TomAiello

I have some video I got from 460 of Dead Steve exiting a Cessna at about 200 feet--with skydiving gear. The forward speed of the aircraft can be very useful in accelerating the opening. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Apparently, Abbie is no longer posting here because of his affair with Ryan Phillipe. Good thing the moderator of this forum isn't very active--I'm sure this would get removed in a heartbeat. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Clicky. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Tina, Thank you. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

What time are you getting here? Send me a PM and I'll try to be down at the Bridge about when you get here so I can give you that stuff. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'll be out all weekend with an FJC. I know that a couple other folks are going to be in town too. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

No shit. I had some fun just outside your building once. I always love saying this: I'm a professional BASE jumper. I even report that as my occupation on my tax returns. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Did the press grab your vagina? All, That's enough hassling Joy. Either she's learning things and changing her mind, or she's not. In either case, any more of this is likely to be counterproductive. Let's lay off. Thanks! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Here. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Kurt, that's two personal attaccks in 3 sentences. Remember that she is a member of these forums who is actively posting, you can't just say "fuck her." Calling someone else "shit" is also pretty clearly not going to fly under the forum rules. I've banned you for 14 days. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Given the circumstances, yes I'm very Ok with it. She lied to Apex, and then told a newspaper the truth. Apex read her statement in the newspaper and called her on it. You're really ok with that? Lying to someone, and then publicly admitting it was a lie, in a newspaper, and then being upset when the folks you lied to call you on it because they saw the newspaper article? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Apex BASE has a minimum of 150 skydives allowed to rent gear. Did you attempt to rent gear from them? How many skydives did you tell them you had? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

not trying to compare base to skydiving, but the skydiving fjc doesn't prepare you for every thing you might come across in skydiving, but it sure does form a solid foundation to begin safely into the sport. I would imagine that most Base fjc work the same way That's why we call them "First Jump Courses" instead of "Instant Expert BASE Jumper Courses." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

There are lots of possible reasons. Some of them include: 1) To test out the theories above (I've done several of those). 2) To get a really soft opening (I did that on my first jumps back after a broken back, and I know that we've done that for Russel as well). 3) To avoid a "deep" span type object. When there's a couple hundred feet of steel under you, you might want to PCA a slider up rig to be sure you get past the steel (usually there's something else going on here, too, like a student jump, or stealth considerations requiring the quietest practicable opening). 4) You showed up at an object with the wrong pack job (I had a friend get PCA'd off a bridge because he realized on the catwalk that he had a sail slider up packjob for a terminal antenna, complete with 32" PC). 5) To eliminate the forward travel of an off heading on a low jump. Usually this is "exit and splash" type of jumping, where you exit directly over deep water, with nasty obstacles on all sides. You want to eliminate the possibility of object strike, so you time your deployment to put you in the water with a partially deployed slider (which slows you enough to walk away, while still putting your point of impact directly below the exit). 6) As you pointed out, just for the fun of it. I can think of more, but I'm sure you can too, after thinking about those examples.

There are evidently canopy manufacturers who disagree with you on that. On the topic of slider material, here are some of my opinions (which others may not share, but I'll express them anyway): I think that many people are under the mistaken impression that sliders of different materials will perform differently from each other at any delay. At zero airspeed, there is, in theory, very little difference between a ZP slider, and F-111 slider, a large mesh slider, a small mesh slider, and just a rectangle of binding tape holding together 4 grommets. All perform the same function (keeping the lines closer together and slowing the opening) and all deploy in the same way. The difference between sliders becomes more evident at higher airspeeds, when the air rushing up into the slider will act much more to hold the slider up in the canopy if there is more resistance to the slider itself. As you approach terminal, the difference becomes more and more pronounced. If you're graphically inclined, picture a graph of altitude consumed by the opening against delay taken. If you plot different sliders, at the far left (zero delay) the sliders are all pretty darn close together. As you move right, the curves open up, with a much greater difference between the different materials. This is one of the things that helps canopy manufacturers tune their parachutes and sliders--they can tame the terminal openings by changing slider material without effecting the subterminal openings nearly as much. I guess what I'm saying, quite oddly, is this: Anyone who skipped Maggot's rather ungrammatical one line response ought to go back and read it, because it's actually got some underlying truth that can help your understanding of slider up deployments. Note: Yes, I understand that the sliders movement creates some air resistance, and that no deployment ever happens at exactly zero airspeed. I've also observed that on slider up PCA's, the opening altitude between different slider materials is much, much less than the difference between different slider sizes, different canopies or the difference in altitude consumed by the same openings at terminal. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Rick had more of them made, and they pretty much go out to everyone (again) now. It's a nice piece of our history, and I'm glad it's being preserved. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yes. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That's not true. I had two pieces of that pizza, and I'm not even part of your family. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Let's keep the discussion to the original thread. Thanks! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Memorial information here. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I've been thinking about that. However, I'm not going to post a list in a public forum, especially under these circumstances. I can just imagine the Sunday Times article "Tom Aiello says that Bridge Day should change X, Y and Z..." It's probably more productive to think those things over and then send your suggestions to Jason, since he's the one who's going to have to make decisions about what changes (if any) to make in the way things are run. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yes, it was. I apologize. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

The "death camps" in Twin Falls involve people who have never been under a parachute before. That's different by a large margin from people with 50 skydives. I'm not saying I'm entirely comfortable with tossing someone with 51 skydives off the NRGB for a stowed 5 second slider up jump, but I'm quite a bit more comfortable with that than putting someone with zero skydives off the bridge here for a 2 second hand held delay. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Craig, you aren't helping this either. Craig Poxon (cpoxon) is a moderator on Dropzone.com. This means that Sangiro, the owner of the site, trusts his judgment and feels that he understands both the unwritten ethos and written rules of this community. If he tells you that your post is over the line, he is probably right. Although I will use my judgment in moderating this forum, the odds are that I am going to agree with him the majority of the time, in the same way that the odds are that Sangiro will usually agree with my decisions. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

A few thoughts on this: 1) Jason Bell does a fantastic job organizing Bridge Day. He also tries to help people as much as he can around the event. I believe he tried to help Brian to jump in exactly the same way he would have helped anyone else. I've seen him go so far as to offer his personal gear to a first time jumper (someone who you've never heard of, and neither had he, who wasn't famous in the sport, or a big time skydiver, or anyone else). I do not believe that he did anything for Brian that he wouldn't have (and hasn't) done for anyone else. 2) Many people seem to want to apportion blame for this accident. I think that's both pointless and misguided. This is BASE jumping. Accidents happen. Sometimes we can avoid them, and sometimes we can learn from them. We are never going to eliminate them. I think we should all try to take what lessons we can from a tragic incident, and not try to learn lessons that really aren't there, and move on. 3) Probably everyone here knows that Johnny Utah and I don't get along on a personal level. So, take heed when I say this. Johnny did everything humanly possible to help Mike and Brian prepare for their jumps. He went above and beyond the call of duty, without asking for or receiving compensation, to try to help them achieve their dreams in as much safety as practicable. He acted in the best spirit of BASE traditions, as a more experienced jumper trying to help less experienced ones to follow their dreams, counseling and guiding them toward as safe a course as possible, while understanding that their own spirits would call them to do what they must. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com