Luke

You stole the porn mag from the Gents?!? That's just low!

What a load of tree hugging, hippy shite. In fact, I think Mr SullyFlyer may actually have been Henry Kissinger in a previous life. I just had to go back and carefully re-read what SullyFlyer put in his original post and consider it in the context that it was soon after this fatality. And I still can't understand what all the skydivers are getting offended about. BASE jumping is not skydiving. BSBD. if u want to run with the big dogs some times u have to eat dog shit- Sensei Maggot

Exactly. One of my best mates is a reasonably experienced BASE jumper- around 200 BASE jumps off an impressive selection of objects worldwide. He's also as deaf as a post. The only time it's any kind of pain in the arse is if I suddenly decide I absolutely have to say something to him just as we're about to jump: he can't see my lips underneath a full face helmet, his extraordinarily expensive hearing aids are safely tucked in his pockets and my sign language is right around the level of "imbecile". There have been a couple of comedy situations where we've been hanging off an object in the middle of the night, me waving my free hand in strange frustrated random motions, him with a very confused look on his face. No bother: the jump should be planned well enough to avoid these situations anyway. As far as Joy's situation is concerned, her frustration at being caught out is understandable. It's slightly worrying that she's chosen to drag the matter out and further embarrass herself, though. I've not visited the NRGB, but I'm lead to believe that it's of fairly sturdy construction, and is very likely to be there next year, and the year after that? Hopeful Joy will move on, gain more experience all round, and return far better prepared at a later date.

You don't care how many BASE jumps he had? And why would that be??? Was this a skydiving incident and no one before you had spotted this clear & obvious distinction? Somebody takes a wingsuit off a bridge into still air, with less than 900 feet to impact- now that doesn't sound like a beginner wing suit BASE jump to me. Whether he was an experienced BASE jumper or not could be a significant factor contributing to an impact incident, either way. It is certainly a factor that any future wingsuit BASE jumper might contemplate. I'd be fascinated to hear why you might think that irrelevant.

Then your input as to anything BASE related is completely irrelevant. I understand why you say that, but I'll respectfully disagree with you. Anyone can produce a logical argument to support a theory. BASE jumping is maybe a few years off being an exact science so real world experience is an important factor in the meanwhile. However, he's happy to state that he's not a BASE jumper. Anyone reading his posts will surely take that into consideration. But that fact in itself does not make his opinion and questions irrelevant.

It certainly can be. I absolutely don't think Kris is a bad person and I definitely have no bad feelings about him, personally. If Kris has any suggestions on how to reduce the frequency of such incidents, based on his own insight, I for one would be very interested. Regarding 460's car battery suggestion: does this go some way to explaining why I've found car batteries in the packing areas at the two best known European tourist BASE stops?

