Basejumper.com - archive

Since this discussion does not belong in the May 13 incident report I thought I'd bring it here.

Tom, yesterday you said:


That's funny. A year ago you released a PDF about Helium + floating pin malfunctions (https://drive.google.com/...aGpvdHlYak1SR3M/view, except only two of them could be caused by a floating pin bridle (#4 and #5) and are incredibly unlikely and impossible to ever replicate. But you were obviously impressed with your findings:


At the time that I read that, I had a packed rig with a floating pin bridle that I'd made with Darcy and Chris on the Object Avoidance course of April, 2014. I knew that it couldn't have been any of those so I did some testing and found a configuration that was very easy to create and results in a jammed floating pin.

First static: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpzsI21Dq6g

Then dynamic when people said it wouldn't happen with real force: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J6efl-oYpk

Then after Miles posted it on his Facebook and people started freaking out:


Which is a bit ironic considering the pins 69ing scenario (#4 and #5 above, how many test drops did that take?)

So I posted a continuous clip of several drops with the same result every time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plRIrKHPJ9I) and spent quite a bit of time online and with other riggers testing this on different rigs, all with similar results. Maybe you were testing at home, but you certainly didn't participate in any of the discussions here about testing non-imaginary floating pin locks.

To the common observer it would appear that after Bryan's death you were trying to blame anything except the floating pin bridle since so many of your students just happened to be leaving your course with one, but now that time has passed and people have moved on you're trying to rewrite history with SRBA as the leader in BASE forensics, training, and safety. And it'll probably work. It worked on me, it worked on Bryan. I don't actually care anymore, but I can't stand idly by while his death is taken advantage of.

I'm pretty sure that the floating pin was acknowledged by SRBA as the probable cause of Bryan's malfunction, hence their discontinued use and recommendation by SRBA that all pins be fixed.

You see that pile of mush you're beating on? That used to be a horse.

You see that pile of shit you keep defending? That's the guy creatively rewriting history after some time has passed because he places more value on ego and his brand image than just being honest about his contribution to a total mal in the first place.

Hi Mr. Bluhdow:

Let's bring this to the most basic goal- preventing future injuries and fatalities.

Let's also agree that the last FOUR fatalities in Twin Falls had some things in common-
- Recent graduates of SRBA
- Low skydive number students
- Low BASE jump number jumpers, who had little or no follow up mentorship

Not to question Tom's thousands of BASE jumps from hundreds of objects in the last decades- but does Tom and/or the SRBA have any formal FAA parachute rigger training that would very likely have been critical to safety?

Not that an FAA rigger certificate would have kept a new student, under Tom Aiello's direct supervision and suggestion, from building a floating pin bridle in the SRBA "shop", incredibly poorly, which would lead to his death.

This is, at the very least, a gross misrepresentation, but more accurately just flat out wrong. You have absolutely no evidence to substantiate these claims. Feel free to correct me. Who is trying to rewrite history now?

Great! That does sound productive.

At current, tail risk events have been identified with the use of floating pin bridles. They are no longer in use at SRBA and a recommendation, along with some research, has been distributed encouraging their discontinued use.

Now how else can we prevent future injuries and deaths related to FPBs? I'm all ears.

Thank you for steering this conversation into a more productive direction.

Your testing is still set up to produce the result you are looking for. You still have rubber bands attached to the carabiner, damping the force that gets transmitted to the pins. But more importantly is the fact that you are specifically setting it (your foot moves the container until it is lined up just right) to an angle that is designed to fail, without changing the orientation. You might say "my container should work in any orientation", but realistically, some type of lock is possible on most major rigs being manufactured now (see the Watch Thy Bridle video). I've put my pins in a orientation the will lock my (standard from the manufacturer) container, and applied well over 20 Lbs of force to it to no avail. But in the real world, your pilot chute is going to be pulling from a lot of different angles, just like Bryan's was. I don't believe that the specific lock you show in the video would have even been possible, given the different directions that his pilot chute was pulling in.

Could you please be more specific? Which points are in contention?

I'll restate-

- Were all four recent SRBA graduates?
- Did they enter the SRBA with far lower than the industry recommended 150-200 skydives, as other schools require?
- Were these fatalities in Twin Falls recent and reasonably inexperienced SRBA BASE graduates?
- The SRBA "rigging loft". What level of certification, training, and supervision does Tom and the other "riggers" have to make decisions and modifications to already existing containers.

