Basejumper.com - archive

I have seen old photos of Carl and others jumping terminal handheld, what was the idea there? I know people died using a sky PC but not sure the time line of that and as they were using modified skyrigs the BOC was already where it needed to be

It was apparently because they were scared of No Finds or No Pulls. Some people even used Dacron bridles to prevent out of sequence openings from the bridle flapping around. I'm sure some old dude can give a more complete history of it.

My first rig didn't even have a BOC. The old school way was to always go handheld to eliminate one more potential cause of issues (hard pulls as well as no finds). I've been on jumps where people were tracking with PC's in their hands.

We're definitely better off with a BOC for anything slider up (and probably most slider down too), but remember that experimentation is what got us where we are today.

We also saw people playing with stuff like 25' bridles (Alf Humphries ended up with the PC wrapped around his slider before everyone figured out that there was a limit to that) and long delays slider down (Pick took a slider down rig to terminal and ended up breaking things, as well as doing jail time).

Maybe Rick can chime in here--he was in the thick of those things. I remember hearing his story about the instructions he got for his first jump, which included continuing the count after pulling, and how high you had to get before you fired the (round) reserve.

I sometimes jump relatively high (300 ft) things handheld and people have a dig at me and I mentioned they used to track with it in their hand. Thanks for the info

Have you ever made a skydive handheld? Then why would you make a basejump handheld....Who intentionally jumps a horseshoe malfunction?


Ody

What are you talking about? Read my post again

Someone who can release it immediately when they want to?

A similar question would be "Who intentionally jumps a container lock?" To which the answer would be "pretty much everyone who's ever jumped a close rig--because they had the capability to "unlock" it when they wanted to."

Hahaha, I enjoyed that. =)

Have you seen the tests where Annie took the original Vertex out of an airplane with a handheld PC? She told me she put the vertex on her front (with a skydiving rig on her back) and held the PC in her hand for the entire jump, trying to make the pin shake loose from bridle flap.

I haven't seen it, but Todd says that he thinks/remembers the primary purpose of that experiment was to check that the pin protector flap would remain closed at terminal at all angles.

The risers were disconnected in case the canopy started to extract so she could ditch it.

He thinks the video must be on "super 8"...whatever that means.

I know Nomad was doing 6 second handhelds at KL (he only goes handheld).

Hey Tom. Re: hand held terminal jumps back in 82 and 83. First, we were all pretty nervous in those days and did not have BOC containers. After we figured out we needed big pilot chutes, they wouldn't fit in our normal belly or leg band pouches and if you fold it tightly so it doesn't catch air, it can be released easily, just pitch it to the side out of the burble and it's fast. We all settled on 9 foot bridals by B Day 82, or at least those of us who were BASE jumping by then. Was a bit of a challenge to hand hold an old Para Innovators 52' pilot chute with big mesh but you had to fold it and hold it tight to keep air from getting in the mesh. I've felt the tug actually making me lean on 10 second delay towers but it did make us feel comfortable knowing we could take it down and not worry about missing the pud. As we all got more jumps and BOC's came out, hand held sort of died except on low jumps. Back then, 300 feet was low. Even a few years ago, Stokely and I were going off a tower at about 500' and both got a little gripped and decided to go handheld using zero P pilot chutes just to be able to relax on the jump. It does make it easier to take it down some. Usually if it's above 400 I go stowed of course now, but it was different back then. We had skydiving rigs and when possible tried to make sure we were either open by 300' or pulling a reserve by at least 150' from impact if the main sniveled. We did use mostly low porosity round reserves. Maybe I'll start a new sport, Freefall BASE. Requires skydiving rigs stowed pc's and freefall. See how many takers we get. Take care guys.
BASE 38

Thanks Rick, showing my ignorance, I assumed skyrigs always had BOC's. If you get that sport going let me know