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Just wondering if anyone here did their first jump without any prior skydive training, and if they're willing to share their story if so.

my first solo jump was a BASE jump from a building

hmm care to share the story? how did you end up on that building? did you train, etc?

Read the great book of base so you know what solo means to a base jumper. Then ask a question that makes sense and one that we can answer.

I pushed the elevator button to go up and then opened the door to my room then climbed out in the balcony and jumped off. I've been opening doors and pushing buttons most of my life so I have had a lot of training in that. It was my 7th BASE jump so for the actual jump I did not have a lot of training.

I think the OP means to ask if anyone has done a BASE jump without any solo skydives.

The answer is yes, with varying degrees of success. There are some people who have learned this way who are now highly competent jumpers and others who ended up in the hospital. The challenge with doing a BASE jump without any experience under a parachute is that you are taking one of the most dangerous things you could possibly do and adding a ridiculous amount of uncertainty into it. I've seen someone with quite a few military round parachute jumps pound in at the bridge because he had never flown a ram air canopy. It's not a pleasant way to find out if you have a knack for this thing. You need to learn to fly a parachute in a low risk environment before you take it to the highest risk environment.

I think a better question is why you would want to do this. Skipping steps early on sets a poor precedent for your future. It indicates a lack of judgement that will likely lead to an early end to your jumping career and maybe your life. Or you might get sponsored by an energy drink company and become a pro, who knows. in the words of Chuck Peters, "learn to fly a fucking parachute".

Thanks for the correction

I wont name names but i know someone that succefully did a base jump without ever having skydived.....Although was an experienced ground launcher with a base style canopy so could fly a base canopy better than most skydivers with 150jumps.....its not smart but if someone has access to a bridge like perrine i think it can be done safely if the person has some sort of canopy flying background like paragliding etc....start with pca's etc

Edit....it really depends on the individual

Now that you reworded it I did that too. Like everyone else will say it's not the preferred route

Crawl, Walk, Jog, Run

For years I have been making lame jokes about young
person going to his/her first party ever and deciding to
skip drinking and/or marijuana rather instead opting
to inject heroin first... why? Because they are "RAD".

What about Martial Arts, if you start sparring with
a much better opponent the fight ends when you
are knocked out or tap out.

In BASE, the jump is not over when you realize
you bit off more than you can chew, the jump
continues till the laws of physics are done.

Lastly, jumping out of an airplane is very fun
for people who like it, if you get bored with
SKY jumping within a week you will likely
kill yourself BASE jumping within a year.

I think the main issue is that the kind of person who wants to skip skydiving is often going to be the kind of person who wants to start throwing gainers and put on a wingsuit earlier than they are ready too. I'm not saying everyone who starts this way will be like this, but definitely enough people that emphasizing caution and progression will lead to fewer fatalities and broken femurs.

I know a guy who has become a fairly good slider down jumper without ever skydiving. He's got a fairly large amount of speed wing experience, though.

He's also now in a position where doing the BASE jumps he wants (he's interested in wing suits) is going to require him to go skydiving anyway.

Cicada, do you have any interest in tracking or wing suits? Because you're going to want to skydive to do that anyway, which means you can greatly reduce your risks by skydiving first.

Dude...honestly, just do the work. It's not like the training is pull-ups and marathons. It's skydiving. It's fun. And you know what? It's scarier than you think.

The accepted safe progression wasn't invented on the back of a napkin. It's been a work in progress paved by some impressive successes, and some very catastrophic failures.

To idemallie's point, looking for shortcuts right out of the gate is a bad sign.

When I became interested in BASE, my research indicated that skydiving was the beginning. I couldn't wait to get under a parachute and started AFF on my next payday.
If you are eager to get started and are looking for the easiest way to get started, its called skydiving. You show up, you hand them money, you take a long class, then you jump. All you gotta do is show up. And after the first jump, if you have any common sense, you'll see that doing any kind of BASE jump is probably pretty stupid without any experience.
Now stop trolling. Its the weekend. Go to a dropzone and jump. No one takes your shit seriously with NO PARACHUTE EXPERIENCE.