I don't need to rewrite history. I've been making it. But I also don't have blood on my hands that I need to spin and twist facts to make myself appear less negligent and fraudulent.

Have you gotten a lock with any kind of dynamic force 100% of the time though? That was really just a proof of concept since it wasn't even on the same container type. But it showed that the floating pin could be jammed very easily and allow the fixed pin to come down and further interfere with the tuck flap, which is what appears to have happened.

I never said it was a perfect test, but you can't argue that normal BASE gear should jam up like that. And it worked in any normal belly to earth pull direction. You might consider running some actual tests (maybe with a real Helium) instead of just hypothesizing about how I doctored my results.

Gabe, we don't build bridles during the Object Avoidance course (or any other course).

Historically, we allowed students to use the rigging supplies and sewing machines at the school outside of class time. Some instructors, on their own time outside of class, worked with students (and actually other people too) on some of that stuff.

But, you will be glad to know, as a direct result of your postings, we discontinued this practice and no longer allow students or other outside parties to use our machines or materials outside of classes. That decision was made over a year ago.

Since we aren't teaching skydiving rigging, I don't actually think that the skydiving rigging certifications of our instructors are relevant to this discussion, but just for reference the majority of our instructors are FAA certified senior riggers.

Also for reference, the jumper in the most recent incident in Twin Falls had more than 1000 skydives.

Man, I'm 100% for trolling and beating dead horses, but this is getting ridiculous. Let me go ahead a summarize the previous 1000 posts and the next 1000 posts about this.

1. Floating bridles are bad, don't use them. Some people thought they were, turns out that was wrong.
2. Many people on the forums Have strong opinions about Tom.


I'll make sure to save this post for the next floating bridle thread in a few months.

Anonymous account started 6 days ago, on May 15, the date of the first post on the latest TF incident.

Nah ... He's not anonymous. He makes a bunch of profiles and uses a different one each time the current profile gets disabled.

No kidding. And the new accounts. Its old.

Whatever would someone need to do that? Oh...wait....

I'm not taking sides with anybody, I just have a thought.
Would drag from a pilot chute be better represented by the rubber bands rather than a static load? Maybe to an extent if done correctly?

Note: I do not jump a pin rig, Velcro doesn't float or lock up my container.

There seem to be about six different undercurrents in this post that most of us following this know nothing about.

One undercurrents is 'agreeing' about 'the last FOUR fatalities in Twin Falls.'

IIRC ONE of 'the last FOUR fatalities in Twin Falls had'... more than 1000 skydives when he 'burn in.' Given how totally wrong the poster is on that point I would not "agree" on any of the other points either without more than just his or her say-so.

As for the 'FAA rigger' thing; why don't the poster examine whether vegetarians were involved? It is just as relevant isn't it.

The one thing that we CAN all agree on, all four of those fatalities happened at a "beginner" object. A second thing we MIGHT all agree on is that more people are dying at this beginner object lately than at any other site in the world where people are not using wingsuits.

All this talk about gear misses that main point; the pre-jump judgment and actions of the people who died. The most recent one, for example; the exact details were deleted from the thread so I will be discreet out of respect, but gear had NOTHING to do with what really killed her and that was her judgment and actions in the days, hours and minutes before her death.

To me, THAT is a much more critical a factor than dead horses and undercurrents everyone focus on. Bill Booth say many times that the safer the gear get the more dangerous ways people will find to use it. That is what count here, not dumb insider fights about nothing important.

Thanks Tom. That's great, but that alone seems like more of a business decision to limit liability (which is quite wise on sole account of your bartacker). The important part of that would be impressing upon students the difference between a repair and an alteration, and that once you make an alteration you're a test jumper on your own and should expect something very bad to happen on every jump.

I know building bridles isn't an official part of any course, but on the April 2014 course you showed it to us on one of the mornings in the middle of the course and, whether due to our gullibility or your salesmanship, had 3 of us convinced of its benefits and we built our own just afterwards. I remember that part quite clearly because we couldn't find the box containing all the spare closing pins. I'm sure the specific circumstances for each student that decided to build/modify a FP bridle is a bit different, but it's a bit insulting to continually deny that you had anything to do with your students making/altering bridles.