Come on Space? I'm 100% with you that this topic (of individuals doing obviously dumb things off prime, peachy, legal objects & selfishly jeopardising that object for the other 99.99% of thoughtful jumpers) is really important for the international BASE community to debate fully and frankly. BUT... There are two reasons why I (we (?)) read this forum: 1. Pure entertainment. 2. Education and thought provoking debate. (Very much in that order). Kris and Ian's exchanges satisfy these criteria perfectly. Hear me out, please Space? You ask us for opinion on how to handle this situation where someone does something so obviously cretinous off a beautiful, legal, but not totally bomb proof object. The forth reply is a jaw dropping and undeniably judgemental statement from Kris. I actually fell off my seat: After I'd picked myself up off the floor and double checked the poster's name, I nearly busted my guts laughing. Fair enough, I thought: people change with time, education and experience; Kris is totally different to the Kris that intended to fly a wing suit from ITW a year ago for his second BASE jump, ever. He later told us that our "shouting at the exit point" "made" them (later) choose to fly their wing suits along, close to the wall to the Helicopter landing area, to avoid being seen by us. Now I can't imagine that anybody is going to need the pure, unadulterated irony of this situation explained to them. Ian points out this irony (and it is important, as well as highly entertaining) and Kris responds by taking a cheap shot at Ian's well built physique. He further invokes the standard "BS", "You don't know me", "regional politics" line that routinely gets wheeled out when somebody has done something stupid and/ or highly unethical and is completely unprepared to accept any responsibility for their actions. That had me hooting with laughter (thanks Kris). But enough laughing with Kris: let me say why I think this is important. Besides, Kris has made it abundantly clear that he has a far more impressive "Daddy" than poor old me. This apparent deviation is important to the original debate because Kris still totally denies any responsibillity for his outrageously bad choices. He seems to regret the episode being brought up, but doesn't seem to see any wrong in his own early approach to BASE. He readily denounces the muppet with the Sabre, but very obviously still can't accept that he'd done something easily as stupid off that very same wall. So why wouldn't we expect exactly the same attitude from Mr Sabre 170, 2s delay with collapsible PC? He clearly thought it a good enough idea to follow through. He didn't die, this time. Must have been a perfectly valid way to spend an afternoon at this unregulated wall, in this unregulated sport of ours, full of happy free spirits. No? So how to deal with it, then? I've been in that situation and it's really unpleasant to have to deal with. "Have to??" you ask. Yes, have to: I have to live with myself. Some totally hypothetical young knob jockey makes it clear that he's about to embark on a project that is apparently 100% likely to earn him an early entry on the list. You can see the entry already. I don't know about others, but I can't just look the other way. Sorry. Anyway, I digress. Back to a highly relevant situation that I have indeed experienced: young skydiver, full of fear and guided by an almost equally inexperienced jumper (who does not accept any responsibility for bringing him to the exit point and lending out his wingsuit). You get angry. Excuses and exceptions are made by our new wingsuit BASE jumper, but they intend to go ahead anyway. You get more angry. Consequently there is some "shouting at the exit point" and the offending wingsuit is removed and safely jumped down in someone elses jacket. You give the wingsuit back knowing full well that they're almost certainly going straight back up there to jump their wingsuits. Nothing has been achieved in the long run. You decide that (although it certainly leaves a bad taste), you did the right thing. Now you will simply avoid being on the exit point at the same time. What more can you do?? People have even had their rigs taken off them. Full stop. There's always some fucking prick on eBay that'll sell them another alledgedly BASE ready rig, no questions asked, no further instruction required. Anyone who thinks that this is an irrelevant or silly bitchy debate is not jumping in the modern McBASE world. Tonight I went to jump one of my local objects. It is a fantastic object, perfect for absolutely any experience level. You can jump it safely slider up and down and it's been jumped almost nightly from the very earliest days of BASE. I have done about 130 jumps off it, my mate has about 300 off it. With 1100 BASE jumps between us off all sorts of shit, all round the world, it's still one of our very favourites. It was loved by the UK BASE community. Approximately 7 months ago, one of the new jumpers attempting to fly wingsuits from ITW (there were two on that "accelerated wingsuit BASE course") went in at our local, with a fucking pull up chord tied around his pilot chute. He'd been taught this redundant trick by his equally young and free spirited "mentor", who still to this day refuses any responsibility for teaching him that and not gear checking him. Following a lengthy program with the power company adding barbed wire and carrying out long overdue maintenance, tonight we had to walk away: The object is now (as of tonight) literally festooned with high tech, high quality infra red cameras and motion sensors, all tied in to a very impressive looking box with many flashing multi coloured LEDs that transmits the (no doubt) high quality output to God knows where. I fully expect a reception committee to be waiting for me when I land. Overnight the object has been transformed by two young, free spirits: it used to be the most forgiving and (at night) accepting of objects. Now you have to accept the bust factor that would normally be inherent in a jump from a high profile down town building owned by a cash rich conglomerate.

