Basejumper.com - archive

According to www.20min.ch a 57yr old French male jumper lost his life at High Nose
http://www.20min.ch/...s-bernoises-14606680

via Google translate:

A base-jumper was killed in the Bernese Alps

A French 57 years died late Wednesday morning in a parachuting accident. The man, who practiced base-jump with a friend "High Nose" in Mürrenfluh, lunged first, but never arrived at the agreed meeting point, explains the Bern cantonal police .

Rescuers recovered the unfortunate at the foot of the cliff. The causes of the accident remain unknown.

That makes 200

Does anybody know the type of jump (track/ wingsuit) or any other details?

WS, Pierre Grazon, few details on French forum. Poor exit, no attempt to deploy.

http://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/...oxe-en-deuil-1327526

This is not the same Pierre who was local to ITW in his camper last year as was incorrectly reported on FB

this is NOT the guy that build the camper himself, touring europe for a year or so?

There is a photo in the link i posted that should clarify things.

http://www.base-jump.com/...c,4779.msg16703.html

Pierre Grazon, Second WS jump. Good weather conditions. Exit "not too good". Apparantly a no-pull, only trying to get stable as he was found not too far from the wall.

Second WS jump total? In snow from the high nose?

No, second WS jump of the day
Yes, slippery exit in snow

Ah, ok.

what's the priority here? get stable or deploy?

both seem correct.

either way, it's dead air.

r.i.p. M. Grazon.

I think one then the other. At a certain point, deployment takes priority over everything else.

Reference AFF level1 for the answer.

If anyone is unsure about the answer to that question, you shouldn't have been cleared for your first jump.

seriously, that's the best answer you have...

why bother, i find your response less than helpful.

perhaps you could try again and explain how deploying in dead air would be more effective than trying to get stable in dead air...

i must have missed that in my AFF class.

thank you.

Ever seen a go and throw on a BASE jump ? Miraculously, they are quite survivable. In fact, even throw-n-go's are..

yes i have, and thanks for putting it into perspective : ). it's the added complication of the wingsuit that made me question in the first place.

t.

If you deploy unstable and getting a spinning set of line twists, you've probably still increases the working time you have to save your life by at least several seconds. I realize it's not much, but I'd rather have 15 seconds to save my life than 5.

AVENFOTO & TOM A.:I'd rather have 15 seconds to save my life than 5

Fucking February 6th.

Plus as I have displayed, and I'm sure others have experienced, it is possible to strike a cliff with line twists and get away with nonparalizing injuries.

yes it could save... for having many bad experiences, pulling in my case was the best think to do and it works even on non academic positions... trying to recover will take more time, loosing space cues, for at the end less margin with the ground. There is no "good" solutions, just feel and do what your instinct say, it is your life.

For the case of Pierrot, nobody knows really his friend closed was preparing and didn't see his exit. Bad, sleepery? Know that for his first one many month ago, not here, a made a front flip accidentaly at exit. He had 10 jumps on his Phantom. He was a very good guy. Missing.
RIP

When an exit point is positive or has some other nasty shit under it, most jumpers will go for an extra hard push, some times it's unconscious. You many know that a super hard push is not necessary at some places (like low ultimate) but still u find your self giving it that bit extra.

If the exit is poised(no run possible) most times this will lead to a much steeper exit with the jumper going head low, bending the legs is the normal reaction to this which makes it go even steeper, I've heard it called the 'scorpion tail' before.

I've seen this so many times at jumps like high and low ultimate with the usual result being a front flip, with a wingsuit on, the end result can be much worse.

The only way I found to avoid this in order of effectiveness was

Don't jump from high ultimate if you can't run (like in a wingsuit)

Keep your legs straight and body long to counter a head low exit

Try not to just push straight out, keep a head high angle during the push.

