NickDG

Okay, here's a better plan . . . We open "Nick's Credit Parachute Gear, Coming Soon" (No One Turned Down) across the street from a fat bank. We soap up the windows and then we dig. We dig the tunnel using GPS hoping to hell we don't come up in the donut shop next door like last time. I remember Airtwardo said, when we realized our mistake, "Lookee, Chocolate Éclairs," . . . Three months of digging and all I got was a zit . . ." We get in a Friday afternoon and weld the vault shut from the inside. The we go to work on the safety deposit boxes. That's where all the diamonds, gems and the gold Krugerrands are . . . And Perris takes Krugerrands on account without batting an eye . . . NickD

My "D" License used to say "Master Parachutist." Then it said "Expert Parachutist." And now it doesn't say anything . . . At least my old "C" license had my picture on it! And I remember Eisenhower . . . NickD

>>"skydiving as a dance, as a journey; RW as art in the sky with friends" thing went...

Here's the plan . . . First we steal a Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane heavy-lift helicopter. I've been fooling around with one on MS Flight Simulator so I'll fly it. Then we find out which Brinks armored truck tooling around LA is carrying the most cash. We then pick it up right off the street with hooks and fly it out towards the desert. On the way Airtwardo shinnies down the cable with enough parachutes for the guards. He then gives the guards a choice. They can open the doors, and if they do they get his five minute static line course and out they go. (If they don't want to jump, oh well, we just drop the truck from a thousand feet so it cracks open like an egg.) Either way we then land, pick up the dough and beat it to Mexico where we turn the big helo into a beach cabaña and drink and chase Margaritas for the rest of our lives . . . NickD

Just be at my place by midnight . . . La Crescenta. And don't be all drunk until you get here NickD

I'm heading out tonight. Just finished something so I'm celebrating, a Building probably. So touch BASE in the next couple hours or so, if you are in the So Cal area . . . NickD

Your're a pussy . . . And a Brother for life . . . NickD

Sa-weet . . . !!! NickD

Skydiving, before money and greed ruled it, consisted of a series of "trials" one had to complete in order to, so to speak, "join the club." I don’t think we meant it to be a weeding out process, but that's exactly what it was. You made your first jump by yourself, and all your early student jumps were alone except maybe a jumpmaster/student two way, at the end, if you were lucky. It was a "hack it or pack it" program in which nobody much cared if you did one or the other. In those days you learned before you went up and practiced on the way down. Nowadays you learn on a way down. And after landing your miscues are masked in a ton of positive reinforcements like, "You looked good though," as you spun like a top and busted the pull altitude, "you were smiling and everything!" So a turkey goes home feeling like he's doing all right when for his, and our own sakes, he should be thinking golf or bowling. Today we lament when a student quits, and back then we thought it fortunate the "system" was working. If you made it through student status you then endured the next hundred jumps, or so, as the invisible man, basically ignored and barely tolerated on the drop zone. If you were unfortunate enough to pick up the "dangerous" tag during this time, you were basically finished, as far as making it as a locally respected skydiver. Sometimes I get accused (mostly in the BASE zone) of knocking the current generation too much, but I, and others like me, point these things out because we care. And I'm telling you in order to know where we are going you have to understand where we've been. In talking with some other "old timers" a few weeks ago the subject of "The Skydiver of the Year" award came up and we were doubled over in laughter, until someone said, "Skydiving had finally jumped the shark," and the laughs almost became tears and left us shaking our heads. And to further illustrate just how bad things are now, if twenty years ago someone like Airtwardo called you a "pussy" you'd go home beaming because someone of his statue had finally noted your existence and it meant you'd gotten the nod. We now "value" the new blood (read their money) over the old, so instead of building a solid foundation on which the sport can stand we have a teetering house of cards. And it will only take a strong puff of wind and the whole thing is going to fall over. Now before you get me all wrong as an Instructor, an AFF evaluator, or whatever, I was always considered a "softy" by my peers, as I didn’t want people to endure what I did coming up. I don’t know how many times Rick Horn would pull me aside after reviewing a video of an AFF evaluation dive where I passed a guy, and he'd call me a, "Santa Clause." But I'd argue that I saw the makings in that person, knew he would get better, and fought Rick on the fact the whole AFF evaluation program was flawed anyway. I was the first one to say I thought it was too hard to become a skydiver, to add a rating, to become someone to be counted on. But I'm learning the error in that thinking. Rick was right. The beauty of the sky is not to be gifted, it's to be earned. And I think if today's DZOs would just realize the reason people quit so easily is simply because those people have nothing invested. There is too much hand holding. In the old days we used to say if you made it to a hundred jumps you'd be a skydiver forever. And it was true because it was so damn hard to get to that point. Now you see people with a thousand jumps hang it up and walk away without thinking twice. It used to be the DZOs, even USPA, only facilitated our jumping; now they lead us around by the nose. We are forgetting it's the rank and file jumpers who should be governing the sport, and not by regulation, but by peer pressure. To steal a good line from my friend Jan, and change it just a little, let's not just take back the sky, let's take back the whole damn sport . . . When I showed up at Perris for the first time with just over a hundred jumps, I already knew a strong personality was useful in getting ahead so I screwed up my courage and walked up to first person I saw, and it was Allen Richter. "Hi," I said, and stuck out my hand, "my name is Nick." And not only did he leave my hand hanging out there in mid-air, he said, "So what." It took me a few years but Allen Richter is my brother and always will be. So go ahead and remove the night jump. But just know you are weeding out the last of the hoops instead of weeding out the jumpers who can’t get through them. Skydiving is not for everyone and we'd better stop acting like it is . . . Skydive Radio: http://media.libsyn.com/media/skydiveradio/sr15_11_15_05s.mp3 NickD

