Basejumper.com - archive

This might sound silly, but I am serious. As more and more wingsuit BASE fatalities occur, I would be interested to hear from people who have been wingsuit BASE jumping for more than 10 years and have more than 1000 wingsuit BASE jumps (like Robert Pecnik, Frode,...), what keeps them alive. I wish there was a compilation of texts/interviews with honest and serious answers on this topic to learn and save some lives. We all know the usual answers, but maybe there is more to that.

Most of them are probably not even on this forum but maybe this can be a constructive thread.

Im wondering just how many people actually meet your criteria, not many at all, very likely less than 10, and possibly considerably less. Frode and Robi certainly have 10 years, but 1500 is a lot of base jumps, let alone wingsuit jumps. James B? Very likely Julien B. I consider myself fairly experienced and I don't meet either or your criteria at 9/850.

That's idea, but I lowered it. Hear from the few who survived that long and that many jumps.

Don't think i fully qualify at 17 years & only about 700..800 WS base flights. However, this lack of numbers is precisely a major factor in staying alive For the last 10 years i've slowed down dramatically. The last five are a happy retirement save for an occasional shameful relapse in Italy that starts with tiramisu and ends you know where...

The technical side of flying a wingsuit safely has been beaten to death - Robi, Matt etc have all written excellent articles about it. They may have an influence on a minority of people, who will eventually make it into 4 digits. However, people in general like to keep the level of acceptable risk constant: once the gear gets better, they will cut the margins. When a new suit comes out, an acceptable rock drop shaves a second off. If a new suit is easier to fly, they will skip 200 training skydives, an so on.

Leaving the skills & experience aside, it is down to statistics once the numbers build up. All it takes on a new generation of exit points is a simple slip or mis-step: two recent fatalities flash in my mind right away, but there are many others, and countless close calls. A tension knot over the rocks will ruin the day of the most safety-conscious jumper, and you are very likely to get one in a space of a few thousand jumps. Etc, etc.

So, the bottom line is: if you keep rolling into the thousands, you are very likely to eventually bite the bullet. A safety-conscious & conservative attitude simply allows you to roll into the thousands - otherwise you will bite it in double- or triple-digits

Meanwhile, try to pull over the water when you can help it, at the altitude most people exit from in the silly valley, save them do-or-die exits for a special occasion - and you just might get bored enough to quit, take up golf & die from a lightning strike

Flying mushroom ?

I think he just did his 1000th wingsuit jump last year. 100 wingsuit jumps a year for 15 years is a metric shit ton.

*just saw you lowered it to 1000 which is probably more likely to get you a few people.


Starting to wingsuit today is a lot different than 10 years ago. I remember learning to fly wingsuits in 2005 and going to different dropzones and most people had never even seen a wingsuit. I flew an S1, and was terrified of the gigantic V2 which all the cool kids flew. I did 400 wingsuit jumps before I ever thought of taking one off a cliff, and jumped my S1 and a P2 for several years before moving up to bigger suits as they came out. Now its one year of skydiving, 100 jumps on a phantom or similar, and then buy your giant suit and start flying it off cliffs. I think there has been a real loss of respect for learning to base jump first prior to putting on a wingsuit. The vast majority of wingsuit base jumpers seem to get into base to focus on just that. Ive slowed down a lot in the last 2 years or so, and that has probably saved me thus far.

Ive always said, if you want to survive base jumping, take your time, do your skydives, become a rigger, and always jump at 50% of your abilities.

I know of at least 2 people who died after 10+ years and 1000 wingsuit jumps as well.

Lowering the bar to 10/1000 surely brings more people in, Simon from CH surely has way over 1000+ ws jumps but not sure if he has 10 years. JNO I´m sure qualifies and our late friend Patrick as well. I´m sure the german lawyer would get into that club as well. Personally, I have 13 years and 1700+ jumps but out of those only 300 on WS and currently am happily retired (from WS BASE) so I´m nowhere close being qualified to tell people anything about this stuff. ;)

shane had 1000+ as well, not sure about years in the sport when he went in though.

