NickDG

Get better Scotty - We need to go "fishing" again! NickD

>>I wouldn't call him a wannabe.

Less time, less mistakes . . . NickD

Yeah, I'm all payed up, and where's my rig? NickD

And Dave B. too . . . A real class act. NickD

This one is intentional - in the real world - and even though it's from an early Bridge Day, I was at first mortified to see this sign in Fayetteville. When we went inside we had to stand in line behind two Rangers perusing the proof sheets . . . NickD

I don't know this fellow, or agree with how he day-blazed this jump, but the story called him a "stuntman" and over the years we've had more than a few out-of-work or beginning stuntmen who use BASE jumping to gain publicity for themselves. And most of them don't go as well as this one did. Often a stuntman knows there's a part coming up in a movie involving parachutes and these are what can be termed, "guerrilla auditions." In the late 1980s there was a "stuntman wannabe" who jumped San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. But like many stuntman who had a lot a mad skills posted on their resumes he wasn't really proficient with them all, and especially he knew nothing about BASE jumping. Using non-BASE gear (round military equipment) he became snagged and hanging from the bridge after the wind got the better of him. He finally hand deployed his round reserve (chest mounted) and cutaway his main before landing in the water below. The way this works is the "film" then makes the rounds in Hollywood where standing out in a crowd is the only way to get noticed. There was another stuntman in the early 90s but this one actually called me for some assistance. This time its San Diego and he wanted to jump from the Coronado Bridge but he'd never made a BASE jump before. After I explained the high security and the low height of the bridge, plus the landing in a Bay that can be cold and rough, I told him with no BASE experience there was no way I'd help him. But he went and did it anyway. It actually went pretty well considering. He hired a stretch white limo and clinging to the trunk lid came speeding across the bridge, in broad daylight, and leapt over the rail with the limo going about 50 mph. He deployed a square (he got somewhere?) while very unstable and landed pretty much out of control, but okay, in the water. Probably, in both the above cases, these guys got their chances in the movies. And if you follow along long enough, this Brit will most likely get his shot too. Not all professional stuntman are so flippant about BASE. David Nunn, who was a working stuntman really got into BASE and went on to do some amazing gags, but he had the jumping background and his reels protected sites and other BASE jumpers, so there is a way to do it right . . . NickD

What came first the chicken or the egg? Throughout the 1980s one question we constantly asked ourselves was, "Where is everyone?" Some, like the gear builders, are anxiously awaiting the hoards that would need new gear, others, like the regular jumpers, saw only gloom and doom as too many jumpers converged on too few objects. There's some marketing going on here. The term "extreme," used in connection with sports, first began with a company called Northface in the 1970s, but it didn't really catch on until the 1990s when mainstream advertisers started using the word "extreme" to promote everything from suicidal ski runs to breakfast cereal. But it couldn't be a single word alone that caused the influx of new BASE jumpers that occurred around the year 2000. It could be the growth spurt was caused, not by one thing, but by several. The chief among them was publicity. In the late 1980s BASE jumping was still kept more or less secret. There have always been glory hounds in BASE, but in those days the amount of damage they could do was limited by their ability to distribute their jumps. There was no reality TV, no You Tube, and no truly low-cost commercial video cameras. I remember when you almost never saw a video camera at a launch point. Now you almost always do. The impact of these types of videos (hundreds of them) circulating around can't be discounted. After all it was Carl Boenish's El Cap films that started the first generation of BASE jumpers. The Perrine Bridge is a factor. But if you look at BASE in a world-wide sense there are a lot of BASE jumpers who've never been to Idaho and BASE jumping exploded worldwide, not just in the USA. The main effect European cliff jumpers feel from the bridge is the crowd who makes a few Perrine jumps and it's off to the Continent . . . Economics plays a certain role too. I know, in the long run, when you factor in travel, and the eventual medical bills, BASE jumping isn't any cheaper than skydiving. But it will appear so to newer jumpers. But, I don't think it was really any of those things. No matter how good the marketing, you can't put lipstick on a pig. BASE jumping is popular, despite the pitfalls and dangers, because it really is what many other sports pretend to be, it's the real deal. So all this growth was inevitable, and not because of anything any of us did, it was just a matter of time. We knew it back when we were BASE jumping with skydiving canopies in 1986 and Moe was always saying, "Keep your head's down, the tidal wave is coming." So, actually what I'm surprised by is BASE jumping's "lack" of progress . . . Where's the fully dedicated 2000-foot BASE jumping tower that should have been built somewhere in Kansas by now? Where's the legal BASE jumps that should be a normal part of any tall object's grand opening? Where's the Las Vegas casinos, and why aren't they sponsoring "Three Shows a Night" from their rooftops? Why doesn't Wal-Mart have a beginner's BASE rig hanging next to the complete guitar starter set? We haven't seen anything yet. Moe, was right, he was just a little early. Hang onto your hats everyone, the real wave is still coming . . . NickD

