crwper

This is great news. I've tested the ER's in other circumstances with amazing results, but haven't actually had a chance to test them in freefall. The Sony's are also an excellent choice. It does. One of the features I really like is that the GPS 10 sends a proprietary Garmin "NMEA" sentence that contains 3D velocity information accurate to 0.1 knots. I've been assuming this was calculated from phase data in the GPS hardware, but recently noticed there is a "velocity filter length" setting for the GPS, so it might just be a finite difference on position. Still, testing it in the car it seems very stable and responsive, so I think it will work well in the air. Exactly. Michael

Are you serious about this? Somehow I've always thought of GPS repeaters as an expensive setup for tradeshows. If there's an inexpensive repeater, well, that might just be fun. Michael

First, in-ear earphones like the ER's are a must. I tried this last year with a regular set of earphones and a home-built amp, but it really is easy to forget how loud freefall is, isn't it? Second, go with wireless if you can. Last year I had a Garmin Geko hooked up through the universal connector on the Palm. I'd get the thing working, and then without fail on jump run it would come undone. Wires are a major pain. Bluetooth on the Palm is just another serial port. It is, and it isn't.

Hi all, For the past year I have been developing an audible glide-angle indicator. The system is built from a wireless Garmin GPS 10, a Palm Tungsten T, and a pair of ER-6i earphones. I've written software for the Palm which takes velocity data from the GPS and calculates glide angle. This is converted to a series of beeps. Better glide angle corresponds with a higher rate and pitch for the beeps (like a vario). I have not yet had a chance to test the software on a skydive, but hope to do so soon. The biggest hurdle I can think of at the moment is minimizing the time to first fix when I leave the aircraft. The fact that some of you are getting good GPS tracks on your skydives makes me think you may have some tips here. How do you minimize the time to first fix? Michael P.S. Incidentally, I will be making the software (and source code) freely available very soon. Right now it would only be useful to those with a similar setup to my own. If you would be interested in playing with something like this, please let me know what equipment you're using, and I'll do what I can to make sure it's supported.

Hey guys! Thanks so much for sharing your system. The setup is fabulous, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for the work that went into designing it and setting it up. Three days later, I still think about the jump pretty much every time I close my eyes. Michael Cooper (a happy rope jumper)

How about the popular Swiss valley? Very little regulation, no restrictions on access. Unlike the Norwegian walls, where a boat ride is mandatory and therefore they have some control over who jumps, the Swiss walls are relatively uncontrolled. I think they would make a better model for American terminal walls. Michael

We've been doing a lot of practice from the 5 metre platform at our pool. One thing I've noticed is that it's not so much about practicing the 45-degree exit. For me, it's about learning that you can do a lot of things and still get yourself into the right position when you hit the water. It's not so much building muscle memory for the exit, as training your mind to believe that you can push out super-hard from the platform and not rotate head-low. The natural way to launch outward on a jump, I think, is to rotate into an angled position and push off. This will give you rotation on exit, and you'll go head-low. Launching at the pool teaches you to place yourself in a good launch position (instead of rotating into it), launch off, and control your freefall after that. I watched some video a while back of monkeys jumping between treetops. What was really remarkable to me is that they exited in kind of a classic BASE exit, tucked up their legs, pushed their feet down in front of them, and suddenly they were landing feet-first on the opposite tree. Check it out sometime. This really drives home for me the fact that you can exit without rotation, and introduce an angular offset in freefall. You can practice this at the pool. Finally, the pool's been awesome for my runners. A few years ago I did some runners from the popular sandstone cliff, and the way I'd do it is to pace it out backward from the edge, and then try to get just the right number of steps in before I got to the edge. I'd get all tensed up as I launched, and this led to some body position issues. Doing runners at the pool (and also at the terminal cliffs with expensive beer), I have learned to stand maybe ten or twenty feet back from the edge, run, and just launch off when I think this is my last step. Works great. I'm not sure I would have the confidence to do this if I didn't do it at the pool first. Michael

Something else you might want to think about (I hope someone with more climbing experience will comment on this): It seems to me that a smaller-diameter cord would be more prone to overheating or abrasion due to friction (or possibly even due to stretch in the cord). As has already been mentioned, this stuff will probably do fine in a perfectly static situation, but be careful using it where movement is involved. Michael

You'd be surprised how much stuff you can stash in a baggy pair of pants. The weight has little effect on your flight, and the bulk might actually help your track. Another thought, if you were actually doing something very remote and needed supplies, would be to do two hikes. First one, just bring in a bunch of supplies and cache them at the bottom of the jump. Next time, hike in to the top and jump. Michael

I think you misunderstood my post. What I'm saying is that it's easy to see the early days of BASE jumping as the Golden Age, because we view those times with the benefit of hindsight. Many of us were not there, and so we know only the stories we're told, which tend to be the more interesting ones. In reality, I think we are very much still in the midst of this exploration, and sometimes it's worth reminding ourselves that the jumps we make today will be the vintage stories of tomorrow. Michael

