NickDG

At one time people said RW should be banned because it was dangerous and it would kill people. Later people said CRW should be banned as it was dangerous and it would kill people. Then people said BASE should be banned as it was dangerous and it would kill people. I'm not, and never have been for banning anything. I've always seen that after a steep learning curve we jumpers figure out how to do dangerous things. However, looking back on fatalities over the past fifteen years we aren't learning how to prevent high performance landing fatalities. It's possible that the newer among us now see these fatalities as a normal part of skydiving, like we accepted terminal impacts years ago. To veterans of the sport these landing deaths seem totally out of whack but we don't say much as we don't want to sound like the naysayers of old. If someone put together a complete swoop-gone-bad fatality list the numbers would be frightening. Just since the year 2004, 37 percent (the largest category) of 97 worldwide skydiving fatalities have been landing deaths. I hate to admit we as jumpers have failed. But, even with the swoop classes, and all the education about wing loading, IT'S NOT WORKING. Every time someone dies on a swoop the blood is on our hands. How long are we going to go on denying this? And there's plenty of blame to go around. We jumpers share the blame with gear retailers and canopy manufacturers who are putting profit ahead of safety. We are selling killing machines to our innocents. I've thought about this from all angles, and the only conclusion I can come to is we are royally screwing up, and unless we do something about it, some agency, is going to do it to us . . . We've gone from a time when hook turns were banned outright with round parachutes when the worst outcome was a broken leg, to a point where swoop landings are encouraged and the carnage and death is ignored. We are probably now three generations into the blind leading the blind. Some manufacturer with balls needs to stand up, some big retailer needs to say enough is enough, and some DZO has to lay down the law. Follow the money. Swooping is spectacular and it lures in the tandems. It's a vicious stinking money making cycle of death. Newer jumpers will tell me to get over living in the past, but that's what people who have no past always say. But, I know this for sure; twenty year old jumpers have no business dying while landing a parachute. Someday, wavier be dammed, some jury is going to get the fact a high performance highly wing loaded canopy is a loaded gun. Selling that loaded gun to a jumper with less than a thousand jumps, who dies under it, is negligent homicide. I love my Stiletto but I'm very careful with it. I've jumped about every kind of canopy there is round and square and I've learned three decades of lessons in this sport. And sometimes I need every bit of that experience to keep myself safe. When I see "a few years in the sport and 400 jumps" lying there dead, I know it's not entirely their fault, it's ours . . . NickD

I'm in treatment right now too and it's easy to get down about it. I've realized now it is two battles in one. The first is against the "thing" and the second is a fight to keep your spirits up. Let's win both . . . NickD

My name is Nick Di Giovanni. I live at 1880 Harbor Island Drive, San Diego, California, 92101. Come and get me now, or deal with me later . . . NickD BASE 194

>>200 "uneventful" BASE jumps happen off one site.

Aunt Bessie in cuffs is just what we need. Bring her . . . NickD

Come on Brothers and Sisters . . . Let's Rock . . . NickD

The worst of it, and a thing we seem to accept, and I don't know why, is that by just talking about it, we are guilty of conspiracy . . . NickD

T-shirts for all and the ones who already limp go first . . . NickD

This idea has been simmering on the stove for many years. Putting off 200 + from El Cap, sort of like "The Great Escape" and Martin Luther King's march against intolerance through the south, all rolled into one. A civil disobedience protest that would make headlines around the world. The last failed attempt at this sort of thing took the starch out of it, and I wasn't a supporter of that anyway, because six people aren't going to convince anyone of anything, even if it had gone better. We have to overwhelm them either as individuals jumping everyday or all of us at once. I mean, come on, they have their schedule and we have ours. We can either wait for them to let us jump, or we can seize the right. Nothing else has worked, not lawyers, not letter writing, not quiet indignation, and we've been at it for over 27 years. We need to make enough noise that the Joe Six-packs and the Soccer Moms across the nation wonder too why we can't jump. No one I've ever met in my life doesn't think BASE jumping is a cool thing, even when they would never consider it themselves. We are magic boys and girls, we are the very embodiment of what is best about the human spirit, and the only thing stopping us is us . . . I swear, as Carl Boenish is my witness, I will stand there and let them haul me off to what ever fate awaits me. The Yosemite dungeon would not hold us all, so makeshift pens would await us and we'd chant, "Let the Brothers Go . . . surrounded by climbers who have suffered for years under what they call oppression by the "tool." Climbers would marvel at us, and wonder why they haven't done the same. We live in time when it "is" possible to gather 200, maybe even 300, very experienced BASE jumpers in one place. The time is now, the reason is just, and the fate of the sport is in our hands. We can roll over, or we can stand up. We can submit or go down fighting. When you are sitting on your porch, old and grey, and reminiscing on your hundred potato bridge jumps and your grandchild asks, "Gran, what did you do during the great BASE war of 2005, what are you going to say? We can do the details though good old snail mail, they may know we are coming, but they won't know when. This will call for every stealth lesson we've ever learned over time, but the difference this time is it won't be about any individual, it will be about the sport, the thing that brought here in the first place. Let's Seize the Right . . . NickD

Freedom, and the right to self determination is dying. Independence Day my ass . . . NickD BASE 194

