NickDG

Rigger's can kiss their paper "ticket" goodbye! Gone will be the time honored sayings like, "There's old Bob, he's sitting on every ticket the FAA ever issued." Or, "Oh shit, the feds are gonna pull my ticket!" We will, I suppose, only exist in some FAA mainframe, at least, until some hacker wipes us all out. On the other hand, for over twenty years, I've been ready to "produce" my ticket when asked by an "authorized agency" but so far, no one has ever asked . . . http://www.landings.com/evird.acgi$pass*90469989!_h-www.landings.com/_landings/pacflyer/mar5-2007/Mn-25-no-more-paper.html NickD

Pro-Tec did just that in the late 80, early 90s. They stopped selling to Square One and other skydiving dealers after they were sued by (I think) an injured student. They also put out a statement that their helmets weren't suitable for skydiving. But, we just ignored them and students are still using Pro-Tecs to this day. So what did riggers do that they now deserve to be, "scared?" They didn’t do anything. It's Sunpath that should be scared. Scared that the rigging community will grow a spine and stop servicing their products. If riggers did so Sunpath would back away from this RSL thing within weeks. And if the jumping community, as a whole, doesn't take a strong stand, what's next? Do you think other manufacturers aren't watching this very closely. Do you think there aren't manufacturers out there who would love to tell riggers, you can't pack this rig without a Skyhook, or an AAD, or even a very particular make and model reserve? I can't blame manufacturers for trying to limit their liability in a sue happy world, but what's always stopped them short of complete absurdity is our unwillingness to go along with it . . . I'd end this with something like, "let's stick it to the man," but Bill Booth would fall off his chair in laughter (and I'd join him) with the thought that he'd become "the man." NickD

>>The money is great, but without the skills needed, ya never get in the funny papers!

There used to be (someone here will remember their name) a company in Texas that sold a main canopy kit. It was a generic 7-cell and it came pre-cut and you sewed it together. It also came with a couple of extra ribs and panels so you could practice before you started in on the real thing. NickD

Nobody will be (every time, or if ever) fast enough to beat the slack of the stowed brake line. There is a lot of pressure on the steering lines and once released they are going up faster than you can pull them down. So un-stow the brakes and you are going to surge forward. But that's not the biggest problem. If an object strike is inevitable and you come off stunned or unconscious with the brakes un-stowed how hard will you hit the next thing, be it the same object, another object or the ground? If an object strike is inevitable and you come off unconscious with the brakes un-stowed and your canopy collapses do you want it to re-inflate - slam you into the object - collapse - re-inflate - slam you into the object, repeat, repeat, repeat? A canopy with a solid brake setting is more like a bubble that can glance off things with a better chance of turning away on its own if it just stays inflated, and a canopy in brakes has a better chance to stay inflated. How about being slider down with the line mod and you hit something and get knocked out. Who’s holding the toggles now? What kind of ride is Mr. Limp in for now? And no, it's not alright to be a toggle grabber on every BASE jump. Open, and then point yourself in the direction of the LZ using the risers on every jump. Now no matter what happens you have a shot at the LZ using the risers if you have a toggle problem. Have you ever had a toggle hang up (stuck toggle)? Jump long enough and you will. Or for real fun, let's throw in a one-eighty with a line twist(s). In that case auto-ingrained toggle grabbing can really bite you. You can be a toggle grabber for hundreds of jumps and be fine. But every fatality that began with an object strike and got worse is always just one single jump. Except you don't know when that one jump is coming. Any jump I make where an object strike isn't an issue is still always practice for the ones where it is an issue. Since it only takes one jump to kill you, it makes sense to me that every jump is practice for that "one" jump. Oh, and when faced with nothing but cold steel in your face on a dark night - toggle grabbers tend to become toggle flailers, even the best of them. That's my opinion . . . But you can do whatever you want. NickD

The final Fielding Load . . . I'd say things will be somewhat more organized in heaven from now on . . . NickD BASE 194

We already had a system that works . . . - Walk up to manifest, hand them X bucks. - Manifester puts X bucks in old cigar box - Walk over to plane and board. NickD

>>People base without skydiving so needing 300 skydives first.... Where does that come from?

Fox News is up to their old tricks . . . NickD

>>And the right fight is the for guy next to you - because he's fighting for the same thing.

