NickDG

To add to what Rob said - All-Temperature Cheer is also safe and works a bit better on ground in dirt. A rig is a bit tougher than an Angora sweater so you really don't need the gentleness of Woolite. Besides, you do want to get all that icky sweat out of the back pad that belonged to that other person. A couple of other things for the record. Remove the cutaway handle. Some cutaway puds are made with the wrong foam and they absorb water. You can wash the outside of the handle if it's soiled. Open all the tabs and Velcro (if any) and don't get carried away with the brush. Usually just dunking, agitating, and waiting works okay for all but the worst jobs. Resist the urge to ring it out. You're going for the drip dry method. Turn it upside down a few times first and let the water run out of those strange places some rigs seem to have. Depending on the humidity and temp is how long it takes to dry. Hanging it indoors in a room with a breeze is best. Outside is all right but of course not in the Sun. And watch how you hang it. Fabric is a little weaker when wet and it's going to be heavy with water. I've have heard of some people using modern washing machines set on "very very gentle" and maybe someone can add to that, but I like the old fashioned way. Oh, and don't forget to take out the packing data card . . . NickD

Just a guess based on the video . . . To my eye the rig seems open "enough" for the loop not to be trapped. Take another look this time with the idea the tuck tab is the culprit . . . Once he pounds the rig open you can see the part that's tucked is pretty wide and long. And maybe if the main container was empty it would have opened as that changes the dynamics. (I know there's little solace in that). A different rig and a main container - but we once had AFF student rigs at Perris that totaled more than once in a while. We put in PCs with stronger springs and it still happened. We finally had to leave the main pin tuck flap open as SOP. Before we started doing that there wasn't an AFF instructor on the DZ that didn't have to punch one of those rigs open. NickD

I have a Dell Inspiron 5150 that's 2.5 years old. It's on its second mother board (out of warranty) and as you said it runs very hot. I see CPU temps as high as 70 C sometimes and I keep the vents clean and the fan clear. I installed a fan control program that does help a bit but I'm pretty sure this MB will fry eventually too. And yes, there's now a class action suit just filed over the overheating issues. Give this one a pass . . . NickD

It was my pleasure to spend a little time with Smitty at DeLand in about 1990. And he was still doing tandems when he could. Deland had the ditch for ditch digging and he thought that was the coolest thing . . . NickD

We've come so far . . . We should really be proud of ourselves. I remember when a few people never packed in the field. Moe Viletto would show up at Freedom Canyon Bridge with six packed "Edge" rigs. And when they were unpacked he was done. I used to watch him pack in his loft and he'd start by snapping down a chalk line for reference. I think if I thought packing needed that degree of accuracy I wouldn't BASE jump. Moe was also the first person I ever saw that used clamps – he used them packing reserves and BASE canopies in about 1987. We laughed at him . . . I'm not laughing now. NickD

>>Oh, and Nick, if you start to feel like the lone ranger, remember that Kleggo and Rick H. are still regulars here.

Read what Hydro Guy said in his last sentence. Besides it's always better to have clamps enhance an already solid hand. Having a good "hand" is a sort of rigger's term for being able to control things during a pack job. Remember when PRO packing first became popular at the DZ? Some people couldn't do it without a hook drilled into the ceiling. We called those people "hook cripples." Being a "clamp cripple" is the same thing. NickD

I took a cab once from CRW . . . It was fifty bucks plus we stopped at the liquor store so that was another twenty for beer. The cab driver wound up partying all night with us, and I remember he let us take turns driving his cab around the parking lot of the Holiday Inn. The next morning he raced back to Charleston to get his wife and kids to watch us jump. It was one of the best cab rides I ever had. It's probably $125 nowadays . . . NickD

>>throw the clamps away. and if you think twice about the previous line, throw yer rig away.

Nope - I'm a Marine too . . . NickD

Tom's right . . . There are COs who can issue standing orders that no one in the unit can do any form of parachute jumps. There is still an actual bias against parachuting jumping for the jump and especially the non-jump billets. I found this comes from the more traditional "legs" who are COs. Their excuse is usually they don't want to have to write the, "Sorry, but little Johnny is dead," letter home. You can also see it in the fact that few jump qualified officers ever reach the General or Admiral ranks. NickD

Sort of. But, more so, when everyone jumped 7-cell canopies at the DZ, stalling them, flying them collapsed, or even flying them stalled and backwards (in reverse) was something you did for fun and sometimes on every jump. Nobody really does it to that extent anymore. NickD

Clamps aren't the problem - it's the damn helmet I never know what to do with . . . NickD