I dig that, and I know a few BASE friendly Rangers too. There's one fellow I put through a skydiving AFF course when he was in college who later became a Park Ranger. He told me he's met other Rangers who don't hold with the old beliefs. However he said many young Rangers, who have no preconceived ideas on parachuting, regularly get their minds poisoned by the system. After Dan Osmond (spl?) was killed rope jumping at El Cap he wrote me saying Rangers were saying, "That's makes BASE jumping look pretty sane." So sure, I know there are good and bad everywhere. But I hold the system responsible, and I hold the instruments of that system responsible too. When I was in the Marine Corps we actively protested the Vietnam War from within and it cost some of us dearly. But, the lesson I learned is when you believe something is wrong, you can't hide behind the system. NickD

The Kockelman Brothers (John and Peter) are the fellows who design and build many of these rides. John made some BASE jumps in the early 90s after he let us jump from his bungee tower. He came to Bridge Day that year and made a couple of BASE jumps. He's also a skydiver and a good friend to our sport. They have a website here: http://www.gravityworks.com/ In the 80s we thought we have some success launching from a med-evil siege machine called a trebuchet www.trebuchet.com but the initial g-force at launch is too much to take. I was at a Fair here in San Diego last week and saw the "ejector seat" up close. It would take some modification to assure the cage doesn't swivel on the way up, but it would be totally doable and a wild ride. Tandems . . . ? NickD

Hasn't it be proven that Native Americans have no more predilections for addiction than any other race of people? I think their original drinking problem came from seeing their culture disseminated, being shuffled onto reservations, having no meaningful work to do, and generally having no hope. Christ, I'd need a drink after that too . . . NickD

>>I do not think it to be wise to insult a ranger. Especially when we are trying to get access to legally jump...

Jumps at this place were had with permission, and permission was gained by smuggling cases of beer in for tribe members. We felt like bootleggers there for a while. Native Americans are much more sophisticated now but one thing that will always be in our favor is, like us, they are always ready too stick it to the "Man." If they build a casino at this new structure they'll still need more of a draw to get people to travel there and that could be us. Hops & Slots . . . ! NickD

Over 15 years ago we tried something like this. We thought demo jumps using BASE gear from 500-feet would be an exciting and novel air show act we could take on the road. The two things we had to get around were insurance and FAR 105, section 43. Section 43 is the one that states the gear must be a dual container system with an approved harness, and an approved reserve. In this case "approved" means TSO'd. We approached Section 43 by asking the FAA for a waiver. We believed we were on strong ground as waivers are granted to aerobatic pilots to perform their maneuvers right down to ground level if they can first prove they are competent to do so. We also showed them that using the type of gear mandated (basically a skydiving rig) would make these jumps more dangerous and not safer. I remember spending an hour with an inspector at the FISDO explaining the theory of the BASE single harness and container system. And I was excited when he agreed. The problem became the insurance. Tagging onto the USPA demo insurance program didn’t work as they (the insurance company) follow the USPA basic safety recommendations. I spoke to Bill Ottly at USPA about a waiver to the equipment and altitude BSRs and although he said it was a cool idea, waivers wouldn't be granted. He was (and rightly I suppose) worried about doing anything to jeopardize the USPA's ability to get such demo insurance which has always been tenuous at best. So, that's were we left it. We tried a few aviation insurance companies and while they were open to the idea it was the premiums born solely by us that wouldn't work. Think of an Otter screaming down the center line at 500-feet (or even lower) and one by one five BASE jumpers exit at show center. The crowd would crap their pants! Someday, maybe the ABP will be large enough and with enough "dues" paying members that this might work out . . . NickD

I had a lot of jumps on a smaller Sabre and it was fine, but all the bigger Sabres seemed to open hard. Try rolling the nose super tight all the way back the "A" lines. If that doesn't slow it down roll up the outboard three cells on each side and stuff them into the center cell . . . when you are packing the idea in your head should be don’t open, don’t open . . . NickD

A good illustration was a new team at Perris about 12 years ago. They were all new jumpers who formed a team early, the DZ got behind them, and they became the "hot" RW team. They made thousands of practice jumps together in a couple of years and all of them at Perris. They were all good and likable fellows, and all the young jumpers looked up to them. The first time they went anywhere else to jump (to a different state) three of the four had Cypres fires on a low altitude RW jump when none of them knew the difference between MSL and AGL . . . Time means more than jumps. NickD

>>Charleston, WV 1 hr

Our friend Jurij Graciov killed itself yesterday morning in Chartreuse. It left last of a small goupe of 5 personnes.Il would have impacté of the turn during the opening phase, rediscovering itself dead under his sail. Jurij had several hundreds of jumps some bases. We lost a friend of a big value, and the Foreign Legion lost a weapon frere. NickD BASE 194

Go easy. SKYDIVING has supported us since the very beginning. Mike Truffer has given us nothing but positive press when everyone else turned their backs on us. If they do something that's a mistake in our judgment we should just eat it and move on . . . NickD

>>Is there any possibility you still have the newspaper clipping? My copies disappeared many years ago. I'd love to have a copy.

I actually meant to write, "That killed someone." NickD

Wow, it's just getting better and better . . . Nice, Jason! NickD