People only keep bringing this up because you keep denying any responsibility when things go wrong. Same thing with jumping the shitty cliffs around Twin Falls. 12 years ago you said:

(http://www.basejumper.com/...post=1157213#1157213)

But then sometime afterwards it became ok to take people fresh off their FJC with 20-30 jumps and one week in the sport to jump those cliffs. And it mostly worked out, except for that one time it didn't.

I was very very happy to see you start moving them to Moab. Big thumbs up for that. But again you don't seem to want to acknowledge any responsibility for Adam's accident or for all the new jumpers who continued to jump TF cliffs on trips back to the bridge since they'd jumped them "safely" with only 30 jumps. This wouldn't be a huge deal except for the fact that you are the main FJC school right now and you used to call out JT, Shane, and Miles for stunts and deathcamping for years but now seem to be holding yourself to a different standard. The only incident with any kind of a "mea culpa" was Jim's, and that one seemed a bit forced due to all the media and BJ.com attention.

Even though your course contains more instruction and classroom teaching than most other courses available, it's hard to recommend it when you have a history of acting as the final authority in BASE and ignoring constructive input (and occasionally criticism) from other jumpers & instructors, which inevitably rubs off on your students. AKA the "Tom told me this was ok" safety bubble.

This implies that there was an incentive for Tom to use his "salesmanship" to convince you to use a floating pin bridle. Why would he do that? Aside from telling you that it exists...what would he have to gain from your changing bridles?

When I took the course I was taught that FBPs exist, and what the theory behind them was. There was no incentive for Tom to convince us one way or the other. I'm not sure how you got that from what I imagine was a very similar conversation.

Call it what you want, but when the only person you have as a mentor shows you something and describes it as a way to potentially avoid pin locks right around the time when the Watchthybridle stuff was going on, there's a pretty good chance that you're gonna try it out. In my case I was a new senior rigger who didn't know any better. But I guess you did, so... congrats?

I think your suggestion that a BASE teacher / mentor can somehow 100% guarantee that no student ever goes in on any subsequent jump is a little naive.

Here's some info that may help:

http://stavangerbase.com/#warning

Your gear is your choice. I know 2 people who still choose to jump floating pins, both have vastly more experience than me and neither was a student at SRBA.

Also, I believe it's only going to be a matter of time until someone goes in with a pin lock on a normal fixed pin bridle.
With the increasing number of jumpers in the sport and overall jumps being made, it's inevitable that rare gear malfunctions will occur more frequently.
I think with proper pin orientation, gear checks and leaving the flap open for slider down, it is very unlikely to happen. But shit does happen from time to time.

While I don't think that he was trying to suggest this exactly, this sentiment definitely rears its head up in these forums on a regular basis. Every time a former SRBA student has any incident the school is brought into question by the same few people.

I wonder if we went through the BFL and noted the name of every mentor and/or FJC who provided early education to the deceased jumper...what would that list look like? How about if we made a pie chart out of it? Would SRBA own the biggest slice? Or would it be predominately made up of various mentors? I'm not lawyering here. I don't know the answer but I'm genuinely curious.

Yeah, I definitely don't believe you can 100% guarantee someone's safety. But I think the mentor should usually be responsible until the student is past the first stage of "unconscious incompetence" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...stages_of_competence). This would be a very interesting metric to see how many on the BFL fell under that category per mentor/school.

To help your math, in April 2014 IIRC Tom had said Brian Drake was the only one who'd gone in after signing his lucky guestbook. So until Adam he may have had a perfect score.

I don't even know who to specifically aim this at, but what would it take to resolve this situation?

Is there a desire for Tom to admit some kind of wrongdoing, close the base school? Apologize?

Last I checked, BASE has a lot of personal responsibility attached to it. As not good of an idea as a floating pin seems to be in retrospect, lots of jumps were done on them successfully. Shitty that someone died in showing that theyre not a good idea, but this unfortunately happens in base from time to time. Take the lesson learned, apply it to the general knowledge of base, and move on...

Ive had a whole lot of friends die in this sport. I don't blame their deaths on anyone but themselves and the choices they made...like starting to base jump.

Sounds reasonable at first, but I think that's a deceptively extreme take on a mentor's responsibility. my 5 theories why:

1, "It's only a theory" theory: The 4-stage theory of competence reflects universal truths, but particularly in BASE, reality is always more complex than theory. There's no universal benchmark for when someone makes it past the first stage, so you can't really hold a mentor to your standard.

2, the "cunt" theory: students sometimes intentionally do things against the better advice of their mentors, trying to push their own limits. not the mentor's fault.