My criteria is purely selfish: can I live with myself when they spear in. I only had 30 BASE jumps when I saw someone that I thought shouldn't be doing so jumping low shear cliffs. His exits were obviously (even to my inexperienced eyes) going to eventually result in strife. Experienced jumpers pointed out that BASE is all about freedom and self regulation. Shortly afterwards, he had a 150 degree off heading on a generously overhung cliff, flew for a solid 5s (on shallow brake settings, it later transpired) with possibly half a line twist for the first half second, and straight into the cliff. That fellow ended up being brain damaged to the point that he couldn't recognise close family. Now I simply don't care if anyone thinks I'm an interfering old bastard. If I honestly think you're asking for trouble, due to your total lack of preparation and complete lack of respect, I will let you know all about it. Now if you're an experienced jumper pushing the limits, have at it! I'll be there with my camera. My attitude may well change as I know more and more super experienced jumpers hammer in pushing their limits, but to me that is the sport. I still mourn their passing, but it's somehow more palatable than ignorant newbies dying purely through shear stupidity and lack of education. (Purely my opinion, obviously). That's how I live with myself. I'm glad that at least you're still alive: some people just have bigger sacks of luck.

UK jumpers do want more- much more! They want you to change your entire approach to BASE. Or forget it preferably. This did not start as a personal issue. Those of us that have met you know that you're a nice enough bloke. That's why we don't want to hear about you going in under the most ludicrous, "Darwin Awards Ceremonies", circumstances. It's perfectly possible to die in BASE doing everything right. When someone consistently makes as many fundamental mistakes as you do, it's a blessing you're still here. BASE is not for everyone, Dan. Please think about that through the (hopefully) very long time that it takes you to persuade an ignoramus to sell you 2nd hand gear. Your total disregard for ethics have been discussed already. Burning objects for your own comfort and convenience are always going to alienate you. Take Care, Don't Hurry Back, Ron

It's important to understand that Ian's words represent all UK jumpers that have met this person that apparently threw his rig off the top of a tower. That is to say: this is not personal. If you are approached by a Brit wanting to buy a rig, please get references, not just money. If you are the person that sells to anyone, on the basis that money is money and the sport is self regulating, you will be seen as having a hand in his demise. He's a nice bloke. He doesn't deserve to die through his own stupidity. Maybe we should not be attempting to nanny him; but unfortunately we do care. Not everyone needs to be a BASE jumper.

Got to ask you Gaper:is that the Ha??er in Europe? Every time I go past that I want to make the time to go & jump it but haven't, so far. I really like that "Fungus" pic that Ikea sold as a poster. I like Jon Stark's cave pic. Atle's fantastic pics are something else- great photography, wonderful colour. My favourite "me" pic is attached: our popular 300 foot high seaside spot (see Will's pic above). Not the best definition/colour/location pic here but my favourite, none the less. Taken by my (shaking at the edge of the prime UK suicide spot, never seen a BASE jump before) brother.

No mate. That hasn't changed. The dysfunctional BASE family has got a lot bigger, but there have always been black sheep. Just because someone jumps off a few fixed objects does not automatically qualify them to be a "brother"; how they behave does. However, you don't have to meet many BASE jumpers to realize that an overwhelming majority, for some illogical reason, are in fact fantastic people. But if you expect "brotherly" behaviour as the norm, you'd be disappointed fairly shortly. Taking a hypothetical character, let's call him Abbie (or Francis, if you like). Abbie is an extraordinarily friendly and generous person, if barely house trained. Abbie thinks that anyone that jumps off fixed objects is automatically a good person and invites them all to stay in his home for as long as they like. Most of Abbie's guests will exhibit genuine "brotherly" behaviour, but a finite (if tiny) proportion will not. That's a fact of life away from the rose tinted spectacles. Always has been, always will. Bollocks. If a "brother" does something a bit naughty, one's memory, hearing and eyesight will most likely become highly selective. But how selective depends on the alleged transgression. Being a "brother" does not provide unquestioning loyalty for all circumstances. Having said that, when your BASE "brother" does something obviously minor (like jumping while the life flight helicopter is in the landing area), it's very easy to overlook and move on.

