Basejumper.com - archive

I was surprised to not see this one posted here:

http://vimeo.com/80704110

thats my buddy, he flew home yesterday glad hes alright!

he slammed the shit out of the wall...damnit!!!!

I dont understand that sort of brake stow system... It looked like he grabbed the toggle & part of it un-velcroed. Can someone explain how that system works, as I have never seen that before. Glad his injuries were minimal.

Look at who's old school now.

It's an Apex WLO ("What Line Over?"). It's intended to allow release of the control line to clear a slider up line over (when the lines are routed through the rings).

It looks like in this case, leaving it on when slider down contributed to a slight toggle fumble, which delays his reaction and may have contributed to the strike.

Tom, I don't think those are the Apex WLOs.
They're some other brand of line-release toggle.

The Apex ones don't have that flap of webbing as the grab-n-pull-to-release device; they have a metal ring. Also, to my knowledge, all the Apex WLOs are blue/orange, and those were not.

~ Chris

Cliff Strike? That looked like it was a BALL strike. I am hard pressed to imagion worse luck then that slab that he hit. Is he going to... recover?

Lee

I believe you're right.

My bad.

I can't access the video right now, but I'll try to rewatch it at some point and correctly identify the brand.

For what it's worth, I do have some early WLOs in other colors.

Regardless, Dave is still old school for not recognizing a line release toggle.

they are adrenaline base toggles

Yeah just like he slightly bumped into the wall

Funny comment.
That toggle really fucked him over. My line release toggles work when I cut the toggle off with my hook knife.

I was trying to express that he had fumbled, but not dropped the toggle.

In my mind this video makes a convincing argument for rear riser use to correct off headings. Likely faster response time. Having the toggles stowed after the strike would probably have been nicer too, and the altitude would've permitted a riser turn.

I mean, it's easy for me to sit here and say that, and in another scenario using toggles might've been more favorable, but this particular video doesn't make me want to use toggles in an off heading situation.

I had an off heading somewhat similar to this on a crane jump once, where I opened up pretty much facing a building. I didn't expect the suprise of having a building coming at me very fast. It's easy to think that one knows how to deal with a situation like that. That would be complacency. It was pretty overwhelming. That feeling alone resulted in a delayed reaction on my part. Not by much, but time is relative and it felt like ages. When you expect an off heading to happen while practicing collision avoidance you will react a lot faster and likely more correct than when it happens on a lowish night jump, or at any other time I guess. I did a half-assed riser turn which saved the day for me. I think I would've been unable to hit the toggles correctly in time to have a fortunate outcome on that jump.

20/20 and all that, but while the margins were low in the video, it looked like the strike could've been avoided by applying proper input.

Was this the first serious off heading (facing a solid object up close) the jumper experienced?

Also, play back speed confuses me a bit.

I agree with Sebcat regarding rear risers as the primary control input to correct potentially dangerous off-heading after opening, especially on slider down jumps. Also I agree that mental preparation for the worst case heading is key. I've seen multiple times people strike objects under canopy from off-headings and get injured and/or need to be rescued that, to me from my vantage point, had enough time to avoid the strike.

I had a near 180, we'll call it a 160 right on my very first slider down E and to make matters worse the cliff was protruding out on the right (as you exit so on my left flying towards). I feel I would not have had time to un-stow my brakes and turn. If I had I probably just would have smacked the cliff flying faster. I don't think I would have been able to turn clear using left riser, but maybe. I might have been able to pull right riser only and clear, but I didn't do that either. I pulled both rears pretty deep, stopping my forward movement and basically stalling the canopy backward, then released my left riser only, spun around to the right, popped my brakes, and landed safely.

The key point is it probably never would have occurred to me to do this if I hadn't first prepared by practicing this exact course of action (and others) from an airplane several times with my BASE canopy. I'm convinced this and my mental preparation kept me from smacking the wall that time. Also, I took a conservative enough delay instead of humming it, so I had the height to execute such a maneuver without pounding in to the talus - stalling your canopy/flying backward burns a lot of height fast.

I'm not saying this should be everyone's battle drill for off headings, but everyone should have one, and be prepared to execute it instinctively so they don't have to figure it out when you're flying at wall.

That was one gnarley cliff strike... Best wishes to this jumper for a speedy recovery!