And they didn't know enough to put the comfort pad underneath the left B-12 . . . NickD

One April Fools day back in the late 1980s Andy Calistrate wrote in BASEline Magazine that he'd worked a deal for legal jumps at Chicago's John Handcock Building and was taking reservations from qualified jumpers. The applications poured in despite the fact he wrote the piece under a pen name that should have given it away, Sloof Lirpa . . . NickD

I wanted to mention this earlier today but couldn't as Mike didn't know what was planned, but we just came back from his surprise birthday party at this killer Brazilian restaurant. Planned by his lovely daughter Jackie, the entire family turned out and it was quite the shindig. So here's to El Cap #2, a truly amazing man . . . Happy Birthday, Brother! NickD

I remember Dean's "store" in Laguna Beach. I even recall the containers he had hanging on the wall, Corsairs, I think they were. And at his house he showed me an old car under a canvas cover in his garage. It was the car he drove his wife away from the church in. Of course as interesting as all that was - all I was doing was ogling his daughter . . . I also think about Audra Jackman (sp?), the Kiwi lady, who manned one of Dean's vans selling gear out at Lake Elsinore. About twenty years later I was in New Zealand and ran into her at the DZ in Whenuapai. At the time the younger jumpers were trying to get her grounded as they said she was getting rather dangerous. They may have had good cause, but it hurt me to see her treated like some crazy old ding bat . . . She remembered me though, and she had a good cry on my shoulder while remembering the "old" days . . . NickD

Ah, what the hell, give 'em all to Natasha . . . NickD

Ben, One thing about BASE jumping is while the deed stays pretty much the same (in general) the challenges facing folks starting BASE is ever evolving . . . You probably know there was a simpler time when we took the same canopy we used at the DZ and just went BASE jumping with it. These were generic 7-cell canopies that averaged about 220 sq ft in size. Now notice I said simpler, but I didn’t say better. The next thing that happened is lots of us who were of average size, suddenly found ourselves getting hurt while landing, and not because we weren't familiar with the canopies, (people started BASE, in the old days, usually with way more skydives than today) but because we weren't familiar with "BASE" conditions. For instance the turbulence caused by wind rotors suddenly became real and more than a short sentence mentioned (or often not mentioned) in some long ago first jump course. Our biggest mistake in the beginning was thinking we could jump downtown in pretty much the same conditions as we did at the drop zone. We thought that way for years, and we kept getting hurt, and we kept thinking, well, it's BASE jumping, and of course we are going to get hurt. It was the "price" you paid and part of the deal. The paradox we were caught in was the canopies we were using landed better if you could land them into some wind. So we actually waited on launch points just wishing the wind would come up. We were too ignorant to grasp the formula that wind + turbulence = plaster. That era ended (for our crew anyway) when on a rooftop one night we were lamenting the fact that while there was some wind, it was going the wrong way. Keep in mind that at the DZ the wind can determine the direction of landing, but on a BASE jump it's often dictated by the terrain, the obstacles, and your best chance of escaping. We were so comfortable with BASE jumping in winds that we had a pet name for getting bumped around on the way down. We called them "wakies" like in, "Man, I caught a bad wakie going past the Union Bank building." It was then, as we sat that night looking over the edge, Lane Kent said something I'd never heard anyone else say before. It was, for me, the first true "nugget" I can remember. While we each were commenting on how we preferred five mph, or eight, or even ten mph of wind, Lane said, "I like no wind." It was a proverbial light bulb moment. I'm not saying we invented that thought, but in those days communication between jumpers wasn't what it is today, and groups of us around the country were learning the hard lessons of BASE all at about the same time. And the seeds of the fact we were jumping with the wrong gear was starting to take hold. The only problem was we were still some years away from a true "BASE" canopy being available. At the time the first person who started jumping a canopy we thought was "big" was Moe Viletto. Moe, who's not physically large, was jumping Ravens in the 245 sq ft range but again the paradox came into play. We thought wake turbulence, which was inevitable because we jumped in winds, was better managed with a smaller canopy. Our skydiving knowledge was still trumping our BASE knowledge as we knew DZ turbulence was handled better by flying faster through it. But then we started to see Moe landing lightly in more types of conditions while we continued to cream in. (How we never thought to wear some type of body armor amazes me to this day.) So, slowly at first, we all started buying larger canopies. I got rid of my Para-Flite Cruiselite in favor of a much larger Precision Interceptor. And all of a sudden I was standing up most landings, or at least running them out when going downwind. Life was good. Now I don't want to minimize the fact the lesson of bigger was better took a good while to catch on. In fact the earliest BASE canopy manufactures got stuck with a lot of small canopies as even they were slightly behind the times. It took a few years, until smaller females started BASE jumping that those "left overs" finally went out the door. Another canopy lesson we learned was that the ability to make steep braked accuracy approaches suddenly meant if you missed it wasn't a matter, like at the DZ, of just missing the pea gravel. It meant hitting something hard besides the ground. The first time you peak over the edge of a building in the middle of the night you'll see what I mean. When you look down at that one safe place where you must land, you are also going to realize there is a lot hard evil pointy stuff down there that can hurt, and even kill you. Of course, not all BASE jumps are as hard as those mentioned, but being able to handle those means the rest are a bit easier. Now Ben, I wrote all that just so I could pen the following without you thinking I'm nuts. I'm 155 pounds soaking wet and I BASE jump with a 265 sq ft canopy. That may sound ridiculously big to you, but I'm hoping something in the above allows you to follow my reasoning. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention the following. You wrote something about your BASE canopy purchase being "good for the future." I just want to make sure you don't mean that in the sense that you would be downsizing. While there might be some big breakthrough in BASE canopies that allows that in the future, we are still in our "upsizing" phase. Also, before someone jumps on me, the above is "general advice." There are some very experienced BASE jumpers in the world who jump with smaller canopies. Marta, at Apex BASE is one, but she has enough expertise and experience to do whatever she wants. Also there are some big wall BASE jumps with huge open LZs where something smaller can be okay. But my advice is don't counter that with a one canopy for this jump and another canopy for that jump. For now, just jump one canopy and get very good at it, and it will pay dividends in the end. So go ahead and purchase a big BASE canopy. Find an old large Javelin or Vector skydiving container it will fit in and put a bunch of jumps on it at the DZ. Jump early in the morning, or at sunset, when there is little or no wind. When you've dialed in your BASE pack job and can put the canopy constantly close to the peas head out to the Perrine Bridge for a first BASE jump course. Then you can buy a BASE container and be good to go after that . . . NickD