3, the FJC vs. mentor theory: A FJC instructor is not a mentor, unless it happens that you live near them and they teach you for dozens and dozens of jumps and help you get BASE. Nor is it the FJC's responsibility to make sure you found a mentor to go home to.

4, the "make it idiotproof... they'll build a better idiot" theory: eventually, someone will take your very clear instructions and completely misunderstand it in a way you never thought possible. i.e., students sometimes just act dumb and no mentor can prevent it 100% of the time

5, the "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" theory: final responsibility always rests with the person wearing the rig on their back. Sure bad mentors exist, but when you start quibbling about the blame-game, it's the same logic that leads to a lawsuit culture. That path has made Merica a shitty place to try and have fun, because now every asshole out there is suing everybody else, because ultimately everything bad is someone else's fault.

Sorry, I meant responsible as in they should actively advise or warn the jumper when they are doing something that they have no idea is dangerous. You know what I mean. Every time a new jumper gets hung up on the steel from a PCA in a headwind the first comment isn't what an idiot they are but asking who their mentor was.

Your #3 is an excellent point though. Some instructors form an insular, almost cult-like mentality that rubs off on the students to where they go back home and won't take advice from other more experienced jumpers (or instructors) simply because they aren't affiliated with that school.

Good clarification. Though, the mentor can't be there 100% of the time... theories #2 & #4... but i get what you are saying


Ah, the sly side-jab
personally FWIW, my experience with grads of such a theoretical school has been exactly the opposite. I'm sure everyone's mileage varies.

Can someone post the picture with the one guy doing the rollover while PCA'ing 2 other guys all at once? I've heard so much from the cult members about it, but haven't seen it with my own eyes...maybe I'm not worthy.

To be fair. Those students may have turned out that way regardless of instructor. You know some people are just more awesome than others and you are just jealous of their awesomeness. The benefit of true mentors is that a student's attitude would be apparent to the mentor before they ever got to jump. FJCs for the most part don't give a shit. You got money you get to jump.

I have recently experimented with different pin attachment configs.
It seems that mounting the pinloops 90° from normal inline shows the most promise.
Take care,
space

Why all the drama and hate? What if it's neither, really. What if it just looks that way to people who don't want to believe it's altruistic and less about Tom and more about his prospective students' safety? How also if it's about people just wanting to hold Tom Aiello accountable and to the same standard he's tried to hold others in in the past 15 or so years while smearing their names to his students and in his selective moderating of this site--his perfect little marketing spot for the uninitiated.

Personally, I think he's a blight on the sport. No big surprise for any of you to hear me say it. I'd love it if he'd just stop instructing, but it's naive to think he'd do so. He has too much invested and his ego is too big. What would he do if not market himself as the best BASE instructor and school in the world? He'd go back to being the same old never-was that got run out of the NorCal scene, moved to Twin, began making a name for himself off passing acquaintances with real jumpers (or maybe just by knowing their names), feeding beer and tri-tip to anyone who'd come to his house and watch the carnage reel (again and again and again and again) in the first few minutes in the door. Sound familiar, anyone? That latter bit is the mark of a sociopath, not someone inherently concerned for anyone but himself. I mean, really...how many times can you watch and show that, Tom?

Then there's one of the favorites... How many people have heard the good old, "Well, just let me tell you... You don't want to be the 'low guy' on a jump with Dwain Weston."? Hell of a badge of honor if you spin it right to someone who wants you to teach them. What I've heard, is that he wasn't even wanted on that jump. Then he blasted-in and that was one of...three pretty significant or near fatal injuries in his first couple of years? But I guess the stories of injury and near death if told strategically add to his legend.

When you think you're being trained by the best of the best and crammed with so much information in such a short time, it must seem "comprehensive". The reality is it breeds exactly what we've seen: 20-30 jump wonders fresh out of a class heading to dangerous, low cliffs in Twin or even Moab. When you feel that you've been trained by the "best of the best", it gives you a false sense of security. Man oh man has he mastered the spin on his fuck-ups to market to the uninformed.

Back to that, think about it...to what audience does he market himself? Not BASE jumpers or their friends (unless former students); very few of you actually reading this. He carefully and methodically releases information here in a manner to make himself look really, really good to anyone not in the scene coming onto this site. He spreads negative or potentially culpable evidence across many deliberately unconnected threads, making it harder for newbies to get the full picture. That's dangerous. Because they then come into his pipeline of students looking at "such a comprehensive course" taught by a guy so willingly sharing such a mass of information that they don't know of his fallibility because he'll go to great lengths to protect his ego and brand by spreading the info out over different forums and threads over time.