Velcro Flap Rigs - Circa, 1989 . . . NickD

Leave only footprints . . . NickD

Eyeballing = Going downtown and taking a photograph and then going home and figuring it out - and then going back at night and doing it . . . NickD

You're old when you're dead . . . NickD

Not being up to date doesn't count you out. The gear industry was stagnant (still is?) when Mick introduced what some people called a better Racer . . . Stand outside Square One in Perris for a week right now and you'll see a Reflex or several walk by. NickD

Of course, that's right. Yet Sectionals have always been modest treasure maps in the BASE community and besides no one is going to jump anything without eyeballing it first. And even a good treasure map won't tell you how far you'll have to dig. Most of the towers in the south-western U.S.A. seem to be close enough . . . NickD

And the Sectionals (USA) are on-line now . . . http://www.runwayfinder.com/ NickD

Here's a 1999 article concerning the 727 co-pilot . . . Also - Has it ever been revealed exactly what kind of rigs they gave him? I remember reading (somewhere years ago) they came from a local parachute loft. I always assumed they were four pilot's rigs and not sport gut gear. NickD >Ken Eisinger / Star Tribune Capt. William Rataczak will tell you that he has two families -- his relatives and his professional colleagues -- and he doesn't like people messing with either. In 1971, airline hijacker D.B. Cooper messed with both. Rataczak, who retired Monday after a 34-year career with Northwest Airlines, was the co-pilot during the legendary D.B. Cooper skyjacking. Cooper captivated the nation when he ransomed a jetliner for $200,000 and then parachuted out the back of the plane over southwestern Washington state. He was never seen again, but $5,800 of the ransom money was discovered along the Columbia River in 1980. His feat -- or his folly -- has inspired books, a movie, annual festivals and a play by local laywright John Orlock. Rataczak, who lives in South Haven, Minn., took a break from the cheers and applause of his friends and family at his retirement reception Monday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to reflect on his experience. He had been flying commercially only six years when a man calling himself Dan Cooper -- the "D.B." came from a reporter's mistake and remains today -- boarded Rataczak's Boeing 727 in Portland, Ore., with 36 other passengers. Cooper gave a flight attendant a note, which she ignored, thinking he was trying to come on to her. Soon after takeoff she read it and relayed the message to Capt. William Scott and Rataczak that the plane was being hijacked by a man with a bomb. "He wanted $200,000 and four parachutes," Rataczak said. "And no funny stuff." Upon his arrival Monday at the airport from Oslo, Norway, retiring Capt. William Rataczak shared a laugh with fellow Capt. Pete Johnson. The plane circled above the Seattle airport while police below raced to get the ransom money and find the parachutes. When the plane landed, Cooper freed the passengers and two flight attendants in return for the ransom. Rataczak recalled that he, the other pilot, a flight engineer and the remaining two attendants could have left the plane as well because they were out of Cooper's sight. But Rataczak said he couldn't get the flight attendants' attention. Cooper then ordered Rataczak and Scott to fly to Mexico, agreeing to a refueling stop in Reno. Although Cooper's identity remains a mystery, Rataczak said he was able to discern some of the criminal's qualities. Cooper's comments indicated he was familiar with the Seattle area, and had an dvanced knowledge of aviation, Rataczak said. Just after takeoff, Cooper ordered the remaining attendant to go to the cockpit and close the curtain behind her. When she looked back, he was tying the money to his waist. In the cockpit, the pilots saw the stair signal light flash and felt a sudden dip and then ascension in the plane's flight. The dip was caused when Cooper jumped from the rear stairs at 10,000 feet, going 196 miles per hour, about 20 miles north of Portland. He wore only a business suit with loafers, and he plummeted into stormy weather with a windchill of 70 below. An ensuing FBI manhunt found no trace of Cooper. His myth gained momentum. His legend is one part mystery, and one part folk tale; a combination of Bigfoot and Robin Hood. Hundreds of people who annually attend festivals in Ariel, Wash., think Cooper escaped with his money and is alive and well today. When an 8-year-old boy found about $5,800 of the marked ransom money on a riverbank in 1980, the stories began again. Rataczak doesn't believe the hype. "My mind tells me he's dead," he said. "And my heart tells me I hope he is because he caused a great number of people a great deal of grief. "Many people didn't realize that there were 36 other passengers and a crew of six on that aircraft whose lives were in jeopardy. . . . It's an open book today, if he's ever caught, he will go to prison."