Maybe if you packed youself as bunch of 720's you would alter your DNA to be able to handle situations like this and not freeze like a deer in the head lights.

I'm still praying for the mal that takes me from this fucked up place. Come on mother fucker take me.

Yeah I have problems.

Can you tell me please...when you did those jumps did you exit the airplane with your canopy packed slider-up or slider-down?

Thanks,
Frank.

your canopy must have vents they keep your canopy inflated and flying during cliff strikes allowing you to turn back away from the wall after the strike and flare for a tiptoe landing............WRONG!

Actually that canopy seemed to be pretty well inflated and spread all the way to the ground. It might well be the reason he lived. I didn't actually see him try to make any effort to control the canopy or turn it after the strike. Frankly at that point I don't think he was up for trying to do much of any thing.

Lee

Nice PLF after a slab of rock to the mid-section. Fucking spot on

Not saying I would have done any better, especially after taking a hit like that, but it looks like he hit his ass pretty hard and folded forward, bringing his chin down past his knees. Not a good PLF - a PLF might have avoided the compression fracture.

Is it the canopy's fault he dropped the toggles?

Frank,

Per your question, [Can you tell me please...when you did those jumps did you exit the airplane with your canopy packed slider-up or slider-down?]

Slider-up...

I would NEVER intentionaly deploy a canopy from an airplane slider-down/off. You could be seriously injured or damage your gear.

If you can find a DZ cool enough to let you jump your BASE rig out the plane without a TSO’d belly reserve do it (and PM me the DZ!), but when I jump my BASE canopy out of planes I just go to the local DZ and borrow a student rig.

It's really not much hassle because I just pull both cutaway handles and hook up my risers to the rig. Then I free pack the canopy in the main pack tray slider-up and use my 32" PC. I have single pin bridal I use as well, but you could just use the one from the rig. You could even use the deployment bag, bridal, and PC from the student rig and pack it like a skydive... just don't skydive slider down/off!

Even if you don't need to practice for emergencies, jumping your BASE canopy out a plane gives you lots more time to learn it than just the few short seconds of canopy ride on jumps. I do it whenever I get a new canopy.

Cant imagine thr unvented perfoming much different. When i fist watched in slo mo i was yelling at my monitor " come on dude pull on something you gotta get off that wall" about 5 times, then watching it at full pace i didnt even get the chance before he hit the ground.

Just for the record I've made a lot of jumps slider down out of a Cessna. The original squares didn't have sliders. On a hop and pop, 1.5 sec is about the sweet spot, it's not that bad.

Lee

[Just for the record I've made a lot of jumps slider down out of a Cessna. The original squares didn't have sliders. On a hop and pop, 1.5 sec is about the sweet spot, it's not that bad.]


I'll take your word for it, and keep my slider up sir.

Lose a point for not hitting the truck, so 9/10 score from this armchair QB . Good to hear the injuries weren't worse. Has subterminallyill posted any thoughts on the jump?

That toggle really fucked him over. My line release toggles are in my gear bag when I'm jumping slider down.

Shit like that doesn't happen when you use big grab toggles on slider down jumps. Line release toggles are specifically designed to use when you are jumping slider UP jumps.

If you notice the canopy is in a noticeable dive before he ever pops the toggles. I don't think anyone with that push off or those brake settings would have avoided the cliff.

There was another cliff strike last week in Moab I hope gets posted. It was at Tombstone and required a rescue.

Gnarly and Gnarly... Glad he is alive and will recover! Tough Turkey Boogie this year!

Now for a bit of my Honest thoughts.

Yes, the Toggle thing was Fucked, and lets be real, Line-Over Release Toggles have no Business in Slider Down/Off jumping. However, That toggle didn't malfunction, the jumper did. First, he shouldn't have been using release toggles in that environment for that jump. Second, he missed the toggle. He didn't grab his toggle properly. Even if he had standard toggles, he wouldn't have grabbed it anyways. He missed the loop of the toggle, Period.

Also, It kind of seems like the video was altered a bit at the end. Looks like the playing speed was sped up or put on fast forward. I have seen several wall strikes where the jumper rag dolls down the face, and they didn't go that fast?

Anyways, Glad we didn't loose another jumper.