Hell, gharrop nailed it in his handling and response over the three fatalities in Twin prior to this most recent one. The floating pin which gets so much attention was split into multiple topics deemed unrelated by him, separate from and with barely passing mention of his involvement in the formal incident report. Then a year later he goes on to claim SRBA is the "only entity on earth to ever issue a warning on the use of floating pins"? See how that can be leveraged to lure in a newb who doesn't know the history? And how easily do the rest of you forget? Then with Hickey, he only bowed to pressure and put up his heartfelt apology due to media, law enforcement, and attention on this forum. And even that was AFTER he removed gear from the scene, covered up details to the first-responders, and coerced witnesses to submit a false report to law enforcement.

Personally, I am disgusted that people so easily brush that one aside and don't seem to want to hold him accountable over that stunt alone, let alone his actions after. It's alleged he delayed the call to 911, even. I don't know if it's true, but he did whatever he did with time to remove the gear before the first-responders showed. I once came up on a friend who was DEAD when I got to her. No breathing, no bleeding/pulse for a long time. All I could think about was medical attention. We got her that and she's alive and well today. It disgusts me that anyone would begin thinking so selfishly about damage control.

This is the same guy who called the cops on Shane, JT, Miles for waterski jumps and made so much trouble over rail bails (allegedly calling the cops on them). If only they'd lit the skis on fire, I guess it would have been fine. It just goes on, denying his instruction on and supervision of newer jumpers making gear mods in his loft. Taking students to the local cliffs that he'd previously called dangerous for new jumpers (and to which pretty much everyone else agree, "Ummm. Yeah."). Yes, he discontinued this, but he still denies it despite former students saying otherwise on both examples.

Anyway, I'm the asshole because I'm carrying the torch now. I'm fine with that. It's been carried by many over the past 12-15 years. I'm just a different face calling him out, this time over the absolute level of his hypocrisy and danger in which he places his students. Of course, Tom says the same old thing as he's said about everyone before..."What's wrong with everyone else? I'm such a nice guy. I don't get it, must be something wrong with ALL OF THEM. Why don't they like meeee?"

How do I know this? Because a decade or so ago, I and a few of my mates were friends with Tom for a couple of years. We'd watch him squirm when he'd get called out by people we came to know as far better individuals and humans than Tom had said and wanted us to believe. I even fell for it until I got to know a lot of these people, jumping with them all over the world.

By the way, this was all about the same time when he'd talk of anyone getting 50 jumps a year as "raging"... Sounds odd coming from a guy who "quit logging after a thousand jumps" in a few years right about that time, eh? Better jumpers and instructors have forgotten more jumps than Tom has made. It takes a while, but a lot of his students seem to start picking up on this after leaving his carefully shielded course (you know, where he has everyone park by Best Buy on the other side of the bridge, so as not to meet jumpers packing by the Visitor Center). He ranks up with those guys marching around in uniforms, adorned with unit insignia and awards who've never served. "Stolen Valor" is how a few friends have so aptly put it and it fits.

I'm not jealous of Tom's SRBA BASE factory, nor invested in or interested in teaching a course of my own or pumping up the numerous friends I have who do run their own schools and instruction. I am interested in holding someone accountable to their errors and mistakes that contribute to if not actually cause loss of life or serious injury. Sadly, it has to be on Tom's little marketing site because this is the first place in which prospective students find themselves. That in and of itself is too bad. If you can't connect yourself to an experienced BASE jumper on your own DZ or in your travels and you just have to turn to the Internet and to the first person who says he'll teach you...well, that's why I'm writing this here. So, if you're not yet a jumper and you're reading this, just do yourself a favor: do your homework and exhaustively research the instructors and schools available to you before you make a decision. If some won't take you because you need more skydiving experience or other preparation, don't go with the one who says they'll take you anyway.

You asked why and there's some of it. In the end, if you take one thing away from all of this drivel, the reason for it is that I honestly believe Tom is a danger to at least some percentage of his students and therefore has an impact (pardon the pun) on the sport and every one of you. If he continues to take in low-skydive-number students, insulates them from other jumpers, craftily distributes and spreads the ashes and info after an incident to mitigate damage to himself and his school's brand, nothing good will come of it. Those are a few of the things he could change. But hey, this post will be gone soon, anyway.

