NickDG

N/A

MSNBC just reported an airplane crash (10:AM Friday morning, PST) with skydivers aboard at an airshow. I didn't catch it all, but it seemed like is was somewhere in the U.S.A. Hopfully they got it wrong and this won't get moved to incidents . . . NickD BASE 194

Hi Jim, I hadn't heard about your troubles but we had an informer at the Perris DZ at about the same time, and then again a few years later. And I also heard a similar story from Florida. Looking back we can see there was an interesting dynamic going on at the time. Cliff jumping, or fixed object jumping, as the "new thing" wasn't quite a year or two old at the time. But already there was friction in the skydiving community about it. It wasn't yet as bad as it was going to get, that happened in the mid to late 1980s, but it was there. And I know there were skydivers who resented fixed object jumping just like anything new is resisted by a few on the DZ. But, the cause of all the heartburn was somewhat self induced. Some early El Cap jumpers of the day were starting to spout the attitude that regular skydiving, "was for pussies." Sadly, you still hear that today from some young BASE jumpers. In fact it may be worse now in some cases as we have a new generation that just skydived long enough to get into BASE jumping and they never fully integrated into the skydiving community. This divisiveness led to animosity and because jumpers (read all of us) tend to be braggarts when you had a trip to Yosemite planned you made sure to spread the news around the entire DZ, and this created a ripe atmosphere for the disgruntled informer. In general there was no such thing as "security" in the BASE community at that time. In fact there was no real BASE community as the sport wouldn't even be called "BASE" for another couple of years. We were all basically just skydivers making some cliff (and a handful of bridge) jumps. There were also no "glory hounds" to worry about as nobody would burn that downtown building or rural antenna you were jumping as those kinds of sites weren't regularly being utilized. So that leaves us with the odd DZ informer who first became the basis for adding "intelligence and security" to your BASE jumping kit bag. Essentially, it meant keeping your big mouth shut about your activities. Later in the 80s security became much more necessary and one big reason was the media began catch on to what we were doing as BASE started moving toward urban type jumps. Some BASE jumper(s) would suffer a mishap (and there were a lot of mishaps in those days) by either getting busted or hurt and the media would automatically go to the nearest DZ for a comment. Then you'd get some DZO on the TV news badmouthing BASE jumpers with, "Those guys are knuckleheads with a death wish while we skydivers are a family orientated sport adhering to all USPA and FAA regulations, blah, blah, blah." And the fight was on. BASE jumpers hated seeing someone with no real knowledge or understanding of BASE comment in that way, and skydivers hated that BASE jumpers were hurting the sport of skydiving with bad headlines. Happily the "war" between skydivers and BASE jumpers is basically over. Sure, there are a few holdouts on both sides, like the Japanese solider still hiding in a cave in the Philippines, but BASE and skydiving can be considered "sister" sports practiced mainly by the same people. It's why it's a shame, and a big step backwards, that the BASE portion of this board was banished to the other side of the wall. I realize the move was made to add another advertising portal, but it would have made more sense, in terms of having to do with parachuting, that the Speaker's Corner got the boot. And just a FYI for newer BASE jumpers: These days there may still be the odd informer on the DZ, but the bigger security problem in now inside Yosemite itself. There is one well known "resident" there who currently rats on BASE jumpers. Notice I didn’t say "climber" as most of them nowadays fully realize our freedom is their freedom too. But in either case there's always a chance "Joe Student" on the DZ, or "Joe Tourist" on the campground will turn you in, so tell no one . . . PS. I hate the automatic "linking" of words in my text. WTF, I'm not here selling BASE jumping! NickD

Yes, Jean kept the early El Cap numbers and then Andy Calistrate from Texas took them over. If you're looking to get a new/current number I don't think anyone is actually keeping track anymore. But ask Joy Harrison anyway (she keeps the BASE number book). She'd know for sure. It too bad the El Cap numbers went by the wayside. It would be good ammo to say XX(X) thousand people have jumped El Cap. Especially since the NPS keeps throwing bogus safety issues at us . . . NickD

Or leave it turned on. Except thread both leg straps around a lid hinge, then if you inadvertently drive off a cliff, you simply pop the boot. You'd sell a million of them to folks in cliffy terrain . . . NickD

I missed Al by about two hours when I arrived at the hospital at 8:00 AM Sunday morning. The charge nurse, in hushed respectful tones, said, "I'm very sorry to tell you, he expired." I was alone in the elevator when I started laughing. Al didn't expire. He checked out, flew the coop, moved back to Lake Elsinore, caught the last train to Clarksville. He lived his entire life on his own terms, and people like that never expire . . . An unprompted gathering formed in the Ghetto that afternoon/night/morning. In addition to his other parting shots, the tornado, the squall, and the earthquake, the power went out and stayed out. So it was doubly fitting that candles burned all night long in the Ghetto. C-ya, Al . . . NickD

