Basejumper.com - archive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_MLHadorYA

Saw this on facebook.

Rad or Fag? discuss.

In my opinion, pitching on your back will never be rad, especially if you do so at 100ft

Why are you using a skydiving canopy instead of something that was designed for towing, such as a glider? And why is the tow bridal attached to your chest instead of the riser? Looks really sketchy to me

Initially Fag, then Rad. The back flying was not rad but the jumper figured it out and became Rad. It became more rad as they figured out what worked better.

Refining it as they go will lose the residual fag.

Edit: I actually liked this quite a bit. There are better ways to achieve this but it turned out well. I also think I answered the initial post when I was in no condition to post. It happens on occasion.

Probably because they didn't have a glider lying around.

But that would be the only concern. I've been told that the big danger from doing this is that something about the towing configuration makes a skydiving canopy fairly prone to diving hard to one side of another when you are too low to react. I can't remember exactly how, but I got the sense that a lot of people have been hurt trying this.

Does anyone know about whether or not towing a skydiving canopy is a good or bad idea?

I thought that was a pretty rad stunt. Not sure why people would hate on this. Okay, there are better methods, but they look like they were having a rad time with what they had. Props! Looked fun.

it's better than skydiving

It's cool and all, but like most any "stunt", there are a million things that can go wrong. For one, towing a skydive canopy is not ideal and the attachment point is their chest straps. It's hard to tell because the video was retimed, but the tow seemed very agressive(steep angle). And once again, it's hard to tell, but it looks like they are using a static line, not hydraulically controlled like most paragliding tow setups.

You mean this shit is dangerous?

im imagining it would be even worse with a small speedwing..............im sure people have dove HARD to one side and slammed harder than an obsessed junkie!!!!

That is so awesome.

I t looks great to me, although I don't think it exactly qualifies as BASE with the cable being such a non-rigid "fixed" object.

I like the simple, low-cost implementation. They could be everywhere in the world if it catches on. I would certainly consider investing in a few sites if the liability isn't a dealbreaker.

With the proper design, ground-launching might not even be necessary.

Looks like things got going smoother. Less rushed during from the tow release and cutaway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYDMY38LhaU

After the first round of jumps, we had worked out the super sketchy crap like me chopping too soon and pitching on my back. By each of our second jumps, we had a more standard routine. Release the tow rope, wait 3-4 seconds, chop the canopy and pitch the pilot chute.

Here's a nice edit of Brooke's jump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YQu4iZ26bk

Jumpers:
Luke Church
Channing Armstrong
Daniel Darby
Forrest Dix
Trond Bjelde
Brooke Brown

We tried 3 different canopies to see which worked best. The biggest and most docile worked best (over 200 sq/ft). A round would be more stable; but, probably won't let you fight crosswinds as much if you're dumb enough to do this in a crosswind.

How high up do you guys manage to tow to? How long is the rope? Could you go much higher, or would you need a longer runway?

How fast is the car driving?

After we extended the rope to 500ft, we were getting as high as 400ft. Could get higher with more rope. A winch would get you even higher. I don't recommend using less than 500ft of rope. Someone will eventually run out of luck using less than 500ft. One of the shots that wasn't in the video was a ~240' exit on the back with a bridle wrap followed by a 40-50ft opening after manually clearing the bridle. Fortunately, we didn't have to see anyone die or get injured before we fixed the problems.

The truck was going 30mph give or take. Depends on the wind and we were adjusting as we went along to try to get maximum altitude.

My buddies did these tow stuff stunts back in the late 1990s.

Me and my pilot friends used to do these at night down the runway at the airport in Boulder. We used a BASE canopy and poly line instead of the normal paraglider and payout spectra. 600', then 1000', then 2000' of line. My paragliding vario once read 1600' AGL. Once you get the launch down, and the driver can 'feel' the tension or see a load cell and the pilot is not an idiot it gets 'almost' routine. Before my time a jumper here in Co watched his girlfriend die doing this "parascending" (just muppeteering the parasail thing, not cutting away). it's not "safe" but if you are not an idiot you can get away with it for a while.

One no-no we figured out was using the chest strap and handle release. Meaning just tying to the chest strap with a riser 3-ring is a muppet move. We used drop-releases (SUPER nice for this kind of thing. Makes it A LOT safer). We connected tow line to the chest rings or below the big ring in the slot, it makes all the load vectors line up instead of trying to tear the chest strap and squeeze the harness. Best of luck to you all though. It looks like you guys got it working pretty well.

We've been doing something pretty similar here too. We use a paraglider and hydraulic tow winch. The video below is from about 1500ft. It's pretty old though. We can consistently get around 3000ft now. We made our own cutaway system and used to tow up attached to the paragliders. Now we go up in a paragliding harness and unstrap ourselves from that and jump out. Seems to be a little easier and more comfortable ride up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxmksqx06VU&feature=youtu.be

another one, probably on the lower pull side. This one is from a paraglider harness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rpdy8Xu-10&feature=youtu.be

that's much better.

You fags all need to take this gay shit over to DZ.com where they specialize in skydiving.

Fuck that. Then Dave L***a will tell us why it's such a horrible idea. :)

Yeah you're right Post it there too.

Personally I think it was rad and has nothing to do with skydiving. But I don't really know much about base or skydiving anyway.

I watched Noah do this in 07 at Skydive The Farm before I had made a BASE jump. I didn't know what the fuck I had just seen.

Here is how this stuff will eventually end
http://www.youtube.com/...ed&v=Bqswg8ebuBY
Fun starts at 1:05

That's why one guy launches the centre cell and not two guys on the sides

Anyone know if he survived? I heard he was in critical condition...

Russians are indeed the sketchiest ;p

If not the drunkest!

Seems like the boat driver punched it sorta' hard..

indeed, as usual it's a combination of factors. But I reckon the end cell closure on the one side of the canopy was the defining factor. Tow ups are not the hardest thing in the world to get right, even in those conditions.

I've searched but can't find anything, anyone Russians able to tell us the condition of the pilot?

Looked gnarly for sure.

The thing that shocked me the most was lack of crowd control. Not controlling it before the accident was asking for trouble...but wtf was up with the surge of onlookers afterwards? Don't people have any decency? Onlookers were crowding in and walking right up to the victim. There are even a couple frames of an old lady shuffling in right through the middle to get a better look.

the point where they were lifting him up and asking him if he was ok (by bending him up into a sitting position) pained me to look at.

Spinal injury protocol, guys!?!?!?!

First thing I thought was 'that guy needs a helmet'. Then he was off... sort of.

From the way he was seizing, I would say that he has a very high probability of permanent brain injury. Seizures can cause a lack of blood flow to the brain.

Is there any reason why they don't just cutaway from the parachute instead of cutting away from the towline and then the parachute?

What happens if your not high enough to deploy but have to cut away from the tow vehicle for some reason?

Difficult to imagine the scenario but your right; Just seemed overly complicated to have two cutaway systems on the same set up.

Then just land the canopy you're under

It takes 20min to pack but only a couple to reset the tow. We would just tow and fly. When we used a runway or road we would just release the line from vehicle and switch ends with flyer to tow the opposite direction, assuming the wind was cross or calm.