NickDG

>>The altitude plays here, @ approx 4500 AMSL

I'm not sure how your leg strap pouches are set up, but now that there is a good reason to start using them again, it's worth mentioning for newer jumpers and gear checkers who may not realize it, that twisting the leg strap when donning the rig means a pilot chute in tow. It's an obvious thing, but an easy mistake to miss in the heat of the moment . . . A good way to avoid that is by making the bridle a contrasting color to the rig, it makes the twist really apparent during a gear check. NickD

>>Nick, would anyone dare jump an E with a round today? That's some scary shit.

That's kind of what I thought. With the brakes set very deep it makes rear riser flight dicey. . . NickD BASE 194

>>Only problem is, they're Not my signatures.

Very cool . . . I thought at first it was the "Dentist" who jumped in the Italian part of the Dolomites in the late 1950s but the picture doesn't match, see attached. From the music, gear, and gut feeling I say it's mid-1960s Thanks for posting it . . . Can anyone translate the narrator? NickD BASE 194

I'm glad you weren't downtown trying to turn away from building after a bad opening . . . While I've used them too can anyone tell me the point of big grab toggles? Are we becoming toggle grabbers in an emergency? When I saw the video of Slim hitting the cliff his releasing the toggles instead of rear riser turning himself away was a mistake, right? Or are we being taught that these days? In the same vein I was watching the video from the Mexican big wall and not only is that LZ not small (try Angel Falls for small) what's up with all the front riser turn and burn-in approaches? Is there a disconnect occurring between flying high aspect ratio canopy at the DZ and flying low aspect ratio BASE canopies? Did anyone read the current issue of SKYDIVING? There's an article where several "experienced" skydivers are whining their highly wing loaded low aspect ratio reserves are stalling early and landing them hard. These are 200 pound out the door slaves to fashion jumping 120 sq. ft. seven cell low aspect ratio reserves. Hello! Anybody home? Are we seeing new BASE jumpers with the same idea? The first few generations in BASE usually had some low aspect ratio canopy time at the DZ prior to BASE. Now they don't, unless they seek it out. Sometimes their first "seven cell" is a reserve ride or a BASE jump. Anyone see that recent video clip on "Sport's Disasters"? A guy has a malfunction, does a cutaway to a good Raven and then he front riser turns himself in the ground breaking all kinds of bones. It was obvious it was the only way he knew how to land and he made no deference to what's over his head . . . I'm confused . . . that "they" are so confused. And it doesn't bode well for the future. NickD BASE 194

The top of the toggle never goes through the keeper ring. Doing so can allow the cat's eye to slip off the top of the toggle during deployment . . . Here's some photos. NickD

I'm not sure you have it right . . . Pull the toggle down until the cat's eye (really a finger trapped loop) come through the keeper ring. Plug the top of the toggle through the cat's eye so its snug against the keeper ring. Press down the Velcro between toggle and riser. On older systems the rubber bad is there to hold the excess steering line. The rubber band is attached to the keeper ring. S-fold the excess steering line and place it in the rubber band. If I misunderstood your question disregard and have someone eyeball your system . . . NickD

>>this is pretty odd. a friend of mine has been seriously questioning the idea of building a tower

Humberg? NickD

Mr. Newcomb Weisenberger worked in KFI's engineering department for 33 years from 1947 until his retirement in 1980. Those who jumped there before the tower was hit by an airplane in 2004, and perhaps those who jump towers in general, may find his story interesting. http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/LA/nw.htm#THE COLOSSUS OF BUENA PARK I'm glad they got rid of the "attack" dogs . . . NickD

