Basejumper.com - archive

This quote was buried in a thread in the technical forum. Research done by a long time and well respected jumper.

Just sayin...

How can, even a good, respected etc ... jumper say that : nobody knows how many BASE jumper are active in the world, and how many jumps are made. So all these stats are bullshit

Just a message for beginners, including myself, without quibbling over math.

I went on jump with three other people about a year ago...two of them have since died Basejumping. FWIW.

so statistically speaking (if we keep pulling them out of our ass) - jumping with you is bad for one's health ?

 

Yes. That is the exact point I was trying to make.

I've personally questioned the reasonability of this figure.

for example:

every year at BD over 400 people jump. that means over 20 will end up on The List. 20 new names is a significant percentage of the current list. then consider all the jumpers from the western US, Europe, etc. that don't travel to WV!

then think of all the folks who basically ONLY jump at BD, the potato, Kjerag, etc. BD typically has parade of "interesting" gear. it works well enough from 876 ft, and it is obvious most have little desire to jump anything else. these jumpers who limit themselves probably have a fairly low fatality rate. this implies a far HIGHER fatality rate amongst more active jumpers.

now, if you limit the analysis to those who have jumped all 4 objects, it starts becoming more believable. it really becomes a possibility if one limits the comparison to only those who have gotten a BASE number.

unfortunately, The List contains many people who never came close to having a BASE number...

I knew people that made The List. jumpers die all too often. far more suffer nasty injuries. BASE has extremely harsh realities. BUT 1 in 16? TomA should be mailing a lot of those infamous letters if that were the case.

Extrapolation,

Interpolation

A simple example would be to compare the BFL with the BASE number list.
If you click on the links you will see there are differing ways and varying degrees of complexity to extrapolate/interpolatate the known data to come up with a fairly accurate figure.
Hope this helps,
take care,
space

Wow that first prize PC sounds great......if you ever get the site going...I'm in

On a serious note, if narrowing down the stats to only BASE# holders, what about the loads of jumpers who never gave a shit about the # system but still go hard (there are plenty out there, I know several)? They should be included right, but are off the radar on any chat and/or list?

"How can, even a good, respected etc ... jumper say that : nobody knows how many BASE jumper are active in the world, and how many jumps are made. So all these stats are bullshit."

Such an estimation is often referred to as a 'Fermi Problem'; With a bit of logic and reasoning, one can quickly develop relatively accurate statistics.
And in this case, there is actually quite a bit of information to go on.

I'd definitely say that this isn't an exact figure, but I'm almost certain that it's reasonably close.

no actually this doesn't help at all : P.

the trouble is that in both instances you don't have a discrete (or countable) set or isolated points to start with. not to mention that your analysis is 5 years old.

statistics can be easily manipulated to produce whatever you are looking for. mr. 78rats seems to think yours are valid. maybe he's looking for a way out.

the real statistic is 1:2. fly til you die. the only discrete set you have is yourself. shit happens. beginners that think they want to BASE need to respect that.

http://www.blincmagazine.com/forum/wiki/Fatality_Statistics

I would reasonably believe that since the beginning of the BFL, there have been at least over 6000 jumpers worldwide that have 'gone hard' or made an acceptable amount of jumps to be included in the statistics. dont even have to have jumped all 4 objects to be part of this calculation. of course Excluding bd firsttimers or strictly BD jumpers, or people that made a few jumps then quit. Shit, a few people with 4 basejumps have got a basenumber and quit. so using the basenumber to basefatality ratio would be horrendously off.
there have been appx 160 fatalities since 1981.
if you went by basenumbers .. appx 1430 it would be about 1 in 10 die. thats false, unless you only look at it the way you want to..
based on more reasonable figures, 1 in 40 basejumpers dying sounds alot more realistic, but it could probably be more like 1 in 50.
theres many different ways to look at this statisic, but 1 in 16 is just plain wrong.

ook it up man. it was a bunch of work and there were plots and such involved in the post on dropzone.com. i recall that yuri_base and I were discussing on the forum.

the major assumption was that there is a vast difference in jump activity between occasional jumpers and very active jumpers. my best guess for very active jumpers back around 2005 was 2005 was 400 to 500 jumpers. i kept thinking, well how many active jumpers are there in my state, or this or that state... pretty small. then it grew a bunch considering the Brazilians, the French, Italians, Fins, Swedes, well hell, the Europeans, the Russians, some Israelis, Australians - gosh the sport is so international. If I could find that post, I would post it for discussion and constructive criticism. That's the way I roll. Discussion of ideas...

had trouble posting, therefore grammatical errors in last message.

so you knew the amount of jumpers in each state? did you research it or just guesstimate? i understand you know alot of jumpers, and could network to some extent, but i would just like to know the amount of actuality was included in your estimates?
by your logic, 400-500 in 2005. , lets say each year 50 quit and 300 begin, and out of those 300, only 100 stick with it and begin progression. thats adding more each year.
did you take these types of things into account? 'the revolving door of base' factor?

im interested in your studies, i just think they are slightly underestimated. if you find the links to the discussions you speak of, please share.

BTW, that hobo shite is cool man... respect! saw the video at last years BD

 

Stats go on to say that the remaining 15 out of 16 will also DIE. We are screwed however you add it up....

Br.J.Sports Med estimated it at 1/60 in 2008. Full of methodological holes and confounding variables but it's a start..........If fatality rates were the same as skydiving (and most would say it is higher), then if an average jumper did 300 jumps before dieing or retiring and the jumps/fatality was 30,000 then thats 1/100. You can play with the numerator/denominator and change risk rating......
BASE fatalities over total number of base jumpers ever gives a good measure, 150 (no idea of exact number of fatalities)/ people who have jumped, whether its a 1st or 1000th jump. Guess at a minimum its 2500 and maximum 10,000 gives a fatlity rate per particpant between 6% and 1.5%......And I am real happy with that (honestly, the 6% looks a little rough). But I am still happy..In fact so happy I'll go jump a building in KL next week, get sunburnt, develop a melanoma and die of a brain metastasis which carries a similar risk.

it seems it makes a lot more sense to say 1 in 1000 BASE jumps ends in a fatality than one in 16 BASE careers.

Does anyone know the statistics for foot-launch speedfly acro inverted wingsuit proxy kiting in anti-personnel minefields patrolled by landsharks? On fire?

Am I just totally funked?

"That doesn't make sense".

It does to sex panther! From my stats it works 80% all of the time! Sorry to all Anchormen!

it smells like big foots dick...