Basejumper.com - archive

Hey friends, i'm Pat and i'm a 17 year old high school senior from Ohio. About a year ago i was just fucking around on the internet and came across infinitylist.com. I started watching the skydiving and base jumping videos and instantly fell in love with the sport and KNEW this is what i wanted to do in life. What really attracted me to the sport is the philosophy of squeezing every drop of joy out of life even if you can die in the process. Anyways, my ultimate dream is to make a living out of skydiving and/or BASE jumping. When i tell people about my dream (including my parents) they usually just tell me it's unrealistic and i should "look for a real job". I've done a lot of research on BASE for the past year so i understand it takes a long time and is very dangerous. So basically my question for anyone that can answer it is, how can i make a living out of BASE jumping? Whether it's film, sponsorships, ect.? Thanks

start at a skydiving center in an AFF lvl 1 class and forget about BASE for awhile

Also, get a real job. Or go to school.

They say giving head does the trick sometimes

thats a number one job of new ground crew

Wait, wait, wait. All of us on this forum are spending shit-tons (that's between imperial tons and metric tons) of money on this sport. So somebody, somewhere is getting rich off these shenanigans!

It really depends on what you consider "making a living". My first season of river guiding, I think I made less than $500 bucks. BUT, I made a living out of it. Weed, beer, and even some food sometimes is all a first year river guide needs anyway. I was living in a broken down school bus parked back in the woods and didn't have any bills, NONE! No cell phone, no internet, no worries. Man life was grand back in the day, but any way, I didn't mean to bore you to death.

Get into the industry. Make something new and exciting that will change BASE forever as we now know it.

Good luck, I can't wait to see what you will do.

That's actually sounds really fucking cool cause i love nature. Kinda reminds me of Chris McCandless haha. i would be stoked if i could find a job outdoors like that after college, even if it doesn't pay that much. But thanks for the advice, it gave me some ideas on what i can do for some cash.

Lots of college students make their way down to the rivers every year to guide during the summer months, no school, no reason not too. The problem is, they stay and never go back to school, They end up moving on to bigger, better rivers, they start climbing, then skydiving, then BASE, then they end up 42 years old, divorced, broke, bad shoulders from pushing rubber down the river all day. Bad forearms from climbing so much. They quit skydiving because they cant afford it anymore, especially when BASE is free. OOoops, there I go again, boring you to death.

Check out Boatertalk.com, there you will find a way onto the rivers! Good Luck!

If you seriously want to try to make some cash in parachuting, first take your AFF and get your license. Then learn how to pack. I think you can actually learn how to pack even without making a single skydive but don´t know if they´ll allow you to work as a packer if you´re not licensed. Anyway, packing is the first step to start earning cash. Then start packing tandems as soon as you are allowed as well. Live cheaply (live on a tent at the dropzone etc) and use all your money on jumps. As soon as you´re allowed to fly a camera, learn to do that. Start making video for tandems and AFF. More cash and you actually will be paid for jumping. Again live cheaply and use all your money on skydiving. Get an instructor rating (AFF and/or tandem) and start working as an instructor as well. At this point can be that a DZ will offer you a proper job and you start getting steadier income and you can maybe move out from your tent and buy / rent a trailer. Live again very cheaply, use your money on skydiving and become better skydiver. Maybe get a riggers ticket as well or if you become a really good skydiver you can start selling coaching jumps and be paid for that.

This all will mean depending on you 5-10 years on living cheaply on a tent / old crappy trailer next to a dropzone, blowing all your cash on jumps and paying the dues and getting the experience / ratings that someone will pay you for jumps. In the meanwhile as your friends are getting their university degrees and getting a nice house and steady income and driving their SUV to office every morning.

If there is a will there is a way, not saying which life is better but skydiving for work is hard work. I never wanted to do it (I drive my station wagon to office every morning) as I enjoy skydiving and BASE so much as hobbies that I rather get a normal job to pay the bills and enjoy jumping on my free time whenever I want, where ever I want and how ever I want.