The reason some attached the top of the canopy to the d-bag with break cord (which I don't like) was out of fear that instead of the canopy coming out of the bag a fold at a time it could just fall out in a lump. (And then stay that way too long on a very low jump). It may also have to do with the fact we are doing the same thing at the DZ as students are now jumping squares and we are first static lining them from airplanes. This assist device was in the USPA BSRs for sometime . . . and if I recall correctly it may have even been a FAR. The big gripe in the early days with static line was it sometimes stripped the center cell from the pack job, it was complicated (to non-riggers) to rig, and to a lesser extent it left something hanging from the object. However, it was the Brits cursed with so many low objects, that proved it worked alright. However, most American jumpers here in the early eighties are still leery of it and preferred going direct bag. There is even a whole big debate in the BASE community over if direct bag is worthy of being called a BASE jump. It was a time Rick Payne famously said, "I'd rather watch TV, than DeeBee." However, it "was" a common crawl before you walk method of making a first BASE jump. PCA kind of started with an underserved bad reputation. Before we knew how to do PCA correctly we are seeing weird openings and off heading problems as the assisters are holding onto the pilot chute way too long. As for direct bag packing method, remember the earliest direct bag BASE jumps are done before pro-packing is popular. They are done even before square reserve parachutes are in wide spread use so most squares for BASE are side-packed just like on the DZ. It was rigger/BASE jumpers, like Moe Viletto, that first correctly suggested we shouldn't be doing that . . . The problem a modern direct bag jumper would face is you can't say they've been tested with the larger canopies, vented canopies, tailgates, etc . . . so be careful. If someone said I had to do a D-bag BASE jump tomorrow, in order to feel a hundred percent comfortable with it, I'd have to dig out the old Pegasus. . . NickD

Although I've been involved in more than a few in-flight emergencies two of my strangest a/c emergencies happened on the ground. We are taxing out (kind of fast) in a 182 with three static line students, the largest of which is in the hole when the pilot suddenly slumped over in his seat. I shook him as we swerved off the taxiway but he was out cold. I pulled the throttle back and tried to get to the brakes. The door was already closed and I pushed the student to the left trying to get to the rudder peddles but the student's rig pushed the throttle back in. In hindsight I should have pulled the mixture first and finally did so. We came to a stop in the weeds without hitting anything although we came close to several parked aircraft. The pilot came to and said it had something to do with not eating, being tired and the high air temperatures that day. Another time at a different DZ and again with students on board we are taxing out and I was sitting in the door of a 182 with my feet dangling outside. All of a sudden the right landing gear broke and we spun out. I came within inches of my legs being crushed under the fuselage. It turned out the DZO, instead of seeking an aircraft mechanic's advice, and he could have asked me as I'm one, took it upon himself to repair a broken jump step by welding on it. Apparently he also managed to heat up the gear leg itself, which is a heat treated part, and after a few flights it finally failed. Another time (and this time we got off the ground, LOL) low clouds are coming in as the S/L first jump course is ready. At that point there are enough holes to give it a shot and up we went. The broken ceiling is right at jump altitude and we are slightly above and looking for hole over the DZ. After a few passes I saw my students getting nervous and said to pilot, "this is dumb, let's go down." By then the clouds are solid and we had to fly for miles to find the edge of the overcast, as there are mountains in the area, in order to duck back underneath. We are now under the clouds, over mountainous terrain, but still miles from the DZ. I wasn't too concerned as I knew where we are and could just make out the valley ahead where the DZ lay. I was talking to the students as you know, they get up for a jump, and now they are kind of disappointed. I looked out the door at mountains 1500-feet below and thought, "Gee, this would be a bad place for the engine to quit." And it did quit, right then. The pilot had run the gas tanks dry. I didn’t notice as the fuel gauges weren't operational and they were sticking the tanks to keep track. I decided right away we had to get out as there is no good place for a forced landing. We are now gliding across mountains and the small valleys between them and one by one I put each student out over the valleys. The first is already hooked up so I just pushed him out. As we are in a nose down glide at about 70 knots the tail is up high enough so I put the other two out while pulling their reserve handles for them. All three landed safely. We had now turned down one of the valleys at about 600-feet above the ground. I took one last look ahead and decided I didn’t like what I saw so I climbed out on the step, hung by one arm, pulled my reserve handle and let it pull me off. The pilot crashed and hurt himself pretty bad so I never got to yell at him about running us out of gas. One thing I can safely say about BASE jumping is I've never had an object fall out from underneath me . . . NickD