Actually, I don’t think helping out high school and college level students doing "papers" on BASE is a bad thing. Over the years I've done it a lot. I'll turn down Oprah but not a kid with a notebook. I don't have time right now (I'm off to my own classes in a minute) to go into all the reasons I do it, but these people are the future, they aren’t out to make to a buck off us, and the resulting paper is only seen by a handful of other people. I like that they are interested in the history of the sport, and not just the wow factor. And it's one more person in the world who'll have an positive appreciation for the sport. Some months back I took two college kids to Jean Boenish's house for an interview. And who knows, one of these students could grow up to be President, or someone really important like head of the NPS. And they don’t generally ever take up the sport themselves. So I don’t worry about them hurting themselves. In fact I can only recall one that did start BASE jumping and that was a UCLA student twenty years ago. I'll PM this fellow when I have a chance . . . NickD

Sun Path is using Riggers to shield themselves from liability. The simple solution is since no rig is airworthy without a Rigger's signature, all Riggers should just stop servicing Javelin/Odyssey rigs altogether. Sun Path will either change their tune or be out of business within a year. I never "got" the Javelin anyway. All they did was take the Racer design and ruin it by adding flaps and putting the reserve pin on the wrong side of the rig . . . NickD

>>love you dude.

Each generation must find it's own way. Mine did in the Marine Corps of the 1970s. And yours will too . . . Keep your head down, brother . . . and just make sure you are fighting the right fight . . . NickD

Not at all, Goldsmith, it seems more that you seem hopelessly optimistic . . . And that's good, it will gird you as you get older . . . NickD

No, I guess if you don't get it. Which is reasonable. Then I failed, and it means nothing. And that's the beauty of BASE too . . . And no, it's not a repost, I just wrote that now . . . NickD

"How the USPA made me a Criminal" Carl liked the fact that as an acronym the word BASE made sense, but he realized the first definition of BASE, "a thing on which something stands," also made sense. Jean didn’t like the second definition of BASE which was, "evil or vile," but Carl, Phil and the rest of the guys liked that part too. By the end of 1980, the whole El Cap fiasco had past, and in 1981 when Carl announced the BASE award, USPA, and most of the skydiving community had already turned against BASE jumping. With USPA, they had lobbied hard for legal jumping at El Cap and won, but the NPS had lead them down the garden path and USPA signed on to a bad deal and soon the trouble started. The first, and so far only "legal season" lasted just three weeks. I was at a meeting in Perris in late 1979 where the rules for jumping El Cap are being discussed. Joe Svec was there representing USPA. I hadn't, like most, at the meeting, actually made a BASE jump yet, but I was already interested enough, after seeing Carl's El Cap movie the previous year, to go to the meeting. As a group, skydivers of the day were very naïve about fixed object jumping in general and about the NPS in particular. I didn’t realize the trouble ahead, none of us did, as everyone argued over requiring helmets, boots, D licenses, and round reserves. At the time the round reserve thing made sense as we figured if you did cutaway (remember this is long before BASE rigs) you'd be low, and might have to put your reserve in the trees of the talus. In that case current wisdom said a round was better. The real reason was probably more about we mostly still had rounds in our reserve containers. The helmets and boots thing were a tougher sell, almost everyone was insisting no one jumped with helmets or boots anymore, as that was so paratrooper and those days were over. But it passed into the rules. I was the only one who stood and argued against the D license. I wish I could say it was because I realized BASE and Skydiving were two different sports, but that realization was also years away. I only said something because all I had was a C license. Other rules agreed upon were no RW jumps and no night jumps. When the NPS layered on their own rules regarding permits the die was cast for failure, but none of us jumpers realized it. USPA saw a big up tick in D license applications prior to the commencement of legal jumps and I'm sure it was the reason the D was required. You could be a Jumpmaster, and I think an Instructor too, with just a C license in those days. It was a time the money seemed better spent on a baggie of smoke. The USPA then ran a two page article in PARACHUTIST on "How to Jump El Capitan." And it was off to the races . . . Well opening day came and three weeks later it was shut down by the NPS. We did just what the NPS knew we would do. We busted almost every rule and even thought up ways to mess up no one even considered. Jumps were made with permits for the wrong day, or no permits at all. Jumps were made after the time of day on the permit hadn’t come yet, or after it had passed. Jumps were made at night, and RW jumps were made. Then came the infamous Flat Bed Ten. A group of ten jumpers, some with permits, and some without, who were too lazy to hike and after removing a NPS barricade from a dirt road drove as far as they could before they started walking. It was the cherry on top as far as the NPS was concerned. The jumpers can't be faulted entirely. You must remember these weren't BASE jumpers making cliff jumps; they were skydivers making cliff jumps. They were doing something they considered a lark, like making a balloon jump, or some other type of extraordinary jump. For most it would be something they would do just once. A just get in your logbook sort of thing. To save the program USPA came down hard on the Flat Bed Ten, and whoever else they could identify with membership suspensions and revocations. The problem was not too few of the offenders were from Europe and elsewhere. The USPA was now feeling the heat from three sides. There were those who said they were being too hard on the jumpers involved, those that said they weren't being hard enough, and also from the NPS, who wondered how much power they actually had. So they folded. We realized, some years later, they caved in mostly because everyone at USPA headquarters who wanted to make "the once in a lifetime jump" had already done so. USPA also weighed the effects of further pissing off the NPS government who might pick up the phone and call the FAA government and decided it was a zero sum game. So not only did they not pursue it, they declared fixed object jumping to be "not" part of skydiving and thus came about the ban on the "BASE" word from even appearing in print in the magazine. The problem was there were a lot us USPA members who hadn't made the jump yet and still very much wanted to do it. But now, every time there was a BASE accident, or high profile bust, the local media would seek out the nearest DZO for a comment, and those DZOs would parrot the USPA line, and worse, add that we were crazy, and had a death wish. The reason the media went to the DZOs in the first place was BASE had gone completely underground in those days and talking to a reporter was sport death for your BASE reputation. So then we said fuck it. And we became the pirates of the night, Captain Hook with nylon and the Jolly Roger flag. I remember my first few night building jumps when we actually had to stop and note, "Man, we're really trespassing now, boys," and we'd giggle like schoolgirls. But we did it because we truly believed. We did it because we knew we were born to fly. And we did because if we didn’t the sport would die a quick death and it would be left to a future generation to find, or maybe not find. It's why I'm leery of "deals," like our Euro-brothers made, and are making. It's why I'm leery of rules in this country. We agree to rules when you might as well put rules on breathing. Rules are a game played by those who want to control you. And it's a game you cannot possibly win. Flying is every human's dream and we can do it. That should be the only rule . . . I can separate us into several generations of BASE jumper since it all began. But in geological time we are all one. And it’s up to us, right here and now, to make a stand. We have to stop thinking about ourselves and start thinking about what we do and surviving until it reaches the minds of the more enlightened. What it really means, is we, by timing and nothing else, must take the fall . . . NickD