Which Shane?

Murphy, not McConkey

Its called LUCK!!

looking at the last two names beginning with Shane they are both dead both died on wingsuit jumps..

I think the best thing you can do is learn to fly a wingsuit start from the beginning do your homework move up in sizes after seasons not days..

The mountains will always be here ..

Don't rush to be a # saying the two names Frode and Robi.. look back to when they started ..

Lets say Frode/Robi started 20 years ago 1996.. It was different then they jumped in slick clothes learnt slider down in slick (of course) learnt to track slick and did maybe just maybe a gainer ...

around 2002-3 tracking pants or smoking pants if ya know your history (Thanks Atle) came out they knocked out a few hundred base jumps now on tracking gear and learnt to track in tracking gear then in 2007 that's a heap of seasons learning to track.

The first wingsuits being introduced into base and they got one well Robi made em haha and smaller ones , Now that they could jump slick exit nice and then track exits for 300 or a few years tracking they then jumped into possible a birdman suit or v1..

After a season or two moved up the wing size a few cm's then after another few hundred jumps they move to a v2 and v3 .. I still remember people saying that guy is on a v3 in the valley and we were thinking that guy is insane I was tracking.

Then the suits blew out they built them to get better inflation and this means the people who flew them have done the sequence that is needed ..

Now they have kept up there learning phase of doing a few cm's a few seasons but others have just skydived since 2008 base jumped at 200-400 skydives none of these in a wingsuit and started base jumping did 20-100 base jumps if that, from a bridge or slider up and of these maybe 10 tracking jumps and because they cant fucken track they buy a wingsuit but not just a p2-p3 or t-bird they buy the biggest fuckoff suit in history because its easy now they believe..

I could go on and on but fuck you guys should know all this


For information I have a few hundred base jumps 90 percent tracking suit and now after gaining my wingsuit instructor rating in 2013 I am still jumping a tbird in base jumping and not too worried about keeping up with the "IN" cool kids gang also transferred my thoughts into Paragliding and now have 200+ hours flying and if ya think it means fuck all maybe you should start thinking paragliding will teach you about weather patterns and things that "WILL" effect your base jumping decisions..

Please excuse my lack of sentence writing and spelling I am Australian

We are now at #299 after losing 3 more jumpers today this wont go away and everyone is thinking in the brain oh it wont happen to me well I bet that's what they were thinking..

The community should start to wake up start talking more Not just on here but at exits, oh yes and the people come on and say base is unregulated and we don't need that shit.. well if your saying that don't get all Butthurt when ya best mate smashes in and you think fuck I am devastated how could he go in he has been around for 2 seasons he is on a huge suit and jumping the High trench line stop thinking of fucken lines instead think of jumping correctly ...

I am not asking for rules and shit I am asking maybe its time to start asking questions...

Rave over thanks for listening

Or maybe not, but they're repeated so much they get 'boring' and loose their meaning, so now you're seeking a new synonym?

But yeah, for sure enjoy listening to Robi, wisdom or humour :p

"I was lucky to survive long enough to realise how lucky I'd been"

" 'New' is the most dangerous word in existence, make good decisions and avoid making the same mistakes as those before."

"Training is not cheating"

But alas there is no nugget that can make you "safe" or stop the list from growing. Training, education and culture are the key to slow it down.

Top gun articles are a great start for WS pilots.

I have 13 years of Base jumping but I' under 1000 WS jumps, but I'll answe anyway.
I did the old school progression and I think that is still the best way. And it is no coincidence that really good schools like Douggs still teach this:
I did 300 Skydives and then started to Base jump. I guess my first 70 jumps where of from low objects, mostly bridges.
Then I moved on to slick cliff jumping, doing a lot of jumps, maybe 50 from yellow ocean and then La Mousse. Then I started to track with pf trackpants. After a season with lots of tracking I started to jump a prodigy (ulta small ws for thouse who don't know). Of course I did around 50 Skydives with my prodigy before I took it of a cliff.
After around 100 Prodigy jumps I switched to a V2. Also this suit I first jumped out of th plane a couple of times. Then V3, V4, V5, V5R, Arrow and finally my favorit, the Sukhoi :-)
I also still try to do a couple of Skydives with Wingsuit every year.
Disadvantage of this method is it takes time, advantage is you get to play in all base disziplines and you are always more or less prepared for what is comming next.

i've always found value in the traditional ways of moving forward and agree with your asseertation completely.