Not to worry. There's people here who teach ya. Flaming canopies and everything in-between. Email Blinc with a photo and they will reserve a BFL number fer ya

How about taking a proper BASE course after you prove you won't kill yourself after doing 2-300 skydives at the ranch. We doth need any clowns jumping dying around here!

The more skydiving experience you have, the less likely you'll get hurt. The people answering you on here are not dead, and aren't so seriously injured that they quit, so you'll get a scewed response. Many special and talented people have gotten seriously injured or killed doing minimal training. It's absolutely possible to successfully BASE jump without ever skydiving, especially if you fly paragliders ect and have some idea of how to fly a canopy. You just have to be willing to accept he fact that if you don't skydive first, you have a much much higher chance of getting injured or killed.

PM sent

Starting base jumping without a skydiving background would be like becoming a scuba diver without learning how to swim.

... and bungee jumping is not training either.

As a side note, you just might find skydiving so fun that you give up the ideas of base jumping all together.

Who says those things aren't fun? I'd do 26 miles just as soon as Id jump out of an airplane.


I've found myself in the same position. I never thought I'd want to put on a wingsuit when I did my first BASE jump, but I actually bought my first skydiving rig for this very purpose. It's also the size of a student rig, and the smallest parachute I've flown now is a 190 (I'm 150 Lbs). It would certainly be most economical to get your A license, buy an old accuracy rig, and spend your next hundred or so jumps learning on an F-111 parachute. It will reduce the learning curve and get you jumping off the bridge sooner, and then you can spend 10 days there just running laps and getting comfortable in a low altitude environment.

How did you prepare? Did someone show you the ropes?

Just out of curiosity, why are you asking about BASE jumping without first learning to skydive? Are you wanting to get on the fast track to BASE jumping, just curious, writing a thesis on self destructive people, or what?

I did my first BASE jump after 44 skydives. Mind you it was bridge day so not sure who would count that but I was pretty much death camped off it. Knowing what I do now I wouldn't have done what I did with such little experience let alone throwing in some stupid stuff off that bridge as well, In BASE your canopy game needs to be top notch

I'm curious about this as a possible avenue of getting into BASE, and wanted to hear some personal experiences.

I understand why most would advise against it.

In one of your other posts you mentioned you were going to Twin Falls. Are you going to jump there with no skydives and no help?

Its not just about canopy flying which is a huge part of it along with other points most people have posted but, stable exit is very important and skydiving gives you time to perfect that along with perception at the speeds things start to happen without sensory overload. Even if you get some skydives there are three ways to go about it. The DZ(where we skydive) is a good place to find a local and ask him if he has the experience/time to mentor you,thats one way. You can get a couple of skydives and do a course/death camp,thats another way, or you can wing it on your own, and that being a high likely hood we will be discussing your attendance to the school of hard knocks here in the incident forum.

Out of curiosity, how do you think skydiving helps with exit? Unless you're jumping terminal antenna with like 60mph wind, your skydive exits going to be nothing like your base exit. Gymnastics or high dive training would help. Not that I'm saying don't skydive, I agree with all your other points. You won't make it far without being able to fly a canopy.

It helps with spatial awareness and getting used to not trying to go head down. In skydiving there is relative wind but in BASE there is none so other than like you said going to a training course for gymnasts or going and playing around on a trampoline, it wont help much,but not every body was blessed with physical prowess,and if they dont want to put in the work to gain experience in skydiving its unlikely they will go and get training by a gymnast. Thats only reason i mentioned exits. It doesnt hurt to learn the box position either unless one is just going to go straight to super tracker on jump one which is not out of the possibilities. If you tumble on exit having a little bit of muscle memory with getting into the box position cant hurt, instead of flailing and eating up precious altitude if jumping something close to terminal or higher.

Well i had a hand full of them, so my story is not as cool as this one i heard from an oldtimer. He told me about this guy he met back in the day, that had never skydived, but had over 100 base jumps.. one day he finally tried to skydive and he was reeeeally scared, because it was way too high! Lol

Normally I don't post on this but I figure you want a story so listen up. I saw someone do their first base jump at a famous starter bridge. The person had no time under any canopy, a friend showed them the theory of flaring and steering and how to land in the main landing area. Theory consisted of talking about it....
The plan: first timer would get a pca and the trainer would jump after and follow them down. No wind conditions. This person was told of where they should be when they should turn towards the landing area. Person mocked it to the experienced jumper when gearing up and apparently a few times before too.