Exactly! I don't or won't have them. Even for slider up, just complicates things. KISS

Left risers were pulled on.

I was wondering about the speed too. Especially when you compare the footage from the ground.

....actually I withdraw my remark. POV and ground vid both last about 8 seconds.

yeah i saw the original unedited clip and it was that fast. i think you get a faster sense because you can see the wall rushing by on the way down

no it wasn't. he grabbed both front and rear left risers together and just held on to them. no input.

My thoughts (not that anyone cares).

1. RUN off cliffs like there is a huge fucking monster behind you.
2. Take a longer delay when possible to get some more separation from the wall.

Ive had plenty of exits just like this and gotten away with it. Next time I am in Moab I will remember this video. Thanks Thayer!

Video made i to The Blaze:

http://www.theblaze.com/...se-brush-with-death/

No negative comments about a base mal from a mainstream media outlet. nice.

Maybe people are starting to be more accepting of a sport they do not understand.

Did you read the comment section?

Yes, shocking obviously made by fast food eating armchair experts ... just read the same BS on the Daily Mail website http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...-horribly-wrong.html

Just glad he survived and best wishes for a speedy recovery.

I need to throw something into the mix also . YA his reaction for a correction & the fumble with the line-mod-release . fucked him .
BUT also the exit could have been a little stronger run-off also. Distance gained on a sheer-face is only a plus in your corner if you get a fucked opening .
.

The rule I have always followed is; if you are going to hit the wall first go for risers, if you are going to hit the ground first go for toggles... In this case if he had gone risers he may have had a better chance of getting away and if he didn't get away his ride down the wall would be a bit softer. I would much rather hit things in deep breaks then in full flight.

wouldn't you just cutaway before you hit the wall?

Fixed it for ya.

What was his jump numbers?

also what gear was he using, rig, canopy, pc, and even helmet?

Pretty sure that as his Blackjack in Perigee Pro. Not sure about the rest (and I could be wrong about the rig, too, since he's got a couple).

Enough. I don't have an exact number, but he has been jumping for a couple years now. Checking his account here I see that he listed more than 200 jumps when he last updated his profile, which may have been a while back. Since he was on line within the last couple days, I'm sure that if he wants to give exact numbers he can.

just to add my internet opinion...

i was always a toggle guy. always had good fast reaction times and typically did not even need to look for them. toggles were just instantly in my hands on opening. proved to myself that it worked in real off heading situations like this one
https://vimeo.com/63410594
further reinforcing those beliefs.

then, for reasons unknown, i hit a fucking building. i just don't remember and there's no video. even though, just a few jumps before i had a similar 180 and cleared it effortlessly with one toggle while holding a camera on a stick in the other hand.

bottom line is, for me... i have decided that risers make more sense for instant heading correction with the only exception, if you're OUT of altitude, then toggles for correction and/or flare. hopefully i'll never have to prove that this method works... or doesn't.

I noticed his left arm flail at the beginning of the vid after exit. Possibly during PC pull? Could have thrown off his body position. Is this the only video that was captured?

quote "Halfpastniner" and add my .02...

1. RUN off cliffs like there is a huge fucking monster behind you... because the moment your feet leave the launch point, there is a huge effing monster behind you.

2. Take a longer delay when possible to get some more separation from the wall, but not so long that you have too little separation from the ground.


44

A Blackjack just has a lot of forward speed compared to other canopies out there. I will never buy one as I make a lot of SD jumps in town.

I stand corrected.

Forward speed at opening determined by a lot of things. Among them are wing design, wing loading and brake settings.

While I'll agree that the factory brakes on the CR canopies are shallower than most other brands, I've also found that with properly tuned deep brake settings I can slow a Blackjack down more than I can slow a Flik or Troll, and certainly more than a Se7en, because it has the lowest stall speed of any canopy on the market aside from the OSP.

If your Blackjack has more forward speed than your Troll or Flik at opening (with brakes set), then I'd suggest adjusting the brakes to reduce it.


The Blackjack also has more forward speed in full flight than most of the canopies on the market (leaving aside the Se7en). But personally I believe this is an asset because it can be used by a good pilot to penetrate wind and create a stronger flare (and also because the greater lift generation of high speed canopies usually gives them better glide angles).