>>These forums could never be what base is about. we're lucky if a bit of technical info can be shared once in a while

>>I GUESS YOU HAD TO BE THERE! I was jumping when DB did his thing. Being military it was assumed the jumper was military.

I've been following Jo's story since last year when it was first publicized and can only imagine what she's going through . . . I started jumping a few years after the incident occurred, but even in 1975, few nights around the bonfire passed without some mention of who DB Cooper really was. The central point of discussion, at the time, was if DB Cooper was an experienced jumper or not? It would seem pretty crazy (to us jumpers) to plan the whole thing and leave the "getaway" to such chance without some prior experience. But then again we know people who don't jump think what's the big deal? You jump, you pull the thing, and you land. But, there are several things that don’t make sense – and I could be wrong – but I always figured an experienced jumper would have carried a personal rig onboard, rather than request the two (or three) parachutes, like he did along with the ransom money. The point of asking for more than one parachute made sense, as there would be the chance he forced one or more of the remaining crew members to jump also, and this would preclude sabotaging the rigs in any way. There was also enough time between the takeoff, with the money and rigs, and the jump, that he could have opened a rig and did a quick I&R before jumping. Everyone at the time had their personal theory on who DB Cooper was. My guess was a certain local gear manufacturer in Lake Elsinore who was the right age and looked a bit like the description and the sketch . . . Another idea floated was there was no DB Cooper at all. The whole thing was a story offered up by the flight deck and cabin crew who threw the empty rigs out the back and kept the money for themselves. This is somewhat plausible as, I believe, not one of the released passengers said they ever saw the guy. On the other side, the practical side, we see that even today, local authorities - all the way up to the FBI – don’t know butkus about parachutes and jumping. So we don't really know how much information that exists is even credible. They probably weren't even asking the right questions. As for the small amount of the money found, yep, I would have scattered some of it too. DB Cooper probably figured the authorities would first conclude such a jump was impossible and this played into that theory. However, the WX was so bad in the area of the jump; an experienced jumper would have probably avoided that and picked another flight. In any case, Jo deserves to know if the man she lived a life with was something other than what she thought he was . . . NickD

I grew up a half block from Central Park West in New York City and the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade was a very big deal every year. While I'm sure the guts of the parade are still intact it seems NBC (I'm on the other coast now and watching on TV) seems to have turned it into a shill for Broadway shows and a vehicle for washed up TV personalities – Up next Martin Short . . . Oh boy! Gee, just stick a camera on the sidewalk and let us watch the parade go by! And in a place like New York City, full of very colorful characters who could narrate the thing we get the, "Today" show? Congrats NBC, you managed to turn the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade into a real turkey. Oh, wait minute - The Rockettes are on - Okay never mind the above - gotta go !!!! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! NickD

An oldie, but goodie . . . NickD

Apex BASE announces their latest rig option! The Hidden Heater Pocket . . . http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/opinion/22wed4.html?_r=1&oref=slogin >>As a last little gift to America, Senator George Allen, who was narrowly defeated by James Webb this month, has introduced what may be his final piece of legislation: a bill that would allow the carrying of concealed weapons in national parks. The argument behind the bill is that national park regulations unfairly strip many Americans of a right they may enjoy outside the parks.

>>taking part in an unregulated risk activity

Ain't it the truth . . . I'm old enough now that all that Twilight Zone stuff about waking up one morning and everything is different is starting to come true . . . NickD

>>Where to skydive over Christmas?