NickDG

I got so excited about it I didn't look at the price, LOL. It was like that time I almost bought a Porsche. On the other hand, if you look at it like a poor man's helicopter . . . maybe some of the larger BASE associations in Euro land could afford one. And you could surely bust the record for jumps at Bridge Day with one; you'd just have to come up with the new ridiculous rappeller fee . . . NickD

I can think of a few sites where this would be a cool thing to have in your bag-o-tricks . . . Or, as a way to rescue an injured or stranded jumper . . . http://www.bonanzaproducts.com/ NickD

http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/OttawaAndRegion/2005/08/23/1184277-sun.html NickD

The BASE community, from the very beginning, has been blessed by a better than most realize gear industry. We are well into the second generation of gear builders and nothing has changed. Todd at Apex has always more or less kept a low profile and he even asked me once that while he appreciated it, "Could you please stop writing about me?" At the risk of offending him again (sorry my Brother) I worked with Todd for years at Basic Research and knew him earlier when his company was T&T Rigging. Todd has a world class mind when it comes to gear and countless times I saw that mind in action. I sometimes gag a bit when I read something disparaging about a piece of gear and I don’t have the expertise (in some cases) to fully explain Todd's reasoning behind it. But, suffice to say while BASE jumping has big problems to face in the future (what's new?) could you imagine a BASE gear industry we couldn’t trust with our lives? We're lucky, yes we are . . . NickD

Jimmy, while you have an eye for photography you have no soul and you are fast becoming the John Vincent of 21st century . . . NickD

I'd have dinner with Walt anytime. I recall him as pretty good BASE jumper from the early 90s. On the other hand I'd have dinner with that other guy too. Of course I'd be serving him an earful on how not to be such a schnook . . . NickD

Hello Clair, May I please have an honest answer. Have you read The BASE Fatality List ? NickD BASE 194

I can't fault USPA for trying to keep up with the times, but I believe it's turned into a hodgepodge of awards. Better to stick with the Gold, Diamond, and the rest of the mega-jeweled awards that have meaning to everyone. I remember standing with a group of old friends at Perris when we first heard of a new award, and I still start laughing even remembering it, called the Atmospheric Dolphin. Al Frisby and the rest of them are absolutely doubled over with laughter . . . NickD

And Ritchie spent the next twenty five years advising people against going the same route. As for Jamie, I knew him, and used to send him copies of the Fixed Object Journal when he went to prison for sticking up a liquor store. Being young and being smart are mutually exclusive . . . NickD

The following from the LA Times newspaper is a bit long but raises the possibility of climbing (and all other "dangerous" activities) being totally banned in Yosemite National Park. On an optimistic side Rangers scurrying around trying to catch bandit climbers would make BASE jumping easier to get away with . . . NickD

I liked my parent's music too . . . whenever I heard Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, or Tony Bennett playing on the Hi-Fi I knew I was about to get a quarter to go to movies and Dad was going to get lucky . . . NickD

Here's mine . . . http://www.precision.aero/spc_1295.htm NickD

I think the best thing that could happen to skydiving is the commercial center goes away in favor of how it was years ago. Non-profit clubs. There eventually would be a club for every flavor of skydiving, There'd be clubs for vRW, clubs for RW, clubs for Swooping, and also clubs for people who only want to jump, laugh, and party. For such an open minded group of people we seem to be way too susceptible to being handled . . . NickD

Remember you are a living organism on this planet and (in the short term) nothing bad will probably happen to you . . . -----------------------------------------Saturday Night Live, 1975 NickD

There's another really cool way to stay in your comfort zone. Just rent a Cessna, gather a few like minded old friends and go out in the desert and jump your ass off. I learned that trick from the Latins. Put another way you can take jumping as you find it, or let jumping take you. There comes a time when the USPA, the sims, and the arguments over everything becomes nothing more than bullshit. BTW, commercially available cat odor remover takes care of the beer stink . . . NickD

A Para-anchor is used to ride out storms at sea. It can keep the bow of a boat into the wind, or slightly off the wind, in heavy seas. Generally they are heavy and bulky and probably not suitable for chair recovery . . . http://www.paraanchors.com.au/index.html NickD

On Mars! http://radio.weblogs.com/0111737/myImages/2005/08/2N176788526ESFADAEP1560L0M1.gif NickD

Okay, this is something I don't understand. Have we progressed (or regressed) to the point where landing a large docile BASE canopy using the rear risers is so hard? I'll agree you have to be careful if the toggles are fired and gone, but it still happens in slow motion. Wearing your helmet and body armor along with realizing a little riser equals a lot of toggle and using your best PLF is always easier than riding in a spinner . . . NickD

Why do you think? He wants to start a radio station . . . NickD

I know Brother, I know . . . When I consider my own long list of friends lost jumping since 1975 I realize I have nothing left for death. I sometimes envy the newer jumpers who express so much emotion elsewhere on this board, but I'm numb to it, incapable of feeling anything anymore. It just seems . . . so normal. Death has become neither friend nor foe; it's just something that is always there. I know you have come very close to joining those who've preceded us in the past, and so have I. If there is any advantage to lasting so much longer its we both will never have a last thought of, "why me?" No, instead it will be more like, "okay, now it's my turn." With so many going ahead of us there is no way we can ever feel cheated. When I first met you in Florida I wrote a story that you might remember. If I'm fortunate enough to see my own death coming the title of that long ago story will likely be my last conscious thought. "Let's Ride . . ." NickD