My AFF instructor to me "I don't care if you are on your back spinning doing cheetah flips! YOU PULL!"

if you do a front flip, you don t pull on your back, so the first thing is to get on your belly. Once you are on your belly, you see if you have to pull or if you control again your flight.
There are not one and only solution.
I sliped on the little branch on the ground at the HN on january, in p2, do a front flip but recover and flight. I m really not sure i was still alive if i pulled...
My mistake, don t put cramp because no more snow. But still slipery.

Quite new fact? No, right answer...
Well said..

Sometimes I wonder how discussions are made here..
C´mon guys, we all should know what we are talking about..

If I am cool/smart enough to judge whether I have time to recover and get stable and then pull > ok.
If I am cool/smart enough to judge that I don´t have the time and I have to pull before impact > ok (if I deploy...)

I suppose we all agree, that hitting the ground, even in a flat and stable position, is not the dish of the day....
We surely also agree, that if I go unstable on a 3000 ft overhung cliff, it might be more usefull to get stable again, fly that out and deploy in a safe height, flat and stable, instead of emergency-pulling after 2 seconds and closer to the wall, finding myself in an offheading situation and in charge to deal with a cliffstrike......
(well, might be a refreshment.. myself, I don´t need that)

In my POV it is a singular decision, regarding all the circumstances around me and my special jump. no overall truth about doing it this or that way in general...


just my 0,20 Euro

I was thinking about going with a line stretch, lightly toss the salad and a medium Coke.

Solid point though.

In all seriousness though; RIP my thoughts go out to the family and friends.

in eply to "At a certain point, deployment takes priority over everything else."
....................................................

Determining when that "get stable/deploy" point has been reached is a major survival skill to acquire.

Many WS exit points have a very small margin for error when making this choice.
More experienced people than me can possibly provide precise reaction times for different rock drops.
eg on a 7 second rock drop if ur not stable and flying after 3 seconds do you deploy or try and fly ?

A bad exit can usually be recognised fairly quickly so to survive a bad exit the first thing to do might be ....deploy. hard to learn these lessons if the first mistake kills you.

For me it is actually redundant to discuss such questions... There are no pre thought models or working procedures for such a situation. Personally I consider unstable exit in WS as one of the biggest fears I have in base and I consider it always as very highly potentially fatal situation. Thats mainly the reason why I :
1) more or less never jump with WS in the winter or at least perform extreme caution in preparing the exit for the jump. Winter is tracking season for me.
2) practised my exits a lot before I went to ws'ing. I had around 600-700 base jumps before I started seriously doing big wall ws base and I estimate I had well over 1000 and over hundred in ws at easier exits before venturing anywhere near the mentioned 7s range.

So for me rather than thinking of "what should I do if I go unstable in ws?" you should think "what should I do that I never get into the situation in first place?".

Just my thoughts.

Maretus

I love the way your progression is

RESPECT !!'

Pity more would learn to actually BASE jump and learn
Tracking skills before heading for wingsuit base way too early

Love ya work mate

Thanks for the compliments. I actually learned it from the experience. I made my first ws base jumps (from Kjerag) when I had around 30jumps. I made maybe 2 or 3 jumps and in the follwing summer wingsuited the Nose3 in LB. After those jumps I actually realised that I was overly nervous and really not comfortable enough for that stuff so I decided to put it on hold and like you said, learn to base jump first. :) Revisiting the windgsuit thing after 600 jumps more was then much more pleasant experience.

Well said! the more prepared we are the less likely we are to get into trouble.
The old skydiving Maxim to pull if you are out of control has to be put into context in the BASE wingsuiting environment where the risk of impact may be greater by deploying from an out of control exit than by trying to gain control with a longer delay. Of course every different exit, line, and site has it's own distinct characteristics, knowing the available delay, the terrain and your own skill level are what is required to make the best decisions.
Unfortunately, the maxim that you should deploy at a safe altitude before impact with the ground also suffers in the WS BASE environment, since now it is possible to fly in proximity over terrain too close to deploy over.Such is the unique nature of the sport often requiring split second judgement. As many have learned the hard way there is no room for error in this amazing sport.
Thanks Maretus for your thoughts, and for reminding the rest of us to think a little, too.
Regards,B.