Basejumper.com - archive

...no, seriously...

I've been doing research in my old Popular Mechanics/Science mags dating to the mid 30's and have come up with a 'record INDOOR' jump under a round of 90 feet!!

That, among others, to be posted to my website later tonight.

http://www.members.shaw.ca/dterrick

follow 'antique parachuting' links and please don't 'chute me (pun intended) for my fine web design as it is the Beer effort.

Dave

Phil Smith and Kevin Vennell have done the inside of the XXX.

And before people get too upset over site-naming, these were done legally several years ago. And I have the video.

I don't think it matters if the jumps were done legally or not. Many sites that have been jumped once (or more) legally have also been jumped many times illegally.

I realize that in this case (and some others) many people will think I am over-reacting. I guess I'll just have to live with that.

Please refrain from naming sites on this forum, legally jumped or otherwise, published in Skydiving or otherwise.

There have been several, more modern BASE jumps done inside buildings.

See Doug Blane, for example.

I heard that some guys down near SkyMonkey country did an indoor jump fairly recently. I know of at least two others done in the last five years.

Must be interesting winds...

Some friends just did a 180 ft inside building...

dude, no disrespect, but get a grip.

that site has been jumped only legally. on top of that, that's where slider down jumping was first figured out doing numerous test drops before Phil Smith (BASE 1) and Carl Boenish (BASE 4, considered founder of BASE jumping) did paid test jumps before actually jumping into football games, etc. and then BASE 175 and BASE 58 did it for the Thrillfest (motorcross event). And then some friends and I had the option to do it a couple years ago through Pace Entertainment, all to be done legally. The more legal exposure such as this that our sport get, the better. It's a little absurb to block out this site name and then point to an illegal jump in a cathedral, which by it's nature, would be offensive to probably far more people. In fact, I had considered jumping inside the Vatican, but hey, next thing you'll read is "base jumper killed in senseless tragedy by pope."

You may be right. I'm not sure, and I think it's a difficult line. Here's a bit of my reasoning:


I still think there are good, solid, safety reasons for not giving site names in a public forum. For me, at least, it's quite a bit more about safety than legality.

I'll see if I can organize some thoughts, and start a separate thread to discuss the naming of names in this forum.

I back Tom on this, though I did not initially. There's lots of folks out there who might pick up just a name from a forum like this, take their skydiving rig, and off they go. The chance of this happening? Damned small. The consequences if it did? Tragic.

As many know, we had an incident eerily similar to this last year in the PNW. In this case, the jumper heard of the object in question at a local DZ (at that same local DZ, by the way, "BASE jumpers" are widely passing out unsolicited beta to a technical slider-up E with no regard for whether the recipient of the data even has the ability to judge the site. . . but I digress into a bitter side-thread).

Nowadays, I'm trying to be more careful about public naming of sites - legal or otherwise. True, anyone with half a brain can find these sites with a bit of digging, but it is the folks lacking even half a brain that worry me most (incidentally, there has been a BASE person floating around in late 2002 that qualifies as "lacking half a brain" and had he had access to piss easy site beta, I believe he'd have already gone in somewhere).

Peace,

D-d0g
ddog@wrinko.com
http://www.wrinko.com

One point and I'll get off my soapbox.

What can be gained by naming sites on a web forum??
Not much.

What can be lost??
Alot!!

So why do it???

I think this is the source of the initial confusion.

If you view the issue from a site-burning perspective, then it seems sort of silly in several obvious circumstances.

If you're viewing it from a safety perspective, the policy makes a lot more sense. Though if I were to take that tact, I wouldn't even provide links to sites. I'd make 'em dig for it.

I'm sort of on the fence on the safety angle. Part of me has the "If you're going to be stupid, you better be tough." attitude, but at the same time I don't want our sport being represented in the headlines by someone who gets a screwy idea and pounds in because someone mentiones a locale on one of the boards.

And I do have something of a conscience... I don't think I'd sleep too well knowing something I posted resulted in someone's death or serious injury, no matter how stupidly the person using that information acted.

I've visited the cathedral in question twice now with family. They have this big remembrance book full of names of people who died in WW2, every day one page gets turned over. People plan their visits way in advance so that on the day they visit they can see the name of their relative who died in the war. How nice for the people who were there on the day to be treated to a display of indoor parachuting...

I remember first seeing that web-site two years ago, my thoughts then are the same as they are now "What a bunch of inconsiderate knobs!".

I hope whatever personal satisfaction they got out of that jump/stunt was worth the disrespect they showed to so many.

William Walls (wmwalls@hotmail.com)

seems to me I read about someone doing a high profile catheadral in England once upon a time