I hope this doesent warrant its own thread or go off on too much of a tangent, but what skill did you find you were able to carry over Mikki, that accelerated your progressio (and safety) in each step of your base progression?

I always only went to the next step when I felt very comfortable with what I was doing. I like to think I was well prepared for the next step which helped me to feel relaxed in a new suit. I was already old when I started Basejumping (31 years) but I never had the impression to miss something when I took my time advancing slowly because I liked and enjoyed each phase of it. I still love tracking and I'm scared to death when I do a low jump whatt I really enjoy because of the satisfaction afterwards. My moto: if you wait and don't do it today, the cliff will still be there tomorrow but you might not be if you push it to hard...

Kind of a side note , but first , my own progression was similar tracking then about 150 on P2R in different locations/rock drop etc then V3,4,5 and race I've kind of stepped away from the mountains now but I'm sure if i return (and its hard to step away) it would be in a phantom for sure as its still my favourite suit . But aside from the fact that we don't see as many people in the smaller suits at all in recent years it does seem harder to have the same progression nowadays as the jump from phantom - sukoui/alpine is massive in both surface area(obvious) but also the type of jump can you can access. Do we think thats relevant at all and maybe a stepping stone suit would be a good idea , around v4 perhaps ...

I only use PF suits as an example all manufacturers have the same massive jump it seems.

You still have medium suit (as big as the bigger 5 years ago...) like hunter, freak, bandt... It's just now, after some brand saying again and again "my big suit is so easy to fly", all people switch on their own choice from phantom/ hatch, etc to Aura, Sukhoï. And, like you said, to "harder" jumps because these suits "make it easier". If you don t do mistake... (wich re less forgiving at these places.

Yeah your right i guess they are "smaller" . No easy answer i guess just practice , learn and respecting the nature of the activity . As its always been .

C'est la vie ;-)

Jumps, Years etc. ;-)

I read few times book "New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle about people EGO and tried to understand it ;-)

I watched as well many people going in and seen there bodies. That helped a lot too.

You and Hartman are some of the unluckiest people I know on that point. Stay safe out there my friend ;)

Looks like we've had our first fatality on Facebook-LIVE today. First fatality I watched first hand. A friend too.

Oh no :( I've been dreading this moment...
Sorry for your loss man

This will definently be a interesting discussion.

I believe should be in incidents forum.

Please post details

I don't know the details of this incident(that's why not going to post the video on the incidents forum) but while reading this forum got really interested and look it up on Facebook and recorded it as a screen capture, cause' it was hard at the moment to save the live video directly to my macbook due to Facebook copyright rights and came up with this idea I've just described.

the base jumper in video put it up knowing all the consequences by broadcasting live on a public place like Facebook,
so please don't jump on me 'why taking the liberty to post anything like this?!'...and to answear all of them: 'he gave me this right'.

will post the video shortly to make it easier for everyone here reading this forum.

see you all at the exit point!

Just to put this out there, he made the choice of potentially posting a video on his own death on Facebook. That choice came with the consequence that fucked up people might want to save and share said video. He got to make his choice, now you get to make your choice. If you feel there is a reason to post the video, and an important technical aspect of BASE jumping to be learned, then by all means it should be shared. If you're doing it because "it's your right" to be a fucked up person, think about how his family feels, and how your family would feel.

and that is why I still didn't post the video yet
I'm waiting for reactions from everyone here.

I thought about it a lot and instead of jumping to conclusions and post it I decided to wait for feedback.

you are absolutely right, the only reason thinking of posting it is because as said before 'its a first and it should be shared'

I don't try to claim recognition, I might as well not share it if you all not desire to.

