DexterBase

Fuck, I still can't believe he's gone. Fucking sucks. I'm staring out the window at the pouring rain. Seems very appropriate. Why do all the good ones go in?

Can you explain this a little more please? What was the quality of that transition?

And I'll have to disagree with you, Jaap. Are you more likely to have a solid, stable exit if you go hand-held or stowed? You could argue either side. I believe hand-held and stowed jumps are separate skills that need to be honed independently. Also, there are sub-categories to each method. You not only have to be able to do a solid hand-held delay, but you need to be able to use it differently for different types of jumps. You may take a longer delay hand-held in one situation, where you would take a shorter delay stowed in other situations. Sometimes where it would be ideal to go hand-held, you have to go stowed because of the exit point. If you're demonstrating the ability to do stable launches and you've been going stowed for a while, I don't see any reason why you should just go hand-held "just because". If there's not a reason to go hand-held, and you're doing a jump where its acceptable to go stowed, why would you opt to pull out your PC and put it in your hand? Would you recommend that every BASE jumper do 60 hand-held jumps before they ever go stowed? Because just because you're comfortable with something, doesn't mean you're doing it right. I'm willing to bet that if you did 100 hand-held jumps, you'd discover things you could do better and work on them. The more you learn, the more you come to understand what you didn't realize you needed to learn. So, if no BASE jumper should go stowed until they're absolutely comfortable with it, how many hand-held jumps did you do before you decided to try a stowed jump? Stowed and hand-held jumps should be practiced continuously. If you haven't done a hand-held jump in fifty jumps or so, it can't hurt to pull your PC out and get a little currency back. Likewise, if you're super current with stowed jumps, you might have a better exit if you go stowed. There's a time and a place for everything. There's a perfect scenario for everything too, but in BASE, you have to build each and every jump from scratch. No two jumps are the same. Understand the pro's and con's of everything you can anticipate, then make the decisions from there.

yeah, Tom D, what is this crap!? Something about..."Oh poor me... the helicopters will ruin the serenity of the forest... you have to hike there... it will ruin it...boo hoo..." Hehe...

It's time for someone to be banned permanently.

Is Mel a BASE jumper? Just curious.

The labor will be on the 14th though. You must have hit the wrong key or something...?

As stated above, the full suit is likely to stay in the house for all but the really scary jumps. If you have a jacket, you're a lot more likely to actually be wearing it when you smack an object.

Yuri, glad to see you made it out of that one relatively uninjured. I will take this opportunity to try and talk you into a set of this Good job fighting. Edit: Add pic or armor in use. And... with your strike, after watching the video a couple times, with that jacket your arm would have been totally fine.

Um... par for the course. As far as cliff jumps go, this one is pretty basic. That's good to know. Ya gotta pull that chute in time.

Um... yeah

No need to apologize. I'm just concerned. Getting into BASE without enough skydiving experience can be a dark and scary road. You really don't want to walk it.

I'm not so much worried that it won't work on this bridge. I'm worried about what will happen if it does work. Will it plant the seed that leads to trying it from progressively taller objects. Before you know it, he's doing handheld freefalls. Why, if he's not ready to be BASE jumping, has he obtained BASE gear? He has 2 skydives. 87SupraT, do you own skydiving gear? I'm just concerned with the types of questions that are being asked by this particular poster (look at his post history), that he's about to start BASE jumping on his own, or at least simulate BASE type activities. So, that is my concern. Has nothing to do with my sense of adventure.

Fill out some more information in your profile, include your body weight, and we can help you a little more.

Yeah, but we don't need any more dead people. 87SupraT, do you have a BASE rig to do this with?

Haha!!!! Nice dude. I know I got about 5 hours sleep that whole trip. I'm such a lazy American. Remember that after I slept in that parking lot for two hours, we drove two hours to ride rollercoasters all day! Was that before or after we drove 400 miles round trip to jump the bridge on the coast?

Faber: "Chad, when do I get to drive" Chad: "Um... in a little while." (((long silent pause))) Chad: "So, Peter, want to drive for a while?"

Faber's still not allowed to drive my car.

Who the hell are you jumping with? Doesn't sound like a group of guys I'd be comfortable sharing loads with. Might be time for some remedial training on the basics. A lot of jumpers are leaving TF thinking they're BASE jumpers, then stop learning. I'm not saying that's what happened in this case, but that sounds like a pretty accident prone crew.

Yo, I'd really like to do a jump with something that belonged to him. It could be a T-shirt, or just some token item he carried around. Actually one of his pilot chutes would be realy cool. I would just make one jump with the item and then ship it back. You know, one last 2-way. Let me know if this is possible.

You're going to be an officer!? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Load that thing up and bring it here. We'll jump the hell out of it!

With Jaap, comes wind.

This was something that definitely upset me. Tom, damn man I'll miss you. Thanks for the 2-way and rest easy.

I would recommend waiting until you can use BASE specific equipment. With the equipment available today, there's just no excuse to BASE jump with skydiving equipment. A fully custom BASE rig will cost you $3000. A used, but airworthy, rig will cost somewhere between $800-2500. Your life is worth either waiting, or throwing down that much on a BASE rig. I would not use either piece of gear you mentioned for a fixed object jump.