Quite. They're doing an stressful and variable job. They need to make quick, accurate assessments and then act promptly, doing their level best to focus on the job in hand. Any distraction takes away from the focussed treatment of your fellow jumper. Most whuffos can't help being distracted by seeing someone jump, it's quite unusual the first time you see it apparently. This didn't always hold true during that weekend, but my rational is that a helicopter is there because of a serious injury. What's more, if the pilots are worried about jumpers, it must delay or interrupt their flight plans. During one of the Memorial weekend days I think I must have waited three times for a helicopter to clear the landing area. Don't worry, I reckon I still did 8 jumps that day; I'm not in a rush. Neither am I that important.

I've got this nasty image in my mind of Spacey Tracy hunkered down, beer in hand, straining as he backs one out into some poor ignorant twat's rig.

You and Faber are so close and so far apart that it's funny. Following a recent fatality at an object I can see from my house I planned to execute the practice Jaap requests on his demise. I didn't know the cause of the fatality, only the identity of the fatality and his mentor, neither of which came as any surprise. I was very angry and disappointed. When it came to it, I was standing on that big old blood stain and I was overwhelmed by the sense of loss of a fellow jumper, pure and simple. The bottle of beer his mates left him was still there, in full view. The local residents there would normally steal anything not bolted down. One of my most valued friends uses a "restrictive device during packing". I have given him shit from every angle for a long time over it. He is a competent packer and an experienced jumper. We reached a truce on the subject a long time ago: I won't hassle him any more about it, but I have his full permission to call him all the names under the sun on the internet and in private if he goes in due to it. And I will. If that wanker goes in like that, I will take a dump on his spot. I agonised before posting all the shortcomings (http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2143130#2143130) (that I knew of) of fatality #94. My only concern was his family: they have no need to learn of his bad decision making. I spoke to my wife and best friend of 15yrs and she said that in the event of my death, she would want my fatality discussed in absolute and complete detail. Maybe my situation is unique in that she's known me since I was a teenager and is under no illusion as to what kind of fuckwittery I am capable of on rare occasion, but she stressed that her feelings on this matter must not be spared.