You can also make your own Direct Bag pretty easy. One problem with the older existing D-bags is they won't fit today's larger canopies. The coolest home-made one I've seen is made from a pair of blue jeans. You buy a size that's big enough to fit your canopy and cut the legs off below the back pockets. Then sew it closed. The belt loops are where the rubber bands go and the front pockets are the grippers. The only real "skill" you need is in setting a grommet in the crotch so you can secure the bag to the object, but you can also just sew an attachment point there instead. (Of course, make sure it will hold). Some jumpers in the early eighties used shopping bags, but I wouldn't do that unless it was low and over water . . . NickD

In taking a peek at Jimmy's website I read: >>"FOR THOSE WHO DON'T ALREADY KNOW...BASE jumping is the next "Big Thing.">NO LONGER an obscure sport comprised of reckless daredevils, BASE jumping has evolved into a legitimate athletic pursuit. Today, BASE jumpers worldwide are answering the soul's call: the desire to experience pure, body flight."

Yes, but I broke both my legs on that one. I guess subconsciously I don’t think of it as my lowest jump as it wasn't exactly successful . . . NickD

I also had "long" course. My FJC was three or four hours a night spread out over an entire week. We had plenty of time to practice and plenty of time for things to sink in. Compared to that everything today is a "mill." Sometimes I feel less like a Skydiving Instructor and more like a Dance Instructor. I teach the freefall dance, one, two, cha cha cha . . . Then I teach the malfunction boogie, look and reach and pull, and look and reach and pull . . . The canopy dance is easy, that one's like a slow Waltz . . . One thing I noticed though, spastic dancers make spastic flyers. NickD

The last few AFF Cert courses I evaluated in had candidates asking not so much about doing free fly with students, but integrating free fly techniques into catching out of control evaluators. After suffering years of major hard docks from candidates who weren't well versed in diving and flaring, and after consulting with other evaluators, we figured what the hell. It doesn't matter how you get there as long as you get there . . . As an aside who knows what's coming in the years ahead. Sometimes, in order to break the tension of an apprehensive AFF student in the pre-brief, instead of a real level video we'd plug in a solo free flyer banging out the moves. Sometimes it backfired on us, as some students seemed totally up for giving it a go . . . All students are sacred, of course, but doing anything with a tandem rig other than what it's designed for is silly. Even with a skydiver up front. A skydiving passenger that's not tandem rated is only a small step up from a regular student who doesn't understand the risks. NickD

Down at the Borderland DZ (Otay Lakes) in San Diego in about '79 or '80 we did something we called "Roofing." At night we'd stand on the hood, roof, or bed of pick-up trucks tearing down the back roads while wearing Balloon Suits . . . At first the flyer concentrated on staying relative with the truck, once airborne, you had to count on the driver staying relative to you. However, my definition of surfing a semi is this photo . . . NickD

>>with their parachute into the fireball rising up from their crashed airplane...

It's where the phrase, "You’re a hundred percent," came from. . . I did quite a few direct bag jumps back in the day. My lowest was 130-feet off a building with a parking lot landing. Then we went right back up and my girlfriend did it to . . . Direct bag fell out of favor replaced by static line and PCA. But from ultra low altitudes it works fine and if done correctly has a small chance of going off heading. A couple of things - The bag should have color coded handles to make it more difficult for the bag holder to 180 the bag when removing it from the container. The bag holder should practice that move on the ground first. You also need to be careful when initially putting the bag into the container as garbage in – garbage out. The bag holder needs to be secured to the object so they can lean out as far as possible and not be pulled over the edge if something hangs up. Also the bag itself should be tied off to the object if, shudder, the bag holder should drop the bag . . . Many also attached a pilot chute to the canopy and stuck that in the bag too. "Just in case." Call Karen at Apex she may help you with the schematics. Here's some early photos . . . NickD