If your Blackjack has too much forward speed in flight (brakes unstopped), then I'd suggest bringing the toggles further down in the control stroke, and slowing the canopy.

-
on the longer delay
Unless it's just a NO Wind Day . It's also of getting 'good positive', Air Speed/flow in Free Fall that helps counters all outside influence of the natural ones that can screw your opening sequence from PC pull of canopy, to extraction of canopy, to pressurization on the Heading .

Exactly. If someone's canopy flies to fast on opening, it is less the canopy and more faulty tuning of the DBS.

Side note, and completely unrelated, I love the disgustingly tasty mcdonalds McRib. I'd cliffstrike my nuts off to have that on the menu year round. Fat guys unite! That's all.

Of course, that is all true. But I just told what I see. So, apparently most people don't bother changing their brake settings. Which of course is a trade off between jumping SU and SD with the same canopy. Also, if you take the brakes off the Blackjack is just faster then other canopies. I have just been in Berlin, all SD - most PCA - and you can tell the difference. So, I stick to a slower canopy. Yes, totally personal.....

Proof that you don't need to be a proficient canopy pilot to be a proficient wingsuit pilot. :)

Whether fast or not, the top speed of a canopy at a specific wing-loading shouldn't matter in the slider down environment. What is important is how slow you can make it fly. Blackjack Can be flown just as slow as any BASE specific canopy out there. Your argument is like saying you can't parallel park a Ferrari because it's to fast. When dialed in, I had a blackjack that would open in deep brakes without hardly flying forward at all. Just my $0.06

I don't understand. Why is this a trade off between SU and SD?

You should always leave the factory settings on the line for use in situations (like SU) where they are desirable.





Sure, if you are holding the toggles all the way up. To slow the canopy you just bring them down. And since the stall speed on that airfoil is lower than most of the others on the market, you can slow it down more (to a slower speed than many other canopies).

You should have to pay a higher Affordable health care plan premium for eating those!!!!!!!

Totally agreed. It my crack! As soon as I stop feeling sick from the last one I find myself in the drive-through again.

The McRib is the new BASE jump.

I am happy to see it has been chimed in several times: Run off of that exit.

That forward motion vector keeps going, and after two seconds you are far enough away from the wall to have a chance of turning it around. I have some video doing this, and stalling back and away on rear risers, but I need to burn it to digital.

That said, I have had good friends strike objects. Good jumpers, too. A low cliff jump only gives you 180 degrees of freedom, so it is the most likely object to strike if it is a short delay. The only thing you can do to help is run off at high speed and take a solid 2 seconds.

Well i guess its time i chime in about my cliff strike. Im back home now and the pain meds are gone so its time to start doing something constructive.

Firstly, This accident was 100% caused by my complacency! This was Jump #204 and probably like object #60ish. I have been base jumping about 2.5 Years. The Container was a Perigee Pro and the Canopy was a BlackJack 240- 4/7 vents with a composite upper surface. the toggles are Adrenaline BRT's. This rig is my Primary rig and used for both Slider Up and Slider Down Jumps.

I have No Idea exactly what caused the 180. There has been some speculation that it was body position or Packing induced but i don't feel there is anything that can be seen in the video to be absolutely certain of the cause. Im not saying it wasn't one of those things I just have not had issues in the past with body position or packing and other than a few 90's here and there (mostly early on in my jumping career or doing really stupid things off the bridge in TF) i have only ever had one other serious off heading of more than 90. It was a 160ish off a 240ft E which i reacted the exact same way and avoided a cliff strike. Also, there was no wind to speak of on this jump.

There are 2 things that just absolutely have me shaking my head at myself. The Lazy Exit and the Missed toggle grab. That had to be the laziest exit i can recall of any jump i have done, ever!
And the missed toggle grab??? I have never missed a toggle on that rig with those toggles in the 100+ SD jumps i have done with them. and just to clarify, I did not release the left BRT. i pulled the velcro release tab most of the way down but let go and grabbed the toggle then i unstowed the toggles at the same time. this certainly caused a delay in my actions.

I have been noticing that before jumps lately that i have not been mentally running through all the bad scenarios in my head at exit like i used to. sometimes i notice i have not done that and will do it and other times i just don't do it. i think when im solo i do it and when im with a group i tend to not do it so much. not sure why, i think maybe i have just got so comfortable standing at the exit. i don't really feel afraid of the jumps anymore.