I have thought very carefully before making this post. My only consideration is the incredible pain Paul's family must be going through. I sincerely apologise to them, but we must learn. We won't stop jumping, but we can learn. I would ask you to avoid arguing about minor details, if you respond to this post, but rather to take in the bigger picture. It would also be constructive to not just focus on the personalities involved, although they can’t be omitted because they were an important contributary factor. We have a genuine opportunity to move forward from this tragedy. UK BASE has recently lost a young and promising jumper, due to a pointless error. It's only a few years ago that another family lost their young son from an almost identical rigging mistake. Out of respect for the boy's father, NdG posted the father's write up on that incident on the fatalities page (#63) without further comment. Brian's father was adamant that although a rubber band had been used to pack his pilot chute, it had definitely been removed before jumping. This is not a view shared by those present and by others that have seen the video. Disregarding whether Brian did or didn’t forget to remove the rubber band from his PC, that fatality generated a great deal of discussion on the matter. Why wasn't this simple lesson learnt? I understand that although seriously frowned upon by most, there are still people packing using this method. We are (and will remain) unregulated. We make our own decisions and must live or die by them. We indulge in a very risky hobby and must strive to continuously improve ourselves in several ways, in order to maximise our chances. Foremost amongst those skills is that of risk/reward analysis. At the simplest level this means "Is the perceived benefit to you of carrying out an action worth the risk to you?" Even before Paul's death, nobody (in my opinion) could put forward a convincing argument for using a pull up cord or rubber band to pack a PC. They might argue that a tools count eradicates that risk, but this is a fatuous argument: a simple thing like someone leaving a similar pull up or rubber band near you will defeat your tools count. It must be plain to see that this pull up cord/ rubber band technique is all bad news. So why was an intelligent young man using it? You must question his most basic judgement. He was jumping with another young man, who has done a lot of jumps and Paul probably looked up to him, but ultimately it was Paul's decision to jump and to adopt that packing technique. Now obviously I am criticising Paul's decisions and he can't defend himself. If Paul's family is still reading this board, it will be most unwelcome, particularly at this time. To them alone I apologise once again, but I am adamant that the following needs to be said. There are several young, inexperienced jumpers at the moment that may reflect on their own actions, if they consider what I'm putting up here. They have wives, parents, siblings, sons and daughters: people that don't deserve to be robbed by the grim reaper. We all make mistakes, we all display poor judgement occasionally; we're human. We need to recognise these errors and work to avoid making them again, rather than viewing it as positive reinforcement that "getting away with it" is the way forward. It is worth repeating that you can most certainly die BASE jumping, even if you do everything right all the time. However every time you cut corners, you're loading the dice against yourself overwhelmingly. When Paul started BASE, I remember hearing how he had argued with a respected, experienced jumper about the merit of pursuing formal instruction, saying that he didn't have the money. They had been discussing the course in Norway, which Paul had contemplated attending. Whilst quite site specific, this course is a very well regarded and certainly good value, at only a few hundred pounds. Not long after, Paul accompanied somebody with approximately 20 BASE jumps (called ‘Y’, for the time being) to the Swiss Valley. The Swiss valley is not suitable for somebody to do their first few BASE jumps. Moreover, there are suitable objects only a few hours drive away. Y later refused to accept any responsibility for Paul, whatsoever, but that's another issue. What was going through Paul's head to go there to start BASE, without formal instruction, without an experienced jumper to at least look out for him? He had been specifically advised against it, but went anyway. After Paul had completed about 5 jumps in Switzerland they made their way to Italy, to the terminal wall. It is well documented and known that the ITW is an advanced site. You walk past a monument to get to the exit point that lists the fatalities there, disproportionately lengthy for the BASE traffic through there. Most of the fatalities have been inexperienced jumpers and consequently the plaque on the monument requests that only jumpers with more than 50 BASE jumps, or more than 15 with an experienced BASE teacher go there. Paul could not even come close to satisfying these criteria. After a further 2 BASE jumps there at the ITW, ‘Y’ supplied and encouraged Paul to jump a wing suit off there. He had a grand total of about 7 sub terminal exits to draw upon his experience if and when the exit went wrong. I happened to witness this and expressed my concerns to ‘Y’, as he was the (relatively) experienced jumper on their load and had also supplied the wing suit. He began to argue and once again attempted to absolve himself of any and all responsibility for the situation. Worse than that: ‘Y’ attempted to persuade us that the idea had merit. The argument became heated between my two friends and Y and Paul was persuaded to remove the wing suit, which my friend promptly stuffed down his top and left the cliff with. It should be noted that one of my friends that had been arguing vehemently against Paul and ‘Y’ is one of the world's very best wing suit BASE jumpers. The wing suit was returned to ‘Y’ on the ground. My friends and I were in full agreement that they would almost certainly carry out that wing suit jump, once no one was there to nanny them. We were also in agreement that a fatality was an entirely conceivable outcome. We felt that we had absolutely no business pursuing the matter further and we should now leave them to choose their own path, as the responsible adults they were. As I fully suspected, Paul did make that wing suit jump. His friend has posted a picture of it on DZ.com, in tribute to him. Aside from the Blackpool bust with Dangerous Dave, I don't know anything more about Paul's progress, thereafter. I met him at the skydiving AGM and was once again struck by what a thoughtful and nice person he was. It seems contradictory then, that to my mind he consistently made notably bad choices about his personal safety and progression, and who he chose to be influenced by. Many people admire our Australian brethren for their ballsy, boundary stretching jumps. I admire them more for two things: primarily their risk/ reward analysis, but from that comes their attitude towards personal progression in the sport. They are strong believers in learning every new thing, bit by bit. Become consistent and solid, before moving on. I was extremely fortunate to meet three experienced Australian jumpers at a stage in my own progression where I was most certainly getting ahead of myself. I had accumulated 7 jumps and chose to jump a relatively low, shear cliff. I chose to do my first running exit, stowed, on a 2s delay slider down jump. I got briefed on the way to the exit point how to do a running exit. I asked my teacher if he thought I was capable of doing the jump and while I could clearly see that he was nervous about it, he didn't say no, so I heard what I wanted to hear; and I wanted to make that jump. The winds were not right, but after a while they appeared to settle. I watched a more experienced friend go off before me and have a 180 with a line twist. I watched him disappear under a big ledge and kick off the wall and still I was good to go. My jump, seconds later, went perfectly. Later that evening I was partying with the Australians and they brought up the topic of my progression. They were reasonably impressed with what they'd seen, but, to put it frankly, my progression was too fast. One said that he'd seen the (then) living legends(*) progressions and I apparently made them seem over cautious. This home truth hit me lit a hammer. I did not need telling twice, or any further persuasion. I backed right off, making each jump as close to the last one as possible in terms of the skills set needed, doing my utmost best to follow the recommended Aussie progression. I still try to do that today and will always aspire to it. I'm not always successful, but I try to be honest with myself when I have shown poor judgement and/or have made a mistake. My aim is to avoid making that mistake again and preferably to avoid making new mistakes. (*) RIP DW & RS (#84) In summary, the old ways are not always the best, but in BASE they almost certainly are. Do not rely on all the magnificent equipment we have these days to make up for your own shortcomings. If someone tells you to ease off, they are looking after their objects, but they're also looking out for you. You are not better than the old guys and cutting corners simply shortens your life expectancy. Please listen to them. RIP Paul BASE Fatality #94 NdG's Fatality List:http://hometown.aol.com/base194/myhomepage/base_fatality_list