The fifth line was added, as an option, to give the "larger" BASE canopies a bit more control authority. However, it seems to work best when you are under loading the canopy, like for experienced jumpers who jump big canopies and are protecting previous injuries. For the inexperienced an unintentional stall is a very real concern. Say you have a bad opening, and then turn the wrong way, and now you're doomed to hitting some type of ground obstruction. A full fledged panic flare with a fifth line can turn a slow speed obstruction collision into something much worse when the canopy stalls and goes away. Working at Apex I received maybe one call from someone who wanted to add the fifth line to an existing canopy and dozens of calls from people who wanted to know if it was all right to remove it. Another issue is nobody, except for maybe the CRW guys, comes to BASE with much stall experience in the first place. My advice would be if you don’t have a very good reason, give it a pass. Phone or write Todd at Apex Perris as he always comes up with more insights into these things than anyone I know . . . NickD

It's déjà vu all over again . . . In the 80s when direct bag was more fashionable than static line, Rick Payne started a big thing by saying, "I'd rather watch TV than do a DB!" Now, your names are different but the arguments are all the same . . . Static line BASE didn't catch on right away in the U.S. as we saw it as something you did in Great Britain. And we were very aware of the problems they had with it. It just didn't seem foolproof enough, and at the time it wasn't. (Not much approached foolproof in BASE during those days, but luckily we were mostly blissfully ignorant of that.) Soon after Mark Hewitt showed us the direct bag method. I won’t say he invented it as anyone that ever jumped a T-10 stuffed into a deployment bag attached to a static line knows it's been around forever. But we can say he "adapted" the technique to BASE. Direct bag opened a new world of objects and we took full advantage. The other side of the coin was the accident and injury rate went through the roof. Our crew was doing jumps from the 12th and 13th floors of buildings over hard parking lots and not even thinking twice about it. What did us in was we didn't have BASE canopies, we didn't have good toggles, we didn't have vents, and except for the riggers among us, not many even knew how to PRO pack. I shudder now thinking how many "side packed" direct bag jumps we did. Some people were even "roll packing!!!" Helmets and other protective gear was still a few years away too and in California anyway, it was mainly shorts, sandals and a skydiving rig . . . And just to make it worse, at first we used deployment bags without handles and without them being attached to the object in anyway. The lesson I've carried from those days is while we knew we didn't know it all, we did think we were riding on the cutting edge of BASE technology, and we were, but we didn't realize how far from sharp that cutting edge was. I have no doubt the same could be said of today . . . NickD

Like others, "Ripcord" steered my towards skydiving, but it was a close one because I was a big "Seahunt" fan too. And when our Instructor was first explaining the gear to us I kept wondering where the gun went . . . NickD

Sheesh, it took me about five years to stop calling Vectors, Wonderhogs . . . NickD

Have a wonderful day, Jenn . . . NickD

There's film and still photos of Carl Boenish BASE jumping, but for the most part he was behind the camera most of the time. The two major times he violated that was his pogo and stilt walking off El Cap, which kind of backfired, when jumpers accused him of turning Yosemite into a granite circus. The next time was allowing himself to be filmed for a television show which turned out to be the trip to Norway that ended his life in 1984. I was at the USPA get together when Carl was posthumously awarded the USPA Achievement Award. Jean, his widow, was there of course, and I met Carl's mother and sister. There weren't any other BASE jumpers there and BASE isn't mentioned much during the evening. One by one all the USPA bigwigs stood and told their stories about Carl. Mostly, these were about the early days of RW and the large part Carl played in filming it. I wanted to get up and say something further about Carl's involvement in BASE jumping, how his films helped spread the word, how his BASE Magazine filled the void for those just dreaming or starting out. But I didn't. And I'm sorry for it to this day. I was a bit intimated and really thought as soon as I started talking about BASE I would be booed off the stage. In those days skydivers and BASE jumpers were in the grips of a cold war. Also, what he did for BASE jumping wasn't as clear in my mind as it is today. Now you can't get me to shut up about Carl . . . Instead I wandered over to one of the tables filled by the usual mementos of the departed. The first jump certificate he earned at Lake Elsinore in 1960 was there, some baby pictures, and many photographs that PARACHUTIST had run over the years. But there was something else that caught my eye. It was a little red logbook. I picked it expecting it to be his first one, but it turned out to be his last one. And it was mostly BASE jumps with a skydive here and there. Carl didn't have as many BASE jumps as some at the time. Guys like Phil Smith, Mark Hewitt, and Rich Stein were, as far as numbers, the most experienced. But, I do recall feeling I was holding something very special in my hands. Carl didn't have all the answers in his day, but he was learning fast, and you can read it in his old magazines. First it was all about the magic and wonder of BASE jumping and Carl could certainly be a little "out there" with the "Zen" of it all. But by the later issues (there were six or seven in all) he was getting serious about being technical and safe. In fact it's one of the great mysteries surrounding his death. Anyone who participated in any parachute related projects with him will say he was almost too anal about figuring things out beforehand. He was, by profession, a degreed electrical engineer who would analytically study any particular BASE jump for months before actually doing it. The fact he went back up the mountain leaving Jean behind to pack for the trip home after the TV show was in the can, and then jumped from a launch point unknown to him doesn't jibe with the kind of jumper he was. I'm not suggesting anything funny went on, but the lesson in is death is clear. Stay true to what you know is right because being wrong just once can kill you. Yes, we gave Carl Boenish a big silver cup with his name on it, but he deserved so much more . . . NickD