Case Closed! Have a great party, Rick . . . NickD

I've got it working. It friggin rocks !!! Haven't figured out how to flare or track yet, and haven't so far used the HUD. But I don't want to develope any bad habits so I'm just eyeballing it, LOL . . . I've made 10 jumps so far without making the fatality list! Forget what I said about the mb figure. It's really 132,670. Also make sure you have the latest DirectX version which is "C". And in the directory called "drv" there is another piece of software called "PhysX" you must install. NickD

I haven't got it to work yet, but there is a forum with some tips here: http://www.d3company.com/forum/ It appears many people have it working and seem to like it. But it's really odd hearing whufos saying, "Man, I've got two guys on the fatality list already . . . " Also the full demo download is 135,853,566 mb so if you are not getting that you need a download manager. There is also a low res version of the graphics for the ram challanged here: http://www.d3company.com/img/base/demo/lowquality.zip NickD

Got the full d/l and it installed all right, but I get a runtime error on start up . . . NickD

You can probably forget it for today. It kicked my off at 3% downloaded. Damn, I only had another 7 hours to go . . . LOL BTW, Hollywood is on fire, I can smell and see smoke where I am . . . NickD

The demo is out, but their servers must be getting creamed as it's downloading pretty slow right now. NickD

One thing good about Perris is it's inside March AFBs class "C" airspace. In fact the DZ is within the pattern for large aircraft operating from March's RWY 32. This helps keep a lot of VFR traffic from over flying the DZ at least below 5500-feet AGL (I think that's the altitude for class C airspace, 4000-feet AGL plus the airport altitude in MSL.) At or below that altitude they'd need to radio March Approach for permission to transit the airspace. So jumping at Perris you tend to feel protected by the Air Force . . . LOL NickD

>>What was his reaction when you corrected him?

Has anyone yet seen a "money shot" of this thing? All the media hype is calling it, "4000-feet straight down." But, everything I've seen so far is kind of oblique and in most of those views it looks like talus-city and outcropping-ville just hundreds of feet below the edge . . . NickD

Those who read "Flying Magazine" will be familiar with their long running feature called, "I Learned About Flying From That." Well, here's one from their latest issue and if you can get past the dated artwork and the below quote, you may want to go back to looking at something besides the green light before you leave. "One cowboy jumped without the green light is my guess." The confusion in GA concerning parachute ops was and still is appalling. When I was taking flight lessons some years ago my Instructor sent me on a solo x-country that past directly over the Elsinore DZ. When I mentioned I'd probably deviate a bit around there he told me, "No need, stay at 4500-feet and you'll be fine. Those guys jump from 1200-feet." http://www.flyingmag.com/article.asp?section_id=12&article_id=793 NickD