I mean no harm to anyone, as I've said it to someone who sent me a PM:
'its already sad for everyone no matter being involved personally or us as a community'
if you really don't want me to post it than I will not do it. just send me a PM.

my intention was to make a private video on vimeo or youtube being accessible only by password and this password to be found only here(for now at least while things are still happening)

sorry for not stating my full intent.

This really sucks, I saw it earlier and his condition in hospital was unknown at that point but the audio didn't sound promising

I see a bunch of people have tried to get it pulled from FB before news/liveleak etc. gets hold of it but FB not taking it down.

Not the way for the family to find out about an incident/fatality

If the family does not want to deal with it they do not have to watch.

Why say such ugly things to yil7, it is just your "fucked up person" opinion. think about how his family feels, and how your family would feel, if someone said such ugly things about you when you were offering your community an opportunity to learn.

and for whom is interested (I've received some private massages about jumpers identity)

from video:

1. a ws base jumper doing a ws base jump, I understand it might be Sputnik

2. he is german or he fluently speaks Deutsch(he might be austrian or swiss after all or....don't know)

The difference is the jumper didnt go live on facebook with the intention of smoking in. So, if people watch it live, thats live TV for ya. But it kinda comes down to a moral choice now, to save that video and let people watch it. That should be decision made by the family of jumper. You dont own the broadcast.

the real difference here(since you put it this way) is that this is a real lesson here for everyone that "this is what might happen when you let distractions interfere with your jump and you're not ready yet to deal with them"

here in BASE lately people die cause they have something to show, to prove that they are something and instead showing that to themselves they wanna prove it to others(we all know that kind of false security - attitude). I'm not talking about the most experienced ones, we....the regular ones

He was Italian but from the northern partly German speaking part.
If you know how then its easy to download videos from fb without screen grabbing.
His family found out almost live as his brother and mother seemed to have seen the video and left comments on it before anything was clear.

Have fun with the video if it makes you feel important to be the one uploading it and privately sharing it with others.

Also the jump was not at walenstadt but in the kandersteg region.

Well he looks to have been jumping a massive suit. I'm not familiar with that region so I don't know what the jumps are like. Does anyone know his base and ws base experience? Anything to be learned from this accident or just the past repeating itself?

Condolences to friends and family.

to be clear, I didn't post it and did not share it to anyone.
and to end the discussion here: I will not post the video.

anyway the link to video it's been posted already in the incident forum by someone else who had less regard to him, his family or close ones.
I didn't know him, never tried to get attention by posting this tragedy, I've asked before doing it people here what they think and realized doing the right thing is to not upload the video anymore.

try not to get too sentimental here, this is part of the life we chose.
I've stated before if it was to be posted it was only for debating in the incident forum, not for me to get recognition.
I'm going to excuse myself now and I hope I made myself clear to anyone else.

sorry for the grieving family.

good on you. I should clarify, there is a reason for base jumpers to view other jumpers incidents. There's a reason new jumpers should watch things to know that this is real and could happen. There's not a lot of reason to share these videos with the general public. Someone should get this thread back on track as it was actually quite a good one.

the only proof of what you have achieved should be your personality and the stories you can tell to your loved ones. taking video should be for memorizing epic moments to show to your friends and hopefully watch them with your grand children later on to show off how much of a badass you are, not for random anonymous internet neckbeards who never leave their mom's cellar. if you need people to be stroking your ego all the time then do bodybuilding or something. likes are worth shit. nobody cares about beginners anyway, all they want to see is the "super rad stuff", so beginners will try to pantomime that shit without having the skillset. imagine that you're trying to learn to ride a skateboard. nobody (except for your friends, maybe) cares about a video of your shitty attempts. now base is like trying to learn to ride a skateboard, but if you fall off you die. would you glue two action cams to your head and livestream it on facebook?

