DexterBase

Absolutely. jkbasejumper, if you're still interested in learning more about this technique here is the thread at Blinc. Hopefully someone unfamiliar with the techniques required for going low, will not try anything without consulting their mentor. Newer jumpers should be jumping objects where minor variations in their PC toss will not make the difference between them surviving or not. If you're relying on technique to keep you out of the dirt, you're already going really low and you should understand why things are working and why they need to be done a certain way. Just knowing which method to use is cool, but is certainly not as valuable as knowing why. It is pretty unsettling and surprising to see how little many jumpers know about the equipment they're using. This is in skydiving and BASE. More common in skydiving fortunately. jkbasejumper, these comments are not directed at you, your post just got me on the topic.

I made a bad decision over the weekend. I was faced with a choice and I picked the wrong one. I got away with it. I won't go into details here because it happened on a skydive. What I would like to pass along here is the lesson I carried away from it. The outcome is not the way to measure the wisdom of your decision. Just because you walked away from something doesn't mean you earned that right. Be honest with yourselves after you have a close call and really evaluate what happened. Is there a way you can prevent it in the future?

I have a favor to ask. This is a potentially productive thread. If we let it degenerate into bickering and semantics, it will get locked. Technical threads are relatively infrequent here, especially ones where there are several very experienced jumpers contributing opinions. Lets try to keep them open and promote a friendly environment here where people can feel free to post questions without fear of being flamed. After all, when all the dust is settled, we're all family here.

Stow the slider, THEN unstow the brakes.

Oh yeah, the WHY. If you leave the toggles stowed, they will be anchored to the riser in a low profile. It will be pretty easy to pull the grommets over the toggles this way. If you pop the toggles first, when you try to pull the slider down, you'll find that the toggles won't let it come down all the way since they're now laying flat against the grommets. You would now need to fish each toggle out of the grommets before you can fly the canopy. This could eat up a lot of altitude and it's just not good to be concentrating on something else when you should be flying your canopy. Another risk is that one of the toggles could get jammed in the slider material and the grommet, resulting in an uncontrollable canopy and probably resulting in a cutaway.

1. use risers to point in a safe direction, 2. Collapse the slider, 3. pull the slider down over the toggles being careful not to pull the toggle out prematurely, 4. tuck the slider behind your head, 5. grab the toggles and play.

Definitely picking up an extra battery for my camera before then... Guess I should throw in a traction splint as well.

I'd like to know how you measured your opening height compared to the hand-held jumpers. Were you using the same containers? Were you using the same PC size? Were you using the same canopies? I ask these questions because I personally feel that going stowed greatly increases the amount of vertical distance used during deployment in low airspeed. Unless the other jumpers you're referring to had excessively poor PC toss technique, it's really unlikely that your deployment occured as fast as theirs. When you toss a PC to the side, it goes into freefall with you until it catches enough air to inflate and go to bridle stretch. (This effect increases with the size of the pilot chute also.) This still happens pretty fast, but not nearly as fast as throwing the PC up to bridle stretch. While the difference may seem small by watching video of the PC-bridle stretch sequence, the true difference occurs later in the deployment. Since your acceleration is exponential, when you consume unnecessary altitude early in the jump, you will have to pay big later in the jump. Basically if you can speed up the amount of time it takes the PC to reach bridle stretch, the higher you will open. edit: typos

Wait... so did you write, "I'm still use clamps." ??? oooh you're soooo lucky I didn't catch that before you changed it. hehe...

A Reactor 3 will work if you know a few key points. The Reactor3 containers (and I'm pretty sure the older Perigees too) were built small in respect to the pack volume of the canopy that was intended to go inside. This meant that the containers were hard to close, and hard to keep closed. I think the reason the containers were so tight was to eliminate the potential of a PC in tow if the shrivel flap tried to shrivel the side flaps right along with it. The newer Reactors have a sideflap stiffener built into the flap that eliminates this problem. Now you have a slightly looser container that's easier to close, stays closed better, and is just easier to use. When you have to fight a container to close it, you will end up distorting the packjob and this could lead to an offheading opening. So, as long as you're making sure the velcro gets replaced often and you dial in your packjob so it's consistantly the same size, you can use a Reactor3 in BASE. Just be careful when you close it, and be aware that the velcro can peel if you're squirming through a tight space and it gets snagged. (I wouldn't recommend throwing radical aerials with a Reactor3 either, but if you're new to BASE you have no business doing these anyway.) I made a bunch of jumps on two different Reactor3 containers when I started BASE jumping. They're simple and they're BASE-specific gear. Two strong points for anyone getting into BASE jumping.