Beg for forgiveness - not permission . . . NickD

I'm no longer working for Apex BASE as of about three months ago. I had "words" with a few "customers" and Apex decided the customers were right and I was wrong. It's all cool . . . I first worked for Todd in the very beginning of Basic Research and then again after they became Apex. Apex isn't exactly the company I watched Todd start so many years ago. But I'm very proud of everything he has accomplished. In the early days we all thought we were doing the right thing, like many of you do now. However, and I don't know how many times I can say this, I don't know it all, I learn as I go. But, I've lost my taste for selling BASE for money. In the late 80s and early 90s the calls I got from BASE jumpers at Basic Research were from people I usually knew already. They were experienced BASE jumpers and fun to do business with. Today the calls are from mostly clueless skydivers who asked me what they need rather than tell me what they want. That was a big sea change in the sport and not one I signed up for, or was willing to support. You've got to do a bit more homework than that to get passed me. But, nowadays it's come one come all. Look, I was there when modern BASE started and nobody knows more than me that there's no's turning the clock back. I'm talking to those who want to give just a little thought to where we've been and where we're going. And whoever said Carl Boenish would have been uploading to You Tube is wrong. Carl was first and foremost a commercial photographer, and he mainly came up with the jumps at El Cap in 1978 because he simply thought they would be cool to film. But as he became more deeply involved in the sport he named BASE he started to realize the responsibility of what he was showing other people. Carl died in 1984 when the BASE world was a whole lot different than today. And I believe if Carl was still alive he'd be posting right below me and telling you to get stuffed on that one. In a way we had an excuse to be stupid about BASE jumping in the beginning. What's the excuse now . . . ? NickD

Oh my, didn't any of you watch SNL in the 70s? They'ed look like dounuts . . . NickD

>>My criteria is purely selfish: can I live with myself when they spear in.

We were a much happier bunch when there were fewer "legal" sites to jump from. Sure, we had other problems like worrying about the image of BASE, and only because we cared, but we soon learned the lesson that no matter what anyone else did you could still have a happy career of "quietly" BASE jumping. The poorest fellows now are the locals trying desperately to protect their fragile sites from the great unwashed. And oh boy, they get more unwashed every year. The current crop blasts sensitive sites all over Your Tube, thinks the previous generation of BASE jumpers are assholes, and seem to go out of their way to say they're out for themselves. My advice to the "legal eagles" is give it up and go back to being "sneaky sparrows." You’re just going to make yourself miserable and start a lot of fights with people that would otherwise be your friends. These problems are your own fault – not the guy with the Sabre 170 and collapsible PC. You got into bed with the Man, so stretch out, and get comfortable. Hell, you're working for the Man! The first generation of BASE went by the credo of let's follow natures rules, not man's rules. But you guys traded that freedom away for the convenience of "legal" jumps quicker than a hooker goes through an Army platoon. BASE jumping is on the way to being regulated, and maybe quashed all together, if we don't chill out. You know, if we really put or efforts into it, we could make the whole world forget BASE jumping even exists. Imagine being back in the 1980s as far as the public knows, but you have 2006 BASE gear and skills. It would be mad times. But, sadly, we aren't cool enough for that. History will bear out that "legal" sites hurt BASE jumping more in the end. And simply because it divides us and makes us less free. So tell those "people" who own your cliffs and bridges that they don’t own you. You might wind up with a few less jumps, and a few more fines, but at least you'll be riding on your own ticket. And that's BASE . . . NickD

>>'If you're not ready to die, you're not ready to jump'