Well i'm actually thinking about becoming a massage therapist, moving to California, and living in a small apartment while i get my skydives in. I'm planning of starting out with jumping as a hobby but my dream would be to go from it being a hobby, to getting really good at it and making a career out of it. Plus i'm smart enough to know that i'm young and i might change my mind down the line. But i know no matter how old i am, i won't be happy working in an office. I need adventure to really feel like i'm living. Thanks for the advice bud :)

Learn a skill you're likely to enjoy which has commercial value (there's a lot of profit in it), a high bar to entry (you need to do well at school and study for a long time, you need to apprentice for a few years, etc.), and limited competition.

Then start a career as an airplane mechanic, software engineer, medical doctor, electrician, or whatever else that means for you (you're going to spend more of your waking hours working than doing anything else and ought to choose something you like).

Skydiving does not count. While students spend hundreds of dollars an hour you don't get much of that - a low bar to entry (one could theoretically earn an instructor rating in 360 fun jumps (less than a year at a turbine drop zone)) and plenty of people willing to do it for fun and a little extra jumping money mean a lot of competition that will work for less than you'd want to live off of.

After that do whatever sort of hobbies you want however you want on vacations, weekends, mornings, lunch breaks, and/or evenings. Maybe that means renting a plane and flying for an hour instead of going out for lunch a couple days a week, skydiving most weekends, BASE jumping other weekends, and sometimes chartering a helicopter for foreign big wall BASE trips.

You'll have a lot more fun than guys hauling tandem passengers and making the same student training jumps over and over again each weekend because they must to put food on the table.

Especially after you get injured. You can still drive a keyboard and get your full paycheck with a broken leg, and where things are really dicey disability insurance paid for with pre-tax dollars can completely replace your wages (you only get 60%, although it's not taxed and without federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, state income tax, etc. it works out the same). This compares favorably to moving to a friend's couch and eating Top Ramen until you (hopefully) recover.

Optionally invest 20% of each pay check and retire in 25 years with passive income replacing your wages.

Simple things (buy a smaller home, buy 3-year old cars that have lost most of their value and drive them into a ground) which do not appreciably affect your quality of life can make a big difference there. Delaying your move beyond the "college student" lifestyle with house mates, a $500 car, etc. can help a lot too.

Anything you must do repeatedly for work how your boss wants you to is much less fun than when you do it for fun, as frequently or infrequently as you care to, however you want.

I've known "professional" (no other source of income at least in the warm season) skydivers that no longer seemed to enjoy themselves and would be surprised that more didn't end up that way if I could point to more than a couple that made it to 50.

Oh yeah, the beginners.... um, o k a y

Dude, you are asking BASE jumpers how

to make a living jumping? Why not just

ask the Colonel (not kernal) for his recipe?

The office gig ain't so bad. I'm a mining engineer and am really stoked about the interesting work that I do. Additionally, the boss man agreed to let me write off part of my BASE trip to south america this winter if I take a potential Brazilian client out to lunch, shake some hands and pass out some brochures.

I'd like to reiterate Drew's message on injuries too. I broke my femur jumping some years ago. Was back at the desk making mo money 9 days after having a (fully paid for by insurance company) titanium rod driven into the busted leg. NOt too shabby.

Choose your path and go for it with gusto!

My advice: do some skydives, then buy as soon as possible a Wingsuit do some wingsuit jumps. Then start to base jump, don't waste your time by doing boring slider down or tracking jumps, try to start as soon as possible to jump your wingsuit of a cliff. also try to start doing proxiflying as soon as possible. I admit, you will live in a danger zone for a while, but you will learn by doing. and if you go realy realy hard without going in, you will be ready to compete in the World Wingsuit League, win super high price money, be a superhero and get real rich

"You two really are cowboys."

"What's your problem, Kazanski?"

"You're everyone's problem. That's because every time you go up in the air, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous."

"That's right! Ice... man. I am dangerous."

Excellent advise Mikki_ZH for this young, energetic, high school senior. With events like this he really can make a living basejumping...that's swell.

Taken directly from the article:

"the prize money will be significant. [The amount] is still being discussed, but it will be significant."

Oh no I guess the 'extreme' insurance will not cover you now:

"It will be the first time these athletes will be able to earn money from something like this"