Touché.

All in good fun

edit: PS it could be your avatar!

Well there is your problem. You think people on here care what has happened over the last 15 years. Fuck if Squirrel didn't invent it I'm surprised any of them would consider it BASE jumping.

A non-technical post over a page long generally suggests that a poster is either obsessed, or has no life. Repeated posts, however, confirm a clinical diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Being a sociopath is beneficial in the world of BASE jumping. OCD is not. Please seek help.

I believe that quite the opposite is true. I also believe I'm better off jumping by myself and my best mates than with just anyone.

Argumentum ad hominem, Yuri. Or maybe you just don't care about or to address the points I did make. That's your prerogative.

Interesting though that you took Tom's standard approach. He used to tell us how crazy everyone who criticized him was, too.

I assure you, I'm of sound mind and have plenty of awesome things in my life to take a little time on this as a distraction for the reasons with which I closed that last post.

Colin - I can't even imagine your wing-loading carrying around that much hatred.

I don't think you recall correctly. I did the SRBA course in 2012. Tom told us that two people who signed the book had gone in. One was Dwain, R.I.P.

That's very possible, but I believe it was in reference to his students who'd signed it.

Dwain was also skydiving.

Hey, Brian. You make an interesting point. Don't know if that was a sincere post, or taking a piss. Anyway, here goes...

"Hatred." If only it were that simple. It'd be easier to brush aside and it's easier for other people to understand and explain (and therefore in this cases dismiss).

Summing it up without the vitriol, I genuinely believe the manner in which Tom conducts himself and has over the past 10-15 years represents a danger to the sport and his students. And frankly, it pisses me off that he's gotten away with discrediting so many fine people for so long.

I've seen too many people attempt to have discussions with him not only to no effect but with the result being more fuel on the fire, as Tom takes and twists their words to his sole benefit; using it to further discredit anyone who stands counter to his image as the end-all-be-all authority in BASE. Why waste by breath on him when he denies even the smallest truths when honesty would go further?

Hatred would be so simple. If there's an ounce of compassion in any of this--beyond for his students past and to be--I actually feel sorry for the guy more than hate him. On a human level there is an ounce of compassion, but it's outweighed by his bullshit. I don't know what it's like to live so many half-truths, but I can't imagine it's easy.

He sure sounds like the end-all-be-all to me. To cut out the more trivial parts of this discussion, this is where you comment on his inflated jump numbers, and then I ask how hard you were going in 2002. I guess having an actual discussion is kind of pointless though. Talking your issues out with people sounds very unhealthy and unproductive.

Can I comment on his inflated jump numbers?

I was jumping really hard in 2002. Never saw Tom out at an exit point, never saw videos or pictures of him jumping.

"With all due respect", you haven't been in the sport for long enough to know anything other than what you've been told.

In fact, if someone threw a flaming tennis ball into someone's kerosene soaked canopy in 2002, they would have already been tarred and feathered...

To clarify, with regards to the visitors book there was no reference to students. It was anyone who had signed it.

There was no distinction made between skydiving or BASE jumping. "Went in" was it.

I suppose if he didn't get it on a GoPro, then it definitely didn't happen. All my jumps are probably imaginary too.


I guess what I'm getting at is neither can you. I realize you started doing this more than a decade before me, but you started too late to really have a full picture of everything that happened, so you're relying on different people's accounts too. And so is Collin. Sorry you missed the bus. Try again next time.

This difference between us (other than our experience) is that I've taken the time to talk to as many people with a different perspective as I possibly could, and you're just stuck in your circle of friends trying to be the cool kid who can talk the most shit about the guy you don't like. With all your years doing this, I would have thought you finished high school a while ago.

 Hey, Ian. Clock is running and counting the seconds until I get yet another of your "hey, about that post… Can we meet up next time I'm in town? ... Are we cool?" FB messages.

I'm glad you are trying to talk to as many people as you can, but can you try and do it without using both sides of your mouth? Your moderation sure seems intent on defense, Puppet.

How much shit talking did I do about Tom last week, when we met and you crashed out at my house on the way thru town?

Zero.

Kind of like "Talking about Tom is pointless." or "I don't have time to talk." when you are busy Photoshopping pictures and writing dissertations? I don't have a personal issue with you or Peter, I just figure that people should have facts to sort out your fabrications.