What happened: person gets pca and misses first landmark to turn to main landing area. Everybody watching is relieved because we all think the person is going to land in the water which would have been an OK option since the boat is there and watching. But then this person makes the turn and fly's straight into the trees. We all laughed, person was OK except for a few bruises and the canopy was a little torn up.

What was not funny: had the jumper had an off heading they would of hit into something else seeing the delayed response and bad judgement they made on that jump which apparently went right!!!! Had they made it to the landing area their was no chance that person was going to flare and would have hurt themselves. So many other things could have happened I'm going to stop there. This is one story, I'm sure there are lots more just like this. Base generally has tight landing areas with objects you don't want to land near. Hence you want to be able to fly a canopy similar to the one you will use good enough to spot land in different wind conditions. That's where skydiving comes in great.

So my question is do you want your first base jump to sound similar to this above where your laughed at and come away with scuffed up legs at a minimum and having torn up somebody else's gear? Or do you want your first base jump to actually be a first step for you making good decisions at the right time when needed followed by lots more jumping that progresses into something that people actually admire?

Thats sorta like the fly or die method my personal favorite ...i learnt to fly that way sorta like the guillemots.....its the real deal haha
https://youtu.be/nLaynH-v82M

Haha yep that's pretty much how it went. Except they didn't glide into the water.
Best advice I got for base was this, hey your first couple of hundred jumps will be filled with plenty of mistakes so relax a little. Then when you get better and realise all the mistakes you made you will be shocked at how forgiving base really is to most people. But when your at a jump and you say il be grand, best think twice about that one.

Plus which is cheaper a couple of hundred skydives or bills to fix a broken pelvis and back. I know another person who broke that along with a bunch of other shit on a first jump course. So don't think your ever safe from off headings and line twists, its part of the game, prepare for it. So are plfs into boulder fields ;) another good base tip is to learn how to do a self rescue, first aid course, mountaineering course, learn how to climb, learn how to read the weather accordingly and know how to predict micro climates.

50m jump... Search for this in the forum, pretty cool story

Thanks for that one

To all concerned, I'm simply doing some research, feeling out possibilities, remaining open to all

You gotta remain open to getting your bitchass to a DZ and doing a tandem. You'll even get a signed certificate of your extremeness!

You should close the one not doing tons of skydiving first.

Yup. In Twin Falls Idaho there is a bridge known commonly as "JT's" bridge.

I jumped it without skydive training a handful of times and then enrolled in the AFF skydiving course. In years to come, I threw dozens of people off of the bridge with zero skydive training before I decided that that was not the best idea.

I still do it on special occasions, though.

How much skydiving did you do before moving to more technical stuff (cliffs, tight landing areas, etc.)? Did you take a break from BASE to "catch up" on skydiving or progress them both at the same time?

I was one of the guys that Jt was going to throw off the bridge after watching him jump from a Europe trip although he wasn't there at the time I death camped with other of our friends.
Can't speak for what he did before skydiving but you can learn quite a bit of canopy control at the bridge.
I did lots of more technical landing tracking jumps I had 217 BASE jumps before making a skydive. I wanted to get better at tracking and learn to wing suit. Was able to start in the wing suit pretty quick after about 30 jumps but then put my time in on it skydiving before base with it.

That was basically the approach I took. I got enough skydives to where I felt I could jump at the bridge without a high chance of hurting myself and filled in the "200 jumps" that I was missing with (mostly) bridge jumps.

I finished AFF and then started jumping the bridge.
Before this I read hundreds of hours and every word online I could find about BASE. For me it was the like getting a couple dozen more skydives.

Later, I was a part of showing a few people to do a one off PCA at the bridge. and I've probably seen a dozen other people.

Yeah I should have started slower. But back then, I wouldn't have gotten 200 plane jumps and then went to a FJC before I started jumping. So I'm still glad that I started and had good people and resources around me.

this. exactly this.