Once again parachute jumping comes to the rescue . . . My people were Italian Catholics and very religious. But believing is something that does, or doesn't already exist inside you. And that is as much as any loving god should expect of you. This idea of proselytizing, as some kind of duty, is repulsive. If someone knocks on my door and wants to learn BASE jumping I'm there 100 % for them. But I'm not riding my bicycle around the neighborhood, knocking on doors, and demanding to know if people BASE jump, and if not, why not? There's Tom Delay's type of religion and then there's true spirituality. I see religion as under attack not so much by the non-believers, but more so by the too ardent believers. A true and all knowing god would never ask you to stop asking questions. And I believe when god looks down from heaven and sees BASE jumpers, he pokes mother Mary in the ribs and says, "Hey Mar, look at that, the thing I made them the most afraid of they went and turned into a frigging sport . . . Too many use religion as a shelter, and not as a portal. And while the bible is certainly a good book full of useful information for living, so is Jack Kerouac's "Living on the Road" and the stuff Hemmingway wrote, and etc, etc. Being religious means opening your eyes, and anything else is just sacrilege . . . NickD

I do remember that requirement now, but I never got one of those certificates, so it must have been after that. I packed my first Swift reserve with master rigger Frank Mott in Ramona, Ca. Not too many small lofts were set up for square reserves so it was he who taught me how to inspect and pack a square on a narrow round packing table. Nowadays that's still a good thing to know in a pinch. And I know some older riggers who still pack that way, Al Frisby always does, and I've seen Hank Ascuitto do it too. (They need a new classification of Rigger for Hank. Wizard Rigger would work). I mentioned to Frisby once that he should be teaching rigging rather than just die with all that knowledge he has. His answer? "Fuck 'em, let 'em learn like I did . . . " Ya gotta love it! NickD

I jumped a B-25 at Lake Elsinore in the early 80s. I paid $35 and thought I got took, LOL . . . NickD

You're right . . . Sandy Reid of Rigging Innovations when there were in Perris ran, and probably still does in Eloy, a terrific rigging course. I saw the same students there for quite some time. They appeared able to build entire rigs before they graduated. And his students would come from all over the world. And stitch for stitch nobody builds a better rig than Sandy. I guess what we were talking about earlier was more for the masses . . . NickD

Gee, fellows, you should at least give me a "wrong" with an asterisk. I never owned either Flyer or saw the questionnaire and what I described is how it appeared. Paraflite was indeed the standard back then, and, of course, credit is given to them for the move to square reserves. But, yes I remember what a great controversy that was at the time. "Round" was still considered "sound" by many jumpers in those days. I do remember a young Al Frisby going ballistic over the issue of square reserves, but for the life of me I can’t recall which side of the issue he was on. At the time I'd just moved from a Piglet main to a Strato Star and was loving life. But I stayed with a round reserve until well after Precision introduced their Ravens. A little of that was being conservative and wary of square reserves, but most of it was being young and poor . . . I do remember my first square main jump like it was yesterday. It's something lost on today's generation but after a lot of round main jumps my first Strato Star jump was a revelation. Now it's just taken for granted. As a rigger the first square reserve I packed was the Swift. And if I recall right, there was something you had to do first, maybe get signed off by a Master Rigger or something like that. I miss those days at Lake Elsinore. Sleeping on wooden packing tables, seven dollar jumps, cheap six-packs of beer, and the original Ghetto that later moved to Perris. We're getting old, boys . . . NickD

>>I'm going to win tonight.

>>"RIGGER" & "MASTER RIGGER", how that sounds ?

I don't have access to my old PARACHUTIST mags here, but there is an advert for the Strato Flyer featuring Dean Westguard that ran for a while. It's very telling if you know the back story. Dean got together with, I think, the "Godflicker" (M.Anderson Jenkins), or maybe it was Carl Boenish, to shoot the ad as Dean thought he'd sell a ton of these canopies when they first came out. They were going for one of those after landing big smile shots where the canopy is still in the air. But Dean kept creaming in with big clouds of dust. They finally settled for an almost landed shot and that's the photo in the ad. Dean is seen flaring for all he's worth and he's still a few feet off the ground. I can't look at the ad without knowing Dean is thinking, "oh shit, here it comes again . . . " Maybe someone else has it and can post it up. NickD

That's a beautiful photograph! And (artistically anyway) it makes canopies of today look boring . . . NickD

Cool story . . . Here's the rest of it. Paraflite had turned their main canopy called the Strato Flyer into a reserve called the Safety Flyer mainly because the canopy wasn't selling well as a main. A lot of jumpers bought the Strato Flyer main, at first, thinking it was a better version of the venerable old Strato Star. But it wasn't and it landed like a POS. At Elsinore in those days you'd see people pounding in all the time with them and the call, "Flyer for sale!" was always in the air . . . NickD

I remember in 1979 when the Gossamer Albatross he designed made it across the English Channel. The pilot peddled his ass off, but he made it. Here's a vid of his earlier design, the Gossamar Condor . . . All of this was a big hit with jumpers of the time. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5575752383553477337&q=Gossamer+albatross&total=4&start=0&num=100&so=0&type=search&plindex=1 NickD

