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Just wondering what your thoughts are, as a BASE jumper, on skydiving in relation to staying current and/or getting freefall skill. I see a lot of people that have significantly more BASE jumps than skydives. Being that BASE jump and freefall time accumulation tends to go more slowly than skydiving jump and freefall time accumulation, I'm wondering if any BASE jumpers out there see direct benefits of skydiving for BASE.

I'd imagine that a lot of people are disproportionate in this way because they enjoy BASE more and put their efforts into it more wholeheartedly. However, I can only see racking up several minutes of tracking or wingsuit flying as a benefit to what one would do in freefall on bigger objects.

About three years ago, I thought that skydiving had little relation to BASE. About two years ago, I thought it helped a little but was no big deal. About a year ago, I could really see why you shouldn't start BASE without 200 skydives.

Today, I think that you'd be best served by having a thousand (or more) skydives. I've seen BASE students with the bare minimum 200 skydives, and I've seen BASE students with thousands. There is no comparison. Very experienced skydivers will have better freefall awareness, better emergency responses, and better attitudes in 95% of cases.

Truthfully, the big reason I think that the very experienced skydivers are better BASE jumpers is that they have no need to prove anything--they've already gone through that stage as skydivers. They don't need to develop the wisdom, or restraint, or whatever you want to call it, that many of us only learn after hundreds of BASE jumps (and they did their learning in a safer environment).

Keep in mind, when reading this post, that I'm one of the "bare minimum" BASE jumpers. I started immediately once I had logged 200 skydives.

I started BASE with 800-900 skydives and am probably making more skydives by a factor of 5 (I'm real bad at logging BASE jumps but have my pro-track to depend on while skydiving).

Being a proficient and current canopy pilot has mostly helped me - I'm comfortable flying arround in narrow canyons, landing in small areas surrounded by rocks/RVs/cars/other parachutes, landing right next to cliff walls, landing cross-wind, etc. On one screw up which led to a ridge between me and the landing area, I was able to salvage the situation by landing on a 15x15x10' boulder. OTOH, I used to use full-flight approaches (like skydiving) when I shouldn't have (crashed into a tree) and normal skydiving doesn't provide much experience and confidence in sinking in arround tall obstacles like trees, cliffs, etc.

I think experience under high-performance canopies really helps with openings too - you learn that you need to be relaxed, to notice by feel when things aren't right, and to deal with those problems right away (because otherwise your parachute will spin-up and put and end to jumping until you find the freebag+main and repack your reserve).

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Basic Research only require you to have 150 skydives to take the First Jump Course?

scott

I believe you are correct. I still think that thousands would be far better than hundreds.

From my research I've seen a few FJC's that say 150 jumps bare minimum, but most experienced jumpers encourage an aspiring BASE jumper to make 200, 300, sometimes 400 skydives before you make your first BASE jump. That seems right. Its a tough situation when you know your whole "skydiving career" that you want to get to the point to start BASE jumping as SOON as possible but inwardly keep telling yourself to wait! Brutal honesty, hehe

For me...I had no desire to Base Jump until I had around 40 jumps. I was never one of those..."I'm learning this so that I can Base Jump" guys.

The more I learned about the sport...the more it interests me. I'll probably wait till I have aound 300 jumps.

It's just like swooping! I want to do it badly but I don't have the experience to do it safely!

scott

I wanted to BASE at 100 jumps
I then decided when I had 300 jumps that I was no where near ready
I started BASE at 500 jumps
I wish I had more experience when I first started....

BASE is not skydiving so to say "you need XXX(x) amount of jumps is, I think, impossible - I have met people that started BASE with 2 skydives and are good jumpers but I also know people with 2000 skydives that know they aint ready..........

It has to be about mind set I think - you have to be truely honest with ones self to know if your ready - I think that the more skydive experience you get the more honest you are with yourself on whether "its time"????? maybe thats wrong? just my two strokes worth!