Rich Stein made 100 BASE jumps with zero airplane jumps, back in the 80's. We all jumped a lot with him. Carl trained him at some ridiculous age...16 or something.

He was limited, though. He couldn't do anything terminal. So that meant no El Cap, no Half Dome. He was OK with canopy control, but liked to use rounds (another story there).

Almost none of us made it past 100 without spending time in plaster, and he broke his arm on one jump with a bad landing area. I think that was his only major injury. I broke my leg landing in a flat grassy meadow in Yosemite. The LA crowd showed up and grabbed me out of the bar. I was living and climbing out of the rescue site that year.

I didn't think much of not learning on purpose. I came at it from a climber's perspective, having seen a jumper fly right over us on Mescalito, a route directly beneath the exit point on El Cap. I HAD to do that.

When I did, I skydived and learned to fly my body as much as I could, and always tried to land on a spot. Back then we had a pit full of pea gravel for shooting accuracy. I would always work on all of it. It is a bad idea to be stupid on purpose. It's been done.

Great points BASE 104.

With Lodi providing $5 hop and pops it is hard to think that ANY american has an excuse to not learn from an airplane.

Both at the same time. I jumped cliffs and an antenna in Salt Lake City before I finished AFF.

I was fairly methodical.

This is the best reason for people not to cut corners I have ever heard. Here in AUS most dropzones would charge no less than $28 for a hop and pop.

yes but unless you just go to lodi and say you are a skydiver and want to learn to jump on your own at $5 per jump its a bit more to get to that point

You only seem interested in the answers of people that BASEjumped without skydive training..
Step 1...Get a Job.
Step 2 learn to skydive.
Step 3 learn to Basejump.

There have been several through the years, but call me old fashioned, the more experience in the air you have the better chance you will have to survive if something goes wrong. When I started in Jan. 82, using skydiving gear and small pilot chutes, the reason many of us lived is that most had a lot of skydiving time and experience. If you have very little canopy time or time in the air, you simply will not react as quickly when a problem develops. Even on exit and in freefall, if you go out of control with no airtime experience you could be in trouble. I've watched so many videos of jumpers taking over 5 seconds before beginning to turn away from an object on an off heading opening. The more time you have to think about what to do, it could cost you. Instincts are developed over time, not learned in a first jump course or your first 50 jumps. Same with tight landing areas. More air time the better. Lucky for our sport that the equipment is much more fool proof than years past so a lot of newbies get away with BASE jumping, but there will be times when you must react now. Just because the canopies are more foolproof, doesn't mean that fools should get into BASE jumping. It's your life, but to improve your odds, get at least a couple hundred skydives first and always keep learning.

You've written a lot on here, but this is by far your best quote.

Or you will realise that you don't like getting crammed into a plane, and dealing with all the bullshit that goes with skydiving. And you will truly appreciate, when the time comes what it means to be on an object by yourself or a couple of amazing people and push through the training necessary
I don't see the correlation between not liking skydiving and going in

Your post doesn't make much sense, but do as you choose. I've had over 40 friends die skydiving and BASE jumping, but what do I know.
Rick H
D 3736
BASE 38
Director USBA

Im not sure what you mean?
Im saying you need the skydives to transfer to BASE, (the training necessary)
But just because you dont like skydiving doesnt mean you are going to go in
So?
It was in reference to

if you get bored with
SKY jumping within a week you will likely
kill yourself BASE jumping within a year.

I didn't realize anyone else was getting into BASE jumping. A pretty smart guy once told me, on the subject of starting with low skydives, "if you're getting into BASE jumping, your judgement probably isn't all that great to begin with."

I like that.
As another wise man told me, it's hard to build and develop good judgement when it's based on the biggest lapse of judgement of all - making the decision to jump in the first place. (Talking about BASE, not skydiving. Skydiving is for pussies.)