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in BASE jumping (or anything else for that matter) so talk to your mentor, chat with your friends, and make good decisions. I was aware of that before I tossed the other toggle. My recommendation is to keep the remaining toggle in your hand and flare with both risers. I figured I wouldn't have the opportunity to fly it on pure risers (or if I would ever want that opportunity) again, so I chose to toss the other one. I wanted to see how it would act in the worst case scenario. I figured if I could no wind it with neither toggle, I could handle anything better than that. Edit: My landing was very smooth but I was prepared for a less graceful touchdown. Just don't over-do the riser flare. It only takes a little to plane out the canopy. Much more than that and you're gonna be on your butt very fast. I'd prefer a PLF to an asymmetric landing any day. Asmmetric landings don't present a good impact area to the ground and I feel you're more likely to be injured. A good PLF will work in most cases.

True Story...true story... So I was in the Potato state with some friends over the weekend. There were a lot more spectators than there had been on the couple of trips before that. I was out on the bridge and I talked KMonster into sitting out a jump and running some video for me. I was going to do my third McConkey of the weekend, my third ever actually. Next to KMonster is a guy dressed head to foot in Denim (we'll call him The Gazer). Total Whuffo, just out there to watch us having a good time. I climbed over the rail and after I was satisfied that the canopy was ready for me to launch out over, I gave the count and hucked off. (I'm not trying to brag but my exit did look pretty cool...) As soon as the parachute pressurized, my left toggle was gone. (looking back, I'm not sure if I hit it with my hand going for the risers, or if I dragged the toggle over the rail as I climbed over. Either way, the toggle was trailing the canopy and flapping around in space. Fortunately this is no big deal.) I figured I could make a minor malfunction into a valuable training jump so I chuckled a little and tossed the other toggle too. Let's see how this baby flies on risers, no better place to practice. Meanwhile, KMonster is capturing the whole jump on Video. The jump looks like any other jump, but the conversation in the background is priceless. True story... The Gazer: "Whoa..F*@k dude. that guy lost both his things" Kmonster: "Who lost both what things?" (She was looking through the viewfinder and couldn't see the control lines) The Gazer: "Those things that steer the thing." True story. I have the video to prove it.

That's too bad because I'd really like to make a jump from that bridge someday...hehe...

Would anyone be interested in trying to apply for a permit? I figure if we could get enough people together (no idea what this would take) we might have a shot at it. If nothing else, we would know exactly what is required to apply for a permit. Who was in charge of attaining the permits for the IPBC comps? Maybe I could talk to them.

That article actually was on the front page yesterday with a nice picture of two jumpers on our load doing a sick 2-way.

Looked like he used a Fox canopy and a Vertex container. Both are made by Basic Research. ...Could be wrong, I only watched the movie twice.

I like that saying. Who said that anyway?

Hello, I'm planning on putting together a sunset jump on Saturday. The idea is that we will all walk out to the exit point, each jumper will light a candle, say a few words and exit. The candles will remain on the bridge with ground crew. (I'm not sure if we're allowed to leave them burning ofter we leave. I'll work this out before the actual jump.) It will be a small, subtle gesture of thanks to the jumpers who have gone before us. I'm not sure how many jumpers are planning on being in TF this weekend, but hopefully there will be enough to make this a nice little load. I'm supplying the candles. Let's stay safe out there. Please.

Hehe...I'll share a room with you... just like the past two trips eh? We might all get beds this time.

Franziskaner. A belgium Hefeweisen. Very tasty.... Hands down the best beer in the world.

This is terrible news indeed. Hopefully someone will be able to post a more complete incident report after all the proper notifications have been made. A bad week for BASE... another brother has fallen...

Still a little unclear what you're getting at. Are you directing these comments to me or are you just posting them in general?

here

I don't have a mentor. Sounds like a good time. I'm not quite sure what your post is getting at though.

Um... in BASE, you will frequently be standing at the exit point and be able to see the facial expressions of people on the ground. In that situation, I would definitely recommend you pull at sometime. Skydiving is not BASE jumping.