As i mentioned before, i went for the toggles as i have had success on the toggles in the past, even with practicing rear risers, i felt comfortable on toggles getting turned around. but to be honest, there was no time to think about what the best method was to use in that situation. my reaction was pure reflex! I barley had time to say "Oh Shit" before i was on that wall. The text book response to that situation was to go for rears so maybe i would of just had some cool footage of a near cliff strike if i did. same for a stronger push on exit. hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

I love reading all the comments people make on my video. especially the ones about why i hit the only protruding rock on the the wall. well i hit it because i didn't have a choice at that point! actually i didn't even see it until i was plowing into it. People keep asking me how my balls are. I mean I do have balls of steel just to be clear but they never came in contact with the cliff. I actually hit the rock with my helmet mostly and a little bit with my chest but my helmet took most of the force. That being said… i actually have no recollection of the remainder of my fall until i was laying on the ground being tended to by friends and complete strangers.

I wasn't knocked out unconscious, but i was certainly stunned to the point i was not doing anything helpful. I hope that answers everyones question why i was not trying to get off the wall. one thing to add is that the canopy stayed inflated the entire time. if thats not evidence of Vents doing what they were designed to do than i don't know what is. They saved my life in this case. I truly believe that.

I suffered from a compression fracture of my T12 Vertebrae most likely when i hit the ground. I got stitches above my right eye most likely from the initial impact with the rock that was sticking out and stitches to the chin when i hit again further down the wall. My right wrist and hand are all messed up. nothing broken but certainly a lot of soft tissue damage and i must of pulled every muscle in my back!

I was taken to the hospital ER and admitted. I was released a little over 24 hours after the accident. I walked out of the hospital on my own.

I didn't post the video so everyone could see how fucking awesome i am. I posted it so people could see all the mistakes i made. I obviously had no idea it would go viral and only ever really intended for Base Jumpers and and wannabes to see it. with so many awesome base jumping videos popping up all over the globe, i thought that my video could serve as a reality check. I certainly was for me. Hopefully someone sees the video and says "shit, i never realized that could happen" or at least think twice about what they are doing. i think the video could serve as a good learning tool at the very least. I personally feel every base jumper and aspiring base jumper should see the bad stuff too at some point.

The slow motion forward facing part is from my Hero 3 that was recorded at 120 frames per a second. in the video i slowed it down to 10% of real time. the rear facing is from a Hero 2 recorded at 60 Frames per a second and slowed down to 25% of real time. and yes. The real time video is in fact "Real Time". it was not sped up for effect. shit happened that quick! The SloMo makes it feel like forever.

A few people have asked if im done jumping. Fuck No! I can't wait to be healed up and back jumping. I will certainly change some things about my technique and my attitude but i will be back.

Thanks, Flame away!
Thayer.

p.s. Does anyone know where i can get a new "Bucket-O-Luck"? Mine seems to be almost empty!

You're a fucking beast Thayer! Thanks for the follow up.

EDIT: Whoops apparently your and you're mean deferent things :)

I think the PC is the most important part of what causes slider down offheadings. That said it looks like an Asylum Vented PC, is that correct? I have noticed less heading degradation with that PC than any other, so I am by no means blaming it on that brand.

To me it looks like > 90 degrees caused by the PC. If you see in the video after the pitch the PC is swinging over head to the right in the video as the container pops and starts to lift out of the pack tray. It's swinging to the left, the direction of the off heading, as the lines are being unstowed. It's almost completely offheading before it hits line stretch, ie your body position can't have anything to do with it. PC offheadings happen and there is nothing you can do about it, but push harder to give yourself more time.

I personally don't believe body position has shit to do with slider down off headings, so don't beat yourself up over that, you took a hell of a hit.

I don't know, at 2:08 that PC looks pretty centered to me.

Anyone else wondering about that crazy protruding rock - really?

Way to heal SubTerminallyill - good vibes in your recovery!

What helmet were you jumping with and how is it looking after the impact?

I saw in some of your other videos it looked like a fmx or down hill mtb helmet with some solid jaw protection

 

At 2:07 the canopy is already 90 degrees way before it's loaded. How can body position effect it if it's not loaded?

