TomAiello

You forgot the +1 for inspecting his gear. That puts him ahead of 75% of the new jumpers I've seen. He's a new guy. He inspected his gear. He found something he wasn't sure about. He went looking for some opinions/knowledge from more experienced jumpers about whether it was going to be an issue. Sounds to me like he's doing pretty much what he should be doing. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

If someone have actually had a horseshoe in BASE, they couldn't post here. Actually, there is a poster here (who coincidentally shares your first name) who has had more than one self-clearing horseshoe on BASE jumps, from wingsuit flight. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I know that several people have asked where they can get a copy of the Team Bautasten USA Roadtrip video. The trip (and some of the video) was discussed in the threads here and here, as well as in some other places. There was a big discussion on here about the video, with a link to the trailer, but unfortunately I am having trouble finding it. Does anyone else remember what thread it was in? I've just heard that the video has been re-released (the original production run of DVD's was very small, and was all mailed out to friends, not sold), because so many other people wanted to see it. You can get it from Triax. This video is, in my opinion, a good view of all that is right with BASE. It's basically three super experienced jumpers out having a good time, and not taking themselves too seriously. It's got great cinematography, funny dialogue, and good production. What it doesn't have is a bunch of "look at how rad I am!" I found the SuperSwede segment and the "We claim this tower for Sