough to try wingsuits on a bigwall, as one of the draws to wingsuit base is being able to get away from the walls before pulling. living on the westcoast of north america I dont know of any bigwalls to use as practice (as in tracking jumps before wingsuiting) which leaves bridges.

Now, I'm not closed minded enough to shut out everything else completely. maybe I'll do a bridgeday, and decide I want to do a lot of base from every object I can find, but I'm just trying to see what my options are based off my current draw to the sport which brings me to gear.

If I buy gear I'd like it to be focused for what I'll end up doing, something low profile for terminal/wingsuit jumps. but as I know there is different gear for different needs, does this give me gear thats no good for doing my jumps to get familiar with base? do options that would work for both exist or is this a case of needing a starter rig to get into base then a wingsuit specific when I'm ready for that?

my goal would be to attend a bridgeday/base camp and then get experience locally, eventually taking a month or a few months off work and head out to where the big walls live.

I get that people post this kind of crap so they can weed out the 20 "dont do it man" and find the 1 "fucking go for it dude" and convince themselves they have their answer, so I'm trying to avoid that. I'm trying to see if theres a progression that would reduce the types of risks I'm not as interested in to get to my goal.

I'm curious how you might suggest to progress in my situation? I know that a lot of people would suggest its called b.a.s.e. for a reason and that I'm either trying to skip ahead or ignoring a part of the sport that they might love. For me jumping 180 feet off a tower just doesnt have the risk/reward (funny how some things feel more acceptable)

I guess what I'm trying to balance, is that in order to gain the experience needed to wingsuit base, I need to expose myself to a few risks that are reduced once I start wingsuiting. (180's into buildings, really low altitude pulls, etc) doesnt mean its not valuable to get that experience.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af1OxkFOK18

http://www.basekjerag.com/

You answered some of your own questions.

Gear
====
If you are going to jump locally your gear has to be normal low altitude gear(it works with a wingsuit but not the other way around for a wingsuit specific rig). You will be in a better position to make choices regarding your wingsuit specific rig once you have made that month/two month long trip to the big walls.



Do your FJC at Kjerag and stay there for the entire month.

if you do that, make sure you are in top shape before making it out there, that hike is brutal!

My buddy has a razor with a seven in it. We jumped from 300 today and quite often. Opens a little funny with an accordion effect, but i wouldn't say it doesn't work the other way around. Surely not the best option option for low stuff, but doable if it's what ya got.

This coming from the kid who could barely make the 500' hike out of Twin.

To the OP:
Your goal is totally doable. You want to do as many dead-air exits as you can before you try them zipped into your nylon bodybag. The best way to do this is the Potato Bridge with a traditional FJC and a month to get 50 jumps. Get a tracking suit for your first bigwall jumps so if you do have an unstable exit it won't end you. If you don't get addicted to bigwall tracking you can start flying your wingsuit soon afterwards.
As for gear, the feather from Asylum can be jumped slider up or down and packs up nice and small.

Do as many wingsuit plane,balloon, heli jumps as possible.Hundreds...
There are planty of norwegians and euro's that have only jumped terminal cliffs.
Whats in the name "BASE"? it's just a name, no rules apply. If you only want to jump cliffs, call it cliff jumping...

I had not heard of the Seven or kept up with developments in gear as I have been doing other tings. After reading up a bit. I see where the confusion is from.

An LD2 with a Feather, Trango or a Fox/FliK ultralite is what I consider to be a wingsuit specific rig. A Razor/Seven in my mind is not a wingsuit specific rig. It is just a sensible choice(if the canopy size is appropriate) for a first tracking/wingsuit rig.

Personally I'd say that for wingsuit BASE you want to be a wingsuit skydiver first and foremost. Being experienced in BASE is secondary - at least for getting started. Having 150 jumps from buildings won't help you too much if you have a wobbly exit in a wingsuit!

Get enough wingsuit skydives until you feel like it's just an extension of you. 200 may be a good number. Do at least one balloon jump with the wingsuit on.

You can get experience of BASE in parallel, but you should focus on slider up jumps, preferably terminal tracking. Get used to wearing (and using!) a tracking suit if you can. I'd say 50 slider up BASE jumps (so your actual total will most likely be higher) would be a reasonable minimum.

Do your first wingsuit BASE jumps from a big cliff like those in Kjerag; you have time on the exit, the edge is nice and solid and the cliff itself is conveniently overhung. Be realistic with your jumping; you should progress slowly (regardless of how good you think you are) to lower and / or more positive jumps.

Others - feel free to add / disagree.

 

thanks for the responses guys, I've got over 300 wingsuit jumps and feel extremely comfortable in my suits (though I am aware that 300 isnt that large a number in the scheme of things). I've been on the record wingsuit bigways (which I know people give flack for falling not flying, but it definatly helps for fine adjustments in flight) and I've got a gps setup when I'm flying solo to try and refine my glide ratio and get my best times while skydiving (so I'm not a mattress), so far 3:10-3:40 is repeatable from 12500ft and I'm getting 120-140mph forward speeds logged on my gps for those flights.

I'm at the gym 3 times a week and play soccer, snowboard, kitesurf, downhill mtb, and would make sure to be in shape before attemping repeated climbs for bigwall camps.

I've done some balloon jumps in arizona and will be getting more in before trying bigwall. (had clean launches the first few)

the gear question was mainly to see if I could do a bridge day (or equivalent)with a gargoyle helium, razor, or one of the slightly less profile base rigs with a troll or something to get started before making my way to a bigwall fjc. I'm 6'3" and 190lbs so I think I could still get a canopy size to fit into some of the reduced profile rigs.

thanks again for the info

Assuming a deployment altitude of 3000', the worst L/D for 3:10@120mph is 3.52, the best L/D is 4.76(3:40 sec flight@140mph) .

haha well that sounds a bit optimistic doesnt it. I'll have to download the gps logs when I get home.

I've got the garmin edge and it displays my max speed (not average, so I'm not saying its that speed the whole flight) on the screen but doesnt show much else until I download it into paralog.

my neptune for last weekend at the boogie had three flights

3:40 (neptune shows 13,000 for this one so we must have got extra alt)
3:12
3:08
the fastest speed from any of those flights was 135mph
with two other flights showing 118mph and 108 mph

I looked back at some other tracks previous to that weekend and they were showing in the 104-120mph on the edge

because the gps calculates altitude I'm not sure if its showing track across ground speed or true speed in the angular velocity I'm traveling. Anyone with an edge know what the max speed readout it gives you is?

deployment shows 1600' on my neptune

is that more in line with what your expecting?

Yes you can. One option you would probably also want to look into is the Hybrid2 from adrenalinbase. A friend of mine jumps Hybrid with Troll inside (both SU and SD) and with the floorplate closing loop it closes up very nicely and has very low profile as well. Also the rig is noticeably lighter than for example standard gargoyle.

http://adrenalinbase.com/...amp;T=equip&E=65

Your flying numbers are for the most part irrelevant for starting BASE. The technique to jumping and flying in dead air will be like starting from scratch in some respects. What is important is being comfortable in the suit, knowing the finer controls. Sounds like you have a good handle on that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZizIbSpI-g