Basejumper.com - archive

Hello everyone!
I'm happy to join this forum and hope it will answer most of my questions.

First of all let me introduce myself. I'm a 23-years old swiss guy who has been attracted to (more like obsessed with ;)) base jumping since many years. I had the dream of doing it long before the crazy increase of amount of videos on youtube for the last 5 years.

I'm a serious guy who likes to plan: after some time of saving, I started skydiving september last year (so much pleasure :) ) and put a few jumps ( 72 ) before the winter.

That's now that I would like to plan the next step. I'll probably order a gear in the near future and will require advice.
I've been reading articles on this site: The quantity of information is just huge the options for gear are many, sometimes too detailed and I wish I could meet one or several experienced jumpers to help me avoid making mistakes when purchasing.

I'm indeed looking for a mentor, first to get some advice and in a few hundred skydives jumps, to teach me base jumping.

Why not ask at my dropzone?
Because some people somehow seem to dislike base jumpers. I also do not wish to be the new-kid-who-just-had-a-license-and-wish-to-jump-off-a-cliff, this dream I have since a long time.

Will I do a first jump course?
Frankly, I'm really interested to do one, but it's gonna be hard to find because of the time and where they take place. This is another thing to discuss with a mentor. I want someone to judge my personality and skydiving skills before any decision.

I'm really looking forward to meet awesome people, make friends and share good time with them :D

EDIT: my location: Bex http://goo.gl/maps/5FOVU, any swiss jumpers around?

A good next step to work on while you are waiting for FJC's or mentors would be to get a large 7-cell F1-11 canopy and start doing canopy drills. My advise about doing canopy drills is to do solo hop-n-pops. It gives you the air space you need to fly patternless approaches and not get in the way of other canopies. You can fly and land where ever you want, how ever you want. A must have skill in BASE. - Good luck!

Edited to add: "...and do yourself a favor, learn how to do a flat turn."

+1 ...especially the last bit

which DZ would that be ?

Seriously? You live in a country which has one of the best possibilities in the entire world for this sport and a very large amount of reasonably experienced jumpers, not even mentioning maybe the most well known and frequently jumped cliffs in the whole planet? And you want to get some help and look for mentors from this website? If you are the "serious guy" that claim that you are, you skydive a bit more, meet some people in the real life and realise that you really do not need to ask some anonymous random nicknames in the internet what gear to buy.

Justmy thoughts,

Hello and thanks for the answers!

Yeah canopy piloting and precision is something I'll start working on right away!
I guess it's best to practice on the canopy I'll end up jumping with. However is it naive to think that training with a higher wingload (say between 1 and 1.3) could teach me to handle bigger parachutes?

Hey Fish, you are everywhere : ) the dropzone is in Bex you know the place!

To Maretus, I know you're right; maybe I was too shy to ask directly... If I made this post it is to find and talk to people "in real life", not just through Internet. I will follow your advice, it will probably be easier.

come at the DZ on saturday, we can have a chat while doing the airfield seasonal cleanup.
While I might not be able to help you much with the BASE side, I can help to orientate you to the correct people....
Many people do BASE there, but I don't think that they are very inclined to take newcomers... but who knows....

That was also the feeling I had at a first sight. Let's talk tomorrow : )

To you guys in the forum,
I talked to piifish today, he convinced me that I should try to for forget about base for a while, but to enjoy skydiving 100% (always trying to achieve accuracy, and always thinking of what I'm doing falling).
So that I can really become better in the air and under canopy, and gain the confidence I need.

Sooooo, I'll be back here in a couple of years, thank you all for the answers and PM but for now it's skydive time