Basejumper.com - archive

I was watching the Olympics today and got to thinking about how good these ski jumpers are compared to top trackers. Do you think a good tracker could pick up ski jumping and be competitive?

There aren't that many differences in flight, really. They are going fast when they enter the track but I think you could get used to that. Wearing skis could throw you off, as could not having a tracking suit on. I assume there are some regulations about clothing otherwise they would all wear them.

I'm also wondering what would happen if they strapped on a base rig and jumped off a cliff.

I had a student several years ago who was on the US Olympic Team for ski jumping. He was a very, very good tracker. And the USA is really not a very competitive ski jumping country. I'd say the Norwegian ski jumpers are likely to be better trackers than any BASE jumper.

I too was curious about this topic. I did a bit of research on ski jumping and found ski flying, essentially ski jumping on steroids. As it turns out, quite some time ago they picked up some pointers by looking at how skydivers flew their bodies in a track.

By this point in time, I would venture to guess that with a bit of skydiving training, they would be some of the best trackers around, once they learn to fly without the aid of the surface area from the skis.

I understand that the norwegian ski jumping team actually uses skydiving as a training device.

what about the suits they use do you think the would be better off with what they have or a tracking suit?

someone should take one of those skijumping suits for a jump and see how it goes against a tracking suit.

Todays ski jumping suits are made to be as bad as possible (by regulation) for tracking as they want body position and not clothing to be the decisive factor when competing. It has changed a bit over the years and I seem to remember Atle Dahl was trying out the suits of those days 10-12 years ago as they were better for tracking than today. In the end he made the smoke pants which was a lot better.

Several of the best trackers here in Norway have a background as ski jumpers and I am sure that helps them a lot. I am pretty sure that if we put a tracking suit on one of the olympic jumpers he be in a different league of what the best trackers in our sport do today. A whole life of training on this specific task with coaches, wind tunnels and focus 24/7 is quite different from what even the few "pro" base jumpers out there today are doing.

I have been lucky enough to have the pleasure of FJC and mentor with 2 Norge brothers with a full childhood in Ski jumping.

The confidence and focus shown by these boys was something special.

They both tracked to the road at Gridset within their 1st 10 jumps. (FYI i have spent the last year and 50 jumps to track to same road!!)

A ski jumper will adapt well with base but a base jumper on ski´s is a whole world away my friend

http://youtu.be/aL9I3nX11eI

Keep in mind these kids was ski jumping 100+ meters as teenagers!!!

We have all been learning to track from them as soon as they started base!!

I believe that ski jumping competitions have rules against wearing clothing that improves tracking.

I'm more curious about what the ski flyers could do with a parachute, ski flying skis, and an in-run set at off a large, steep mountain.

simon ammann is a licensed skydiver.

There's a heck of a lot more technique to pick up than just the tracking side of it, not to mention the relentless and highly specific physical conditioning.

No matter how awesome a tracker is in BASE they're not just going to 'pick up' ski jumping at an international level, they'd have to work incredibly hard.

they dont really experience the sub terminal we do as base jumpers.

i would wager though that they could learn from us and we could learn from them still.. probably more the latter but having strict training, refined techniques and rich tradition is not condusive to radical change.. flying v took a while to adopt, until you werent competative unless you converted styles (Canadian team took forever to catch up after late adoption of V)

Benefits of base tracking is people are more open to play with what works for them, and possibly happier to share with prospective learners.

Ski jumps in track suits is sooo 90th
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZizIbSpI-g

Cool stuff, I was wondering about this for a while too.