What about grabbing risers before inflation?
Looks to me like, PC is good, Body position is good, But the canopy rotates when in air flow ( I have video of same inflation but with 190- I attribute it to packing and shit happens, you can see the tape in airflow causing offheading in my video and this one)

I hope you recover fully and quickly!

It can't.

If you look at the pack job as it is extracted, the left side of the nose is exposed and the right is hidden. When we see it just at the end of the inflation sequence, the right side is still lagging a bit.

My best theory is that the left side of the nose came loose and inflated early, the left side drove around as the canopy began to pressurize, and by the time full pressurization had achieved the canopy had spun 160 degrees or so to the right (driven by early inflation on the left side). But that's just a theory--there is a ton of stuff we will never get to see, so there's a lot of guess work.

Thanks for posting. Way to own it, respect.

That is some of the best BASE carnage video to date that I have seen. Bonus points for not dying.

I've bookmarked the link under the title: "watch 50 times before you ever go to MOAB."

Thanks for posting it - Youtube skews people's idea of how dangerous this stuff is.

would you explain this a little please.

If you're moving 6 mph when your feet leave the cliff it continues at that velocity until opening--it doesnt magically stop because your downward speed is increasing.

There is some air friction. Doesn't most forward exit speed diminish after 2/3 seconds? Regardless, the difference in forward speed between a weak poised exit and sprinting off the exit is pretty massive. Also, that forward speed maintains even after you pull until line stretch. Just to throw numbers out there...let's say you exit at 6mph with a weak exit and with a sprint you could do 15mph forward speed. With 3 seconds (1.5s of freefall + 1.5s deployment sequence) you'd gain an ADDITIONAL 43feet.

With that kinda back-of-envelope calculations, it'd seem easy to gain an extra 20-30ft of separation between those two scenarios. That's a lot of distance when you're facing a cliff

Push a bowling ball down a bowling lane. The friction from air is negligent. If you want to do the math, it is simply adding vectors. You WILL keep moving forward until close to terminal, although if you do the equation it will present itself as a parabola.

Same thing is in play when pulling a chunk out of a plane. I used to be on an 8 way team, and you learn very quickly that in the first second out of the plane you are moving forward with the plane's motion until the acceleration of gravity overtakes that forward motion. So you are falling forward on the first few points. It is all about relative wind.

Awesome video, though. This kind of stuff has been happening to everybody in BASE sooner or later. I didn't notice anything that would have caused the 180. You can have perfect body position and still have a 180. If you think otherwise, you are lying to yourself. That is why you prepare for it every time.

I don't think I would have done any better if it had happened to me.

Just assess the risk. On this type of object, the object strike is the most likely BAD thing that can happen.

Just out of curiosity, any updates on how the jumper is doing? How bad were his injuries?

Lee

Did you miss the post #62 in the thread? Its the jumper in question.

Some how I did. The strange mysteries of the computer. Thanks.

Lee

The helmet was brand new. its a Giro Nine.10 Snowboarding helmet. Its pretty scrapped up and dented from the impact. Its not usable again. i used if for 3 jumps.

in the past i have always used a protec skateboarding helmet. I used a full face kayak helmet for a little while but it rolled off a cliff and shattered.

I have never felt comfortable jumping in a full face helmet as i always felt restricted in my peripheral vision and it always felt too heavy. even after my accident and the stitches i will probably continue using the protec style helmet.

I've always been curious if where you toss the pilot chute matters. I've seen it tosses straight forward, straight to the right, you name it.

You can see your canopy setting up for the off heading before it reaches line stretch, and your body position was fine. Sometimes one of the end cells will inflate early and as was said earlier, it goes 180 in a microsecond.

I'm curious if most off heading openings are either to the right or left. Every stow that I've seen is on the right and if you jump with your pilot chute in your hand, I've always seen right handed jumpers.

I need to go through my logbook to see which direction my off heading openings were. I would love for everyone else to do the same.

I believe it does, but I don't think it's predictable in terms of direction.

Whenever possible, I think you ought to pitch straight up at the sky. Down toward the ground is bad (because it puts the bridle above the PC, causing entanglement hazard and increased hesitation rate). But, as far as I can tell, and direction in a flat plane with your body is the same as any other direction in a flat plane with your body.