Don't Give up the Ship, Boys . . . It's coming up on four decades since the NPS went ballistic after Pelkey and Shubert first jumped El Capitan in 1966. When Andy Calistrate stopped issuing El Cap numbers in the early 90s the count is passing 700. Later in 1999 Chief Ranger Bob Andrews said BASE jumps in Yosemite Valley stood at 6,000. And I think its way more than that. The only reason we are on their radar screen is we keep on doing it . . . While Jan's accident may have set the clock back to zero in the minds of younger Rangers, it should be remembered the real issue we are dealing with are human prejudices. On a basic level Rangers have the same mental block most humans have, a natural and genetic repulsion to falling now further reinforced by Jan's death. We are not only up against stubborn bureaucrats; we are fighting human nature itself. A quarter of a million spectators sometimes show up at Bridge Day not to buy funnel cakes, and not to celebrate our conquest of the air, it's because what we do is so unbelievable to them, so against their own ways, they simply have to see it with their own eyes. The day we finally win, will be a day something like Bridge Day 2050, the day nobody showed up to watch . . . I can't find the page now, but I was looking at a NPS official website with facts and figures concerning El Capitan. In addition to the usual height and girth figures they included when it was first climbed and who did it. I stared at that for quite a while not understanding why, when it was first jumped, isn't there too. I've been fortunate, and frustrated, to have had the privilege to be around long enough to see most of the changes that have effected BASE jumping. I see the sport at a crossroads now. We are standing at a fork in the road and which one we take is going to mightily effect our future for generations to come. Slowly, but surely we are starting to abandon a long held stance that we'd do what we wanted, where we wanted, whenever we wanted. Now, we are starting to slip into playing someone else's game and I just want to make sure we all realize it. A case in point is the current posts concerning the big wall in Mexico and to a lesser extent the cave. Basically we've gotten away from a basic tenet of BASE that dictated it is always better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. While I run hot and cold on the value of legal sites in BASE, I must admit when I read Jay's pleadings to follow the rules, my first reaction is a basic BASE one. Fuck the Mexican Government. That once held by all sentiment, is now in danger of becoming a minority point of view. If I spend the money and organize my own clandestine trip to the cave right now, I not only risk the wrath of the Mexican government, I risk being ostracized by my brothers and sisters in the BASE community. And that is wrong on so many levels. No one can stop us from jumping except ourselves, and too me it seems we are backing ourselves into that very corner. We worked hard in the 80s ridding BASE of skydiving ways and skydiving attitudes, but now they are creeping back in. While it may prolong the fight, we must decide something. Do we want BASE jumping accepted on their terms, or ours . . . Carl Boenish was fond of saying, "Happy are those who dream dreams, and are willing to pay the price to see them come true," not, "Happy are those who follow the rules . . ." Rules and regulations are being accepted in BASE jumping nowadays as "normal" by jumpers when in reality following rules stifles our progress. We are giving up the freedom to "dream" in favor of temporary access. Think back to the early days of BASE gear development. The very thing that allows today's jumper a certain degree of safety wouldn't be available had there been rules. I watched Todd labor all day on something new in his loft and then later that night try it off some downtown building. Once satisfied he made it available to other BASE jumpers. Had he to convince some government agency it was viable first it may never have happened. Look at skydiving itself. The modern version of that sport began when board out their minds WW II veterans just started showing up at small duster strips with surplus parachutes and jumped of their own volition. Now the sport is a big over-regulated commercial game of, "may I." The FAA has made new gear development so difficult and expensive nobody bothers anymore. The last major change in basic gear configuration occurred with Bill's Three-Ring and throw-out pilot chute, and that was in 1975. We went, in fairly short period of time, from "Masters of the Sky," to, "Sheep of the Dropzone." There is among us right now the new Todd Shoebotham, the new Mark Hewitt, and if we are really lucky a young BASE version of Bill Booth. Rules and regulations will only hinder them . . . Our toughest times still remain ahead of us. And it will take BASE jumpers with the guts and foresight to give up the comfort of regulated short term access in favor of our future generations enjoying unfettered and unconditional access. I realize jumping the Flatiron Building downtown will never reach that stage, but cliff jumping anywhere in the world can, and it will, as long as we don't throw in the towel too soon. And more and more I see the towels flying more than we are . . . "At once, struck by surprise that such freedom could be, We leapt from our perch of security, We fell and then glided back down to the ground, The moment was brief and we made not a sound, The landing was hard, but our spirits unbroken, We remembered the freedom of which we heard spoken." -------------- "Flight to Freedom" by Jean Boenish, BASE 3, 1981 We are, and always have been in a guerilla war for our birth right to fly. Don’t give up the ship, boys . . . NickD