Yes, you didn't say anything to me, you were just busy doing it on here.

Before everyone starts shouting "Jerry! Jerry!" (Springer, not Harendza), I guess it's worth mentioning that I think Collin and Peter are good people. We just seriously disagree on one very specific aspect of reality.

Way back in those years and a little earlier on, I happened to see Tom on a bunch of exit points. Some of our circles contained the same people and we've even gone out on 2 way missions.

Can I still stay at your place if I come through your area? I think it's been since at least 2003 since I've jumped with you.

The ironic thing is that with every obsessive, ranting, insane post you write you only serve to make Tom look like the rational adult in the room.

Yawn.

I bet. Isn't that right about the time he got chased out of NorCal and moved to Twin?

I didn't say he's never jumped. But 1000+ jumps within his first few years, and 200+ objects. Wow! That's quite a pace. And his personal safety record is impeccable!

Some people are compulsive liars, and need to embellish their qualifications or accomplishments in life. People claim to be SEALs, combat veterans, etc too. And they ultimately get called out and shamed, unless they are the moderator of a forum to insulate yourself from discovery.

The problem here is that Tom is getting called out and busted for all the lies and half-truths that he's woven, while new unsuspecting BASE jumpers get hurt and/or caught on fire. I'm more disappointed in the modern BASE community for allowing an attention seeking fraud to represent them within the news media and town of Twin Falls.

You're the only experienced jumper that I know that has had anything but negative comments or jokes about Tom.

Whatever. If all this internetness saves just one BASE life from Tom, I'll be satisfied.

If you're going to be disappointed with anyone it should be yourself. And probably Colsco.

Because despite your best efforts, and a seemingly infinitely large amount of reasons for Tom to be ostracized from the community, he's still a much bigger part of it than you.

I don't know the stories about getting chased out. In fact, I make it a point to stay clear of it. I was definitely busy jumping stuff. I specifically mentioned he was on some of the same objects. I know he was jumping a lot back then, but my knowledge of his numbers is limited.

Since you're able to respond with this profile for now, I felt like making a comment.

Awww shucks...you're welcome. You think it's obsessive, insane, and ranting, but it offers another side to what his prospective students are hearing. If they take one thing away it's that there's another side to Tom's history, not just the stories in the sales pitch.

It's a shame, though, that his only defense is private attacks on "co-conspirators" or "primary actors", and he choses not to address even the points called out on him that are plainly obvious.

Cool that he has you guys to defend him, though.

The one observation I would mention:

Of ALL the schools teaching. Individuals from DZ's raking people to the bridge.

Only ONE has a reputation that is questionable with ethics.

I'm guessing English isn't your first language. Feel free to post in your native language - we can use google translate to at least try to discern a rough idea of what you mean.

This is flat out false. There are most definitely individuals with questionable ethics taking people to the bridge.

As a school or just individually?

Happens a lot individually so please clarify.

Individually. Though I suspect that if you asked around it wouldn't be hard to find a handful of people that have a problem with every school out there.

Some people don't like some other people. Always is, always will be. It just gets tired when we all have to hear the same sob story over, and over, and over again.

People keep replying to the threads, so they will never go away.

Not at you hookit.
Hey Mods, Can you put the non technical posts some where other than Technical?
Thanks in advance.
space

+1

Which school have you heard someone questioning their ethics ?

And individuals.

I'm not here to blow people up. That position is oversubscribed at the moment.

No. You're just here to blow people.

I rest my case.

Just living up to it for you.

You know, fuck all this. Tom is going to keep Tomming and people here are going to keep ignoring the facts, accepting them for what they are and not caring, or nodding in silent agreement.

I know I've convinced a few newbies to rethink their options and go with other, better instructors. Even some of his former students are saying the same thing. This is all funny at times---or rather would be if it weren't so fucking tragic---but enough, even for me.

Keep each other alive.

See you at an exit point.

if it's so easy to finally say 'fuck all this'
now think of this: 'mind your own business'
OK you made your point, spreading the word(nothing wrong about it in my own opinion), now let the others decide what's the outcome. stop wasting your energy fueled by hatred. be patient with yourself and others. if you were right things will turn your way eventually.
I will jump with you any day if I have the chance, or have some good cold beer in the Swiss Alps or whatever other beautiful place in this world! it's all you man, it's your life, live it and let others live their own life!
cheers man!

*edited to add brackets: (nothing...own opinion)