It's not usually the pitch direction that guides the PC--it's the second bounce as it oscillates, which isn't very predictable. Vented PC's seem to dampen the second bounce quite a lot, which is one reason I like them (but of course there are always trade offs).

Hop on a bike on flat ground, pedal up to 10 mph and then stop pedaling. See if you stop moving in 2/3 of a second. And there's more friction on a bike because of the rolling friction.

I think he meant 2 to 3 seconds, which as far as I know is correct. 2/3 of a second definitely is not.

I haven't tested, but I don't imagine that theoretically bike losing too much speed in 2 or 3 seconds either, but wtfdik? (is "wtfdik = WTF do i know" an internet thing yet? I think it should be. Bu it might look too close to "WTF dick!"). I'd be curious to see the actual graph of velocity in that situation.

Well,

One thing is certain: the faster your push off, the better on slider down jumps. In the beginning of modern BASE we would take off at a dead sprint if possible.

A question: Being right handed, I always tossed to the right. My off heading openings were always to the right. Does anyone else see the same thing?

The video of this jump shows that the off heading opening happened well before line stretch.

Great write-up. I wish people posted every accident they had. I always try to keep up with any form of incident in the community. Complacency kills. And not even that...just a lot of little things together with a little bad luck and shit gets bad so fast.

Heal up soon. Great to hear you made it out pretty fucking well luck bucket depleted!

grim impact point

was glad to not see blood pumping out of his torso

Many thanks to subtermiallyill for posting this, and for your candid discussion of the incident.

I benefitted a great deal from reading all of your comments, and I know it's stuff like this that saves lives.

I wanted to commend the Twin Falls Jumper community, and the folks who brought out the exit ramp.

I enjoyed seeing that the more experienced jumpers are putting time, effort, and equipment into ensuring the fledgling jumpers are prepared.

We had more (camera) shots then a basketball game..

I was missing the Drone shots theres always a fucken drone shot these days...



Glad he is heading home

Well, the hard push off, or even running exit, is the best way to separate yourself from the object on a SD jump. You would be surprised. We did it all of the time. You could get 50 feet from the cliff. Time enough to recover if you have the altitude.

As for what caused the 180, if you have ever really inspected video of 180's, they happen after the canopy leaves the back. Somewhere right around inflation. My theory was always an unveven pressurization of the three nose cells. If they pressurize early on one side, at line stretch you may see a 180 looking you in the face before line stretch. I don't buy the body position stuff. I've just seen so many bad body positions with normal deployment, even when the jumper is on his back.

Half of the crap about body position is just that, crap, in my mind. Maybe on terminal jumps, but not on SD jumps. Wingsuits leave an incredible turbulent wake.

When BASE began, We originally used a roll pack. That was rolling your canopy up from the tail to the nose, the normal skydiving pack job. It sucked. Then came the side pack, where it is flaked on its side. It was better, but until the PRO pack showed up, it changed everything. Some rigger from Deland came up with it, and before long, everyone was using it. Off heading openings plummeted, as well as mals.

If you really slow down the video frame by frame, you will normally see it go 180 right at line stretch and inflation.

As for recovery, the riser turn causes half of your canopy to stall backwards, and you lose a lot of altitude. If they weren't harder to grab, toggles would be better. You can do anything with toggles that you can with risers. The question is: how fast and accurately can you grab your toggles, stall back from the object, and release one of them to turn you around. I've done the stall back routine off of 350 foot objects, but it ate up most of my altitude. I walked away, though. The only real advantage to risers is that they are easy to grab: you can get your hands on them during inflation without pulling on them or affecting inflation.

I agree that there is much to be said about DBS and slow flying canopies. That is beyond me. I've been out of the game for too long. It sure makes sense to have a canopy that flies with nigh zero forward speed for slider down cliff or building jumps, where collisions mainly happen.

I find it odd that after all of this time, nobody really understands why a competent jumper will have a 180 now and then, and they do. The physics behind the thing. I've heard all kinds of culprits, but I don't believe most of them. They just happen.

I have some old video, but it is on tape. I need to burn it to digital. On one 180, Jean and I watched it happen frame by frame, it inflated off heading at line stretch, and we couldn't come up with any cause.