The weather has no direct link to this particular fatality. It is still an important detail, when trying to picture events to know what the weather was doing. What would you call a very light, calm wind? I understand that you are a skydiver, but try and estimate it in MPH at the middle platform if you made it up there. More importantly, what was the direction of the wind? For example, would you estimate that it was blowing towards Canary Wharf, or away from it? Thanks.

Mr HELLvetic is clearly a seasoned traveller, as he remembered to pack a small weather window in his hand luggage. It was generously shared with myself & sabre210

Were you intending to be ironic? Is that a new avatar?

My thoughts on helmets are almost identical with yours. The best helmet for impact protection that I've ever seen is the good old fashioned full face motorbike helmet. I've never seen anyone use one in BASE and I suspect that there are two reasons: 1. You'd look like a knob 2. They're (possibly) a bit too bulky. The thing that is drummed into everyone buying motorbike helmets that you must replace them after the slightest knock is true: the impact protection is clearly compromised. But having said that, I've seen the damage to the internal foam after the rider slid into a pavement (translation=sidewalk (?)) and whilst certainly compromised, it'd still kick the arse out of any skydiving helmet I've ever seen. They're not that heavy, or expensive: my Shoei XR1000 (RF1000 in the States) is 1.3Kg: http://cgi.ebay.com/shoei-rf-1000-motorcycle-helmet_W0QQitemZ5654984542QQcategoryZ88433QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem (for a current example of price) I'm not keen to use my motorbike helmet for the aforementioned reasons, but mainly the latter. With any protective gear, it does need to be fairly user friendly, especially in our self regulated sport. Make protection enough of a trial to carry around, put on/ take off and we simply leave it at home after a while. I use a full face Bonehead because it is compact enough not to catch too much gaining access to objects. I understand that whilst the full face construction will hopefully maintain the integrity of my skull during a full on object strike, the force of the impact is likely to be transmitted directly to the soft squishy bits inside; which is a very bad thing. It's not perfect; but better than no helmet. I think that the perfect BASE helmet would keep the dimensions of a compact skydive helmet and without gaining too much weight, blatantly copy the liner/foam design of a motorbike helmet.

A de M with wingsuit??

Ayee! Thursday does look like being an evening in. A bit of rain and wind never hurt anyone, but there are limits. Tonight looks possible though. The weather is very jumpable at the moment, contrary to the forecast. If our elusive visitor surfaces, we might even be able to offer him a BASE jump in the United Kingdom before he goes.

I am able to satisfy all your criteria will the small exception that my second rig contains a 288. Should be jumping tomorrow too. But if your hell bent on working, rather than doing something useful with your time like jumping & drinking...

That has not been my experience. Your own abilities & talents do not necessarily negate $kin's general observation.

Well, from reading these forums I'm led to believe that he has a lot of gear? Maybe he's a dealer?