I mentioned this one up-board but it ties into what you're saying. Some think there never was a D.B. Cooper. The belief is the flight crew, including the ticket agent, were all in on it. And it may explain why the surviving flight attendant doesn't want to talk about it . . . That notwithstanding - I've seen many skydivers who couldn't find a well lighted DZ from the aircraft on night jumps even though they are right on top of it. And without good communication and a cooperating pilot I doubt Cooper had any idea where he was except in a general sense. It wasn't like he was telling the pilot, "five right," and "five left." As for the weather, it's a moot point. If you understand micro meteorology you'll know the wind can be blowing like stink on one side of a ridge and be dead calm on the other. So we'll never know the actual conditions he landed in. The rub in all this is if Cooper had been an experienced jumper I'm sure he would have brought a parachute on board with him. Instead he relied on whatever he was going to get. Would any of you do that? But he knew enough to ask for "sport" parachutes so this means he probably had at least a small amount of experience. Maybe he was one-hitch military jumper or a static line sport jumper who made it at least to freefall. I mean would someone who had never made a single parachute jump before even contemplate such a thing. Maybe, but not likely. There was also one report I read that said the flight attendant looked through the curtains and she saw Cooper repacking one of the parachutes in the aisle. But I doubt she had ever seen a parachute actually packed before so that statement is kind of suspect. NickD

>>the more times the reserve is repacked is the more wear put on the reserve.

Good Luck . . . http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13447232/ Make sure you watch the vid . . . NickD

>>What do you think ?

>>I don't think there's a db of riggers

Ron (unfortunately for us) was a BASE jumper too. I first met him in his pre-Brutus days at a Bridge Day in 1987. That year he'd made a small pamphlet that explained BASE and he was hawking it to the wuffos. They sold for a quarter a piece and with 250,000 spectators that year he made a small killing on them. I guess it's a small step from abusing animals to abusing kids. This news shouldn't be banished to the SC. Ron is very well known in the jumping community and the community has the right to know about this . . . NickD BASE 194

http://viewer.zoho.com/store/s/skMbF/skMbF.htm NickD

Glory-hound; n. A BASE jumper with no regard for others. A person who burns sites by publicing their jumps. A person who uses the sport of BASE for self-aggrandizement. I'm watching cable news the other day and the host is discussing narcissism in the sense of people who'll do anything to attain, or hold onto, celebrity status. I had to laugh as it was painfully obviously this was a case of the vain discussing the vain. These so called "reporters" actually kept a straight face while they distanced themselves from the people they were discussing. The difference between most would-be celebrities and the cable news talking heads is nil. They are simply glory-hounds. I often wondered how some of the cable folks can be so unreasonable, so objectionable, so willing to say anything, but we too quickly assume "news people" have some higher calling, when in reality it's simply fame and celebrity that's their goal. To sit in a restaurant and have people whisper, "Look, there's [whoever]!" We don't realize what a heady thing that is, because most of us never experience it, but I imagine it's addicting enough they will throw overboard whatever principals they have in order to attain and keep it. Okay, I hear you thinking, "Gee Nick, where've you been?" But I'm mainly a newspaper guy, and I read several a day. I skip right passed the "by line" as I care little who wrote what I'm reading and I judge an article simply by its content. And after all these years I can smell erroneousness, sloppy reporting, or an agenda like horse dung rising from the newsprint. We tend to give cable heads more benefit of the doubt because we know that in most cases they are simply reading someone else's words off a teleprompter while a print reporter lives and dies on his own words. I know full well some newspapers can be as biased as any of the cable shows. But in a written article one has to make their case, so it’s much harder to slip one by like they do in a 20-second TV spot where they're on to the next thing before you have time to digest what you just heard. I guess my point here is turn off the tube and pick up a newspaper. Sure, I hear you saying, "Oh, that's yesterday's news." But most times it's better news because a print reporter has the time to actually investigate and uncover the truth in a story. On cable the rush is to be first in order to flash the "News Alert" banner, but that comes at the expense of actual content. And in reality the only time I really need the news "right this second" is if a tsunami is coming my way. What prompted this rant? I was sitting in a restaurant the other day, one I go to a few times a week and someone, who didn’t have my cell number, phoned the place looking for me. The server (I hate that term) said to the caller, "You mean the fellow with the newspaper?" And it dawned on me that in a place full of people having lunch I was the only one reading a paper. Go back not that many years ago and you were the odd man out if you weren't reading a newspaper. Most will have not gotten this far as it seems nobody reads anymore, but if you did I'll leave you with this. I worry about so many newspapers going out of business. A newspaper is still a terrific bargain. Think of all the work that goes into producing one, the reporting, the printing, the distribution of it, and you can still get it all for only a couple of coins . . . I'll probably get shuffled of to the SC with this, but maybe some of you will see it before the thought police wake up this morning. NickD