One thing that has occurred to me is how you toss the pilot chute. If you have a long bridle and toss it to the right, you will get an assymetrical pull on the suspension lines at inflation. I never hear anyone address that. Anyway, 180's happen right at inflation. Better pack jobs reduced 180's big time, and it was similar to our pack jobs and tail pockets. You exposed your center cell in the front, making it likely the first cell to inflate.

edit: Tom does address tossing your pilot chute to the side. If you are looking for symmetry in inflation, the pilot chute pulling from the side is a good place to start looking.

I knew a guy who always tossed it strait forward, like a baseball pitch. I don't remember him having off heading problems, but the sample size was low.

Ive done the most terrible body positions on slider down.. worst then most people can do and the canopy still opened on heading....just sayin

Everyone I know talks about how important the PC is in off headings. At shorter delays it has more of a swing over the jumper when the PC inflates. I personally think you should never go stowed if you are taking less than two seconds because the magnitude of the force on the throw is a greater proportion of the forces involved in deployment.

Also, most slider down off headings I see turn way before inflation indicating it's neither body position or assymetric inflation.

I thought similar as in going hand held with a big unvented pc is a better idea than stowing it and throwing it to the side...especially when its low as fuck and stowing it is really only for the novelty

I tend to think that the recipe for avoiding cliff strikes is....:
1. A modern slow flying canopy
2. Deep set brakes/ low speed on opening
3. Training for on spot turning with toggles
4. A snekor rig for easy toggles access

As for reasons for off headings
SD: PC- oscillation on the way to line-stretch is not the only scenario but the most common i have seen on video

SU: at the beginning of slider descend one side catches air first and makes a rapid turn (that swings some times the jumper into line twists).
Like in every complex system (ball of nylon in the wind) there are lots of possibilities to have the same result and its not so easy... if ever possible to eliminate or decrease all of them, so i think training/preparing for objekt-avoidance is of prime importance

The above message is only a fools theory written in a provocative way to fire up discussion witch is far more important

Without getting too deep into it (and besides I'm really not qualified either) but the reason is that we're dealing with a chaotic system. Chaotic systems are still deterministic but the variables are so huge, and so exponential as to be incalculable. Consequently, even though there are perfectly simple reasons for why a canopy has opened off-heading, the chaos inherent in the deployment sequence, makes it appear random and capricious when in reality it is anything but: it is always a chain of cause and effect.

In short when we say (as BASE jumpers) "shit happens", what we're really saying is that the initial causes were so imperceptible, so 'impossible' to avoid (and i use that phrase carefully) or the subsequent effects were so exponentially vast to track that no-one could reasonably have avoided the resultant off.

When the cause of an off-heading 'seems' apparent and 'obviously' deterministic (crappy pack job, terrible body position, howling cross wind, oscillating PC) we tend to gravitate towards that to try and make sense of the chaos and hopefully avoid a repeat outcome. The reality is, that in many cases, the reasons we attribute to an off-heading are often incorrect and the subsequent behaviour adopted is for the most part superstitious.

BASE jumping (like most sports) isn't empirical: we can not create perfect lab conditions at the time of packing or deployment and thus re-create the same outcome every time, let alone measure it. What we rely on is recognising superficial patterns of cause and effect, frequentist statistics and bayesian probability and inference.

Hmmm. Finally an honest scientific quote with a real answer. If any of you have studied stochastic or turbulent systems, like in fluids or gasses, you will find that predictability tends to go out the window in the process. A tiny change in a single variable can have huge results over time, and a SD opening happens very quickly, with a lot of things happening. A lot of cause and effect goes into it, but it is difficult to fully model a stochastic real world event.

What are used as answers look like an amplitude rather than a single answer. Chaotic systems have a wild range of possible answers.

I could go on for a while over this topic, but never assume that your main will open on heading. Sooner or later it won't, no matter what you do. We used to assume that we would have a 180, so that we would be ready for it. You might go years before it happens to you, but you have to be prompt and on the spot. No time to waste.

Not to beat a dead horse, but this is the level of complexity we are still trying to figure out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U39RMUzCjiU

Nice. That was mesmerizing.

Wiki has a good page on Chaos Theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

There is also a good book by James Gleick, called Chaos. It is an interesting read that will get you thinking. I'm happy that somebody recognized that this is important to the processes of an opening parachute, which takes place in a turbulent fluid..air.