I agree this lad makes the most sense...and i agreee....and go skydiving if u just want to make the general public think your crazy and have a deathwish.. even tho we all know itz gay coz legit the general public will think your extreme as fuck and not notice the difference to skydiving and base jumping.....haha

Skydiving is fun, tracking is fun, freeflying is fun, swooping is fun, wing suiting is fun, base jumping is fun
dying is not fun
the best way to not die base jumping is going skydiving
so don't die and go have fun

theres alot and i do mean alot of aspects of skydiving that are not fun...i actually hate all the bullshit and hand holding that goes on in skydiving to me skydiving is all about what i cant do and it makes sense coz its someone elses show not yours and theres liabilities etc and i dont blame skydiving places for it coz as we all know theres so many dickheads out there that love suing/lawsuits etc for there own stupid fuckups.....i mainly stick to speedflying and base these days as i can do what i want when i want....also im way to broke $$ for skydiving lately lol

How old are you - 12?

Its 2016 lad literacy is in the past....

If skydiving is all about what you can't do you need to shift your perspective. Is the glass half empty or half full? It comes down to what perspective you chose... I skydive to be safe in the BASE environment. I skydive because it is fun. I also get bored skydiving, which doesn't happen with BASE for me. I still try to skydive and wish I was able to do more of it so I can be awesome and safe when it's go time. Kinda like running all those hills and getting the hours in before you do a marathon. Yeah, the hard work sucks and you will want to quit at times, but come marathon day you'll be awesome and all the work payd of.
That's kinda how I view it when motivation is low :p

Did you write any post in past 12 months where you did not mention how gay and lame skydiving is? Are you just bitter that you can't afford it? Or are you just soccialy handicapped? :P You should try some diferent dropzones...

Skydiving is for sure a lot more expensive in Aus. Might be cheaper to fly over to the states and camp at lodi in a month.

To me the skydiving without base is like saying "hey I saw alex honhold on TV, I want to start freesoloing and that way I wont have to buy stupid gear because its expensive. Yup, you could do that, and it might work, but it might not.

Remember, youll only regret not doing skydive training when youre in a hospital bed, or just as you realize youre fucked and about to die. If you skydive a bunch, youre less likely to be in one of those situations.

i have a good dropzone and yeh i do hate the stupid amount of money it costs to skydive so yeh bitter could be right..also i just like to take the piss out of things (most things) as most ppl would have noticed,,and theres always someone that bites haha and when i say something is gay or lame im aware that i probably also do it and theres a contradiction..
ive just never been a fan of to many rules, regulations, fees etc i put up with it but i dont have to like it....is what it is i suppose..
im not the only one that stirs the pot hey

All I know about australian skydiving is that I went to a DZ in sydney to pick up a couple guys before we went and jumped a local bridge twice in the middle of the day.

Heard of the bridge never been as im to far away its sketchy low as i think.....and is prob one of the highest in aus lol

Sounds about right ;)

Id always heard about the sketchiness of Aussie base LZs. Then I went there and jumped 12 different exits. The sketchiness was in no way exaggerated, and may have been downplayed.

Whenever people are critical of Aussies doing an fjc at the perrine and going straight to Moab, you have to realize those Moab cliffs are 10x safer to learn on than anything in the bluies.

Even our antennas here suck not sure what the highest jumpable one is but wouldnt be close to what other countries have...

Used to be a nice one. Used to be a great smokestack too ;)

yeh i missed out on both those...omega was an antenna that was there but switched off for years till they knocked it down due to a base fatality...prob got rid of the antenna thinking there saving lives when in reality it was the safest base jump in australia....well they cant knock everything down.. or maybe they can lol

I stopped reading right there because it sounds funny coming from you.

When I started, coming from a climbing background who was amazed at seeing a jumper I knew fly right over us on El Cap, I wanted to just jump El Cap and then quit. There had been some jumpers before me, but none of them had very many jumps. Some only had 4...the base number, and quit.

It was somehow considered cool to do it with a minimum of skydiving experience. Like climbers had tough minds or something. I did El Cap on my 24th jump, including my static lines and student jumps. It went OK, but as I got sucked into it, I skydived more and more. It isn't that expensive, and you refine not only your terminal flying skills, but landing and general knowledge. So I ended up doing 1100 skydives.

There is no reason to be stupid on purpose.

In the words of Nick DG "That's a nugget".