Back to the original thread, and statistics, I like statistics :)

Pretty much echoing what outrager said,

Extremely well seasoned jumpers with 10+ years and 1,000+ jumps (ws or not) are probably a statistical anomaly. Not in the sense that it is "dumb luck" but that in if you have a few thousand people doing something, a very small percent will be extremely successful. (In fact they are how we define success, if you look at skydiving, 1,000 jumps is not an "omg!" kind of thing, but that is only because there are lots and lots of people with a many more, and I can think of a handfull with 10,000 plus; the definition of "success" is different).

Whether it be a fast/risky learning curve and then backing off to a safer MO, as some have done and publicly proclaimed, or a really solid progression and slow accumulation of skills without ever pushing too hard, or just firing blind and getting lucky again and again, all ways work. But some folks who are fast/risky are going to go in (and if they got away with it just that one time, would have become one of the household names) or someone who is extremely competent and conservative just has a bad exit, bad opening, whatever.

But trying to find a magic formula for that kind of longevity is like trying to figure out why someone who smoked since they were 15 and lived to 100 never had any health issues. i.e. unintentionally reproducible statistical anomaly.

If you huck enough non jumpers (of any kind) off a cliff in a WS, eventually one of them is going to survive, as an extreme and dark, though amusing analogy.

You just have to hedge the odds in your favor with all the things everyone already knows, slow progression, don't rock at 100%, when in doubt hike back down, mind the weather, etc etc; but in the end you are still rolling dice.

We don't have the data or sample size to use statistical analysis.

But if you compare the training, attitude and methods of the active dinosaurs I think there will be similarities that could be useful to less experienced jumpers.

Reminds me of this article, maybe someone posted it here before (?):

http://scuba.about.com/...-Technical-Diver.htm

On a side note, a personal observation, of the 'house hold names' that were once putting out viral proximity videos over the past several years - the ones who are still here have all backed off; Jokke, Espen, Robi, Matt G, Le Blond.. I'm sure there are more.

Haha! Well, they are trying to " back off " a little, not so easy to do in reality.

But that said, there is a difference about the way these " Jedi Ninjas " have approached and pursued the sport,.... They have always been calculating and respectful of the limitations and their own assessment of their limitations.

This is very important in a sport that is so very cutting edge and the price of a mistake is the ultimate price to pay.

There is a REASON that the innovators and creative talents (the biggest names ), in Wingsuit BASE are still with us.

For you "wannabees " try to figure it out before you kill yourselves?

Regards, B.

Backed off? In what universe, exactly?

Some of the stuff several of those names have pulled this summer includes: exit aerials, proximity flying, proximity camera flying, freeflying and technical exit openings, and last but not least, streaming it live on facebook - all in wingsuits.

This whole kidding yourself mentality has to stop. Yes, some of the people you named have probably backed off, or at least toned down the social media part of their jumping. Some of them have not. All of them are very skilled and there are many lessons to be learned from their career. The biggest one? Don't kid yourself, they got LUCKY at some point (as have I). That's why they are still here along with me and the rest of us.

I like all those guys btw and consider the norgies friends. I look up to them as well. But some of them are not backing off to be honest...

Edit to add after StealthyBs post:
It's all about stacking the odds. Get the skills and progress/push in the right manner. Stack the odds in your favor, always. You will at some point need them. I think the names mentioned probably separate themselves a little from the rest in that field. They stacked the odds better than some others, most of the time. Luck best favors the well prepared... It's still BASE though

I agree with the replies but just want to mention, you have to include all of the "household names" (or however you want to refer to them) that have also gone in when comparing "technique, progression, and attitude." Some of the best/most notable/most seasoned, go in every year, and if the past is any indication, some of the biggest names will go again next year. Those who have died may have been in the grouping you are referring to when they were still alive, and some who are currently in the group won't be in the future.

So basically I'm saying that trying to rely on the accomplishments of the living is a fallacy because it ignores the equally "best/most notable/most seasoned" who haven't made it (i.e. acknowledging the survivors and ignoring the dead).

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/...-base-jumpers-dying/

Matt should count in.....

http://www.matttg.com/...super-squirrel-suits