The townies are gonna have a group heart attack when she comes roaring over Case Road. And they have Sun City going the other way . . . NickD

I first want to say I'm getting a lot of good feedback from the poll question in the other thread. Thanks, everyone . . . On what Jaap expressed – here's my thoughts . . . There was definitely a time when BASE jumpers figured their odds as even, live or die, on each jump. But soon after I started I noticed a difference in some jumper's approach to BASE. I was always (and still am) the type that can make road trip (no matter how long, or expensive) make a single BASE jump, and then sit around the rest of the day with a beer feeling like the king of the world. The worst accident I ever had wasn't a result of zigging when I should have zagged. It was bowing to peer pressure and not listening to the little man inside that was warning me off . . . it's knowing where the wall of your own personal risk level resides as once you go beyond it you aren't firing on all cylinders. I do think it has a lot to do with when you started BASE jumping. For me it's a time when we realized not that much is known and every jump is sort of an experiment. A new jumper today can get the wrong idea. Because BASE has been around for awhile they can think it's all figured out, and they just have to get up to speed. Carl Boenish said BASE jumps aren't to be gulped down like skydives, and that's always stuck with me. Even though BASE jumps are harder to come by when I started, I could have pushed it harder, but it seemed reckless to do so. It's the reason it took me five or six years to make a hundred BASE jumps. It's all still confusing to me. I'm stuck in that coffin corner of believing being very current makes you safer, yet the more you play the game, the more chances you take. It's the reason a thousand skydives can allow you to be blasé, when a thousand BASE jumps won't. I keep flashing on the line from the movie "War Games" when the computer says, "The only way to win the game is not to play." I'm also struck by viewing the recent Aussie "60 Minutes" piece. We are still trying to explain BASE jumping the same exact way we did 25 years ago. It's still, "you have to do it in order to understand it." Meanwhile a whooping it up Miles (whose daring I have a certain degree of respect for, in a funny way) comes across as juvenile to those minds we wish to change. To me it says we have more in common with the past than we think. Most BASE jumpers come into the sport big guns and after a few years of high activity they start to slow down. By the time they get to the point where they can be a bit more articulate about the sport the MTV factor kicks in. No one wants to hear from you as you aren't under thirty and hip enough. This dooms our public persona to infantile because it's the younger of us that seeks out the limelight. BASE jumping, in my opinion, is as dangerous now as it was twenty five years ago. Any gains made in gear and technique will always be somewhat canceled out by pushing the boundaries of what's possible. We used to say being a pioneer was much more dangerous than being a follower. But, now the pioneers are doing such outrageous things the followers are getting hurt and killed trying to imitate them. I know one thing for sure. Modern fixed object parachuting is just 27 years old, we have a long way to go, and all the time in the world to get there . . . don't take BASE jumping for granted, and don't strive to get too comfortable with it. I hear too many saying they feed off the fear. But, with today's frequency of jumps it's too easy for that to become the addiction when it was actually jumping that got you hooked . . . NickD