"Spit the Winkle" This is an Aussie thing (I think) where a garden hose is used to fill the rectum of the spitter. The person then finds a group of unsuspecting jumpers, drops their pants, and sprays all. Sorry, butt you asked . . . NickD

It's very cool to see what you're doing . . . I did something similar in Perris many years ago although it is called Pirate Radio or Micro-broadcasting at the time. I built a small FM transmitter and aerial and could reach the DZ and a bit further. We also had guests like Al Frisby and Dirty Ed, played music, and even had a mail drop for listener comments (in case we were stepping on another signal.) The call letters were WFRE (We Free) and we had a riot doing it. It was also a slap at the corporate music scene and the way the FCC freezes out the little guy. I'd tape a two hour show and while actually broadcasting I'd stand outside watching out for the station wagon with the funny loop antenna on top . . . I still have the tapes and maybe I can figure out a way to upload it somewhere. NickD

http://www.americantower.com/OASISPublic/SitePublicPage/sitelistGenerator.asp The above will get you info and photos . . . The below will d/l the Mother of all Tower lists . . . http://www.americantower.com/excelReports/NationalSiteList.xls NickD

What a laugh . . . Wait until you've been in the sport another few decades. You'll positively feel like the Lone Ranger . . . NickD

From a failure standpoint the weakest link has always been the control line releasing when needed while not flying off on its own during a normal deployment. Originally called the Line Over Modification (LOM) it was indeed just a slight modification of a normal skydiving setup. It used the same soft toggle the only difference being the control line isn't passed through the small keeper ring on the riser. This setup worked and saved many an early BASE jumper. However, one problem cropped up from time to time. Under the increased load of line-over on the control line the toggle could jam and no amount of pulling would release it. In fact a jumper pulling very hard on the toggle in this situation would only makes things worse by pulling the entire riser down thereby increasing the rate of turn. A smaller side issue is a jumper releasing and letting the good side go and having the bad side jam. This would dramatically increase the turn and decent rate. It may be interesting to also note (off the top of my head) that I believe no BASE jumper has ever died from landing with a full blown line over and many have done so including Mark, Troy, Jesse, and others. In that respect simple line twists have proved more dangerous and figure into more fatalities. To cure the jamming problem we tried all kinds of things like not setting the toggle so deep, but this caused premature releases. One jumper even promoted coating your toggles in beeswax but that never caught on. Also around this time some jumpers are saying they didn’t like the differences in control stroke between control lines that are routed through keeper rings and those that are free flying. One jumper came up with a large ring, about two inches across that a released toggle would pass through when let go. This allowed the geometry of the control stroke to remain normal and still release a line-over when needed. That one didn’t catch on either. On the other hand most jumpers saw this as a none problem and liked the increased measure of control free flying control lines provided. Todd hit it on the head when he said, "Now, you can use English on your steering inputs." In order to cure the jamming problem we went back to an older type of toggle used on the drop zone. These are the "pin" type toggles originally called Zoo Toggles. Again, like almost everything else in BASE, it solved the initial problem and created new ones. At first premature release is rampant. The problem is the pins themselves are too short. However, there aren't longer ones available anywhere. One BASE manufacturer had some existing pins lengthened at a local machine shop and this seemed to work and be more secure. The next problem is early designs dictated pulling the toggle away from the riser rather than straight down. This caused a rash of what jumpers described as "stuck" toggles. Moe Viletto more correctly called these "misses." We all had misses in those days, including Moe. Some jumpers also complained about the inability to let go of the toggle without losing it, but I never understood that as a problem. For a while it seemed like there is a new toggle configuration coming out every month each with its good and bad points. Finally the gear industry turned their attention to preventing line-overs in the first place. We started with going back to an old Para-Flite trick of using rubber bands to stow the brake lines directly to the center of the canopy's trailing edge. This later morphed into direct line control and the modern day tailgate. We also paid more attention to what causes line-overs in the first place. No one ever totally figured that out but we did realize strong crosswinds on short delays can cause them. Another factor is this is a time when PRO packing is first becoming popular outside the rigging community. There is suddenly a rash of line-overs at the drop zone and soon it became apparent people learning to PRO pack are inducing them by not clearing the control lines or allowing them to run down between the stabilizers. Since we do know slider up line overs are very rare I know most line overs at the drop zone are still caused by this problem. Today skydivers are way too quick to call any distortion of the canopy or any lower surface line entanglement a line-over. I always smile and take a dash salt when I hear a skydiver breathlessly describing their "line-over" Fast forward to modern times and we can see a few new factors coming into play. Our pack jobs are light-years ahead of the early days and this has gone a long way in preventing line-overs. We are also jumping larger canopies. The canopy size of choice 20 years ago centered around 220 Sq Ft. Today that has grown to 265 and higher. This makes surviving a line over landing that much probable. Also we are doing more slider up jumps than ever before and that also knocks down the line-over rate. Early in BASE jumping, before the advent of the mesh slider, any slider up jump is considered risky. There is that unknown factor and a slider hang up would leave a BASE jumper with a single canopy system no where to go. Fortunately it turned out slider hang-ups weren't as prevalent as we thought they would be. Nowadays, we have gotten so good at preventing line-overs some are now saying the LOM isn't even needed anymore. I'm not in that camp . . . Hey Jaap, did I hit on it anywhere in the above? NickD