When I read all these great stories, it's easy to imagine that the past was a land of milk and honey and memorable jumps--nobody ever did a so-so jump back in the day. I think it's the same as with the classics in art, literature, and music. We remember all the good stuff, the ground-breaking stuff, and not all the crap that was turned out in between, so our impression is of a golden age from which we have somehow slipped. I think what we need to remember, certainly what I need to remember, is that today is what we make it. There are groups out there today doing phenomenal stuff which will be recalled years from now as "vintage BASE jumping stories". Any time we feel like making a new one, the world is our playground. Michael

It looks like both the HVR-Z1U and HDR-HC1 shoot only 1080i. I've often wondered about interlacing, as it strikes me that in high-motion video such as what we might shoot, progressive video looks better than interlaced. I imagine it will be a while before we see something that would shoot 1080p and mount on a helmet (ordinary mortal helmets, not Jimmy's helmet). Can someone comment on regular consumer (i.e. not HD) cameras which shoot progressive? Some of the cameras I've seen, when you switch to progressive mode it still looks like interlaced video. What's the scoop? Michael

I don't know how fast it will inflate in the BASE environment, but this is what's used for Relative Workshop's reserve pilot chutes. It like one big nylon bag over the spring. The reasoning here is that if the pilot chute comes out sideways, a conventional pilot chute loses some drag since the air can flow straight through one side of the mesh and out the other. With an all-nylon pilot chute, the drag is about the same regardless of orientation. I don't know if it's fast enough for the BASE environment, but RWS seems to think it's fast enough for a reserve deployment system. Michael

Rob you sick fuck. that's a ridiculously low 16feet but enough to break a limb or two. What deployment method you use on that. He said sub 200". He's probably over-stating the height. This so-called "grain elevator" is probably just a standard bread box or something. Michael

Also interested. Michael

I agree that high jump numbers and/or time in the sport tends to make people more receptive. However, this isn't always the case. Humility is not a product of higher jump numbers. You don't become more receptive because you made it to 500 jumps. You make it to 500 jumps because you have learned to be more receptive. Michael

To me this sounds less like a problem with currency, and more like a problem with stubbornness or pride. It sounds like this jumper still thinks his method is correct, in spite of his own experience and advice from more experienced jumpers. This is a problem which more jumps, skydiving or BASE, will not correct. Michael

More likely, I think, the father and the son shared genetic code which made them pre-disposed to certain kinds of activities. I know a lot of who we are is the result of environmental influences in our upbringing, but I think genetics plays an important role in the "broad strokes" of who we become in life. Michael

I agree that those are both big risks to take. I don't agree that everyone takes that level of risk. There are plenty of people out there who will live out their entire life more or less without laying it all on the line. Do you really think everyone takes exactly equal risks in their lives? If not, this motivates the question, is there something that the folks who take greater risks have in common? What I don't understand is the largely defensive response in this thread to the fact that someone is trying to answer this question in the best way they know how. Nor am I excluded from this group. I watched the Aussie 60 Minutes episode and, probably like most of you, I couldn't believe the "sport psychologist" who was trying to explain BASE jumping as a way for jumpers to feel better about themselves, or better than everyone else. For me, this begs the question, what are we defending ourselves against? It seems like a relatively harmless statement. Yes, it's possible studies like this will influence policy-makers in a way that is not beneficial to the BASE community. But how much energy are we going to spend thinking what idiots these people are? If we hear a theory that we like, we can add it to our understanding of the world. If we don't like it, we can discard it. No harm done. Why do we feel the need to defend ourselves against otherwise-harmless theories that we don't like? Michael

I have this image in my mind of some science-trained stiffs busting into Ray's house when he was just a kid, taking his toys, and doing something psychologically damaging to his parents while he looked on. Seriously, man, what's with the chip? People explain things in all kinds of different ways. This is just one of them. Michael

Oh, pick me! Pick me! Never mind. Michael

Hiding information sounds too much like "security by obscurity" to me. These methods are not sustainable. A better alternative, I think, is to inform people as completely as possible. The real danger here is that someone might get hold of technical information but not be aware of the risks involved. Our goal should be not to hide the technical information, but to make information about the risks at least as easy to find as the technical stuff. I think the general public isn't BASE jumping, not out of fear for some hypothetical scenario, but because when they even stand near the edge of a big drop, they are pissing themselves. For most people, this is a strong cue to back away from the edge. Yeah, there will be a few people who get past that and make a jump without training. But we absolutely cannot take responsibility for protecting people from themselves. There are too many of "them" and too few of "us". Michael

I had a look at the abstracts, but not the articles. I'm working on getting the articles themselves now. Michael

It's been my experience that this usually means, "Actually, I don't have a clear answer to your question." Perhaps you're underestimating your audience. As has already been pointed out, I think it's pretty obvious that molecules can have a profound and consistent effect on behaviour. Behaviour is a combination of many phenomena, but it doesn't mean that each of the parts doesn't contribute to the whole. Nobody's saying that when you're drunk you're at the mercy of the alcohol in your blood stream. But it would be foolish to argue that blood alcohol has no impact on behaviour. Maybe you can elaborate on the major flaws. I am very much interested in exploring this question, and it's really frustrating when someone offers an opinion, but won't deign to offer an explanation as well. Michael

Care to expand on this? Michael