Too bad you weren't driving the big black Oldsmobile in photo 3 . . . NickD

From memory - in 1983-84 there was a completely blind man jumping at Lake Elsinore. I had just come up from San Diego and taken the job of Chief Instructor and he was already there making jumps. I'm pretty sure he initially trained and made his first jumps somewhere else, Cal City possibly. I wasn't involved with any of his jumps, but the DZO Deborah Blackmon was. I'd seen a couple of his landings (they had him on a radio) and they weren't pretty and it was real obvious, to me anyway, he was going to get hurt eventually. I voiced my concerns, and questioned the motives for letting him jump but it fell on deaf ears, and he wasn't a student so there wasn't much I could do. I believe the jumper's name was "Danny" but that's all I recall. Danny was a gamer though. He'd get dinged up and bruised on every landing, but he kept coming back every couple of months. The last jump I saw him make he totally pancaked the landing after flaring too high and as far as I know he didn’t jump again, or at least not at Lake Elsinore. What may be significant about Danny wasn't his being the first blind person to get through a solo student status (if indeed he was), but that he may have been the last. Tandem jumping was just starting then so everything changed after that. Whenever I hear of someone who’s blind making a tandem jump today, and the big deal made of it, I always think of Danny . . . NickD

Someone up-board mentioned something about looking back at early posts so I glanced at the first two pages of the BASE Zone. Not much on the first page, but the second page gave me a laugh. It shows the first four locked threads and all started by the same guy. Anyone remember HIM . . . ? http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=forum_view_collapsed;forum=22;page=221;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25; NickD

Wow, a "Keep Out" sign for BASE jumpers who can't read . . . ? NickD

>>Go with the LEG POUCH. you wont reach in the wrong place, trust me.

And you know we've both seen this happen: A demo organizer, due to illness or someone not showing up, needs a warm body in a hurry. So he grabs anyone with the card. If anything goes wrong the organizer's ass is covered because the person had the card. It's backasswards . . . NickD

Yeah, but you must ask yourself, what's worse? You, or I, getting shut out or allowing every "Flying Elbow" out there to mow spectators down . . . ? Besides, we were just trying to keep you "out-of-towners" from horning in . . . NickD

>>I think Nick might not have confidence in the PRO ticket because he has seen people who get their card simply for vanity or to perform some random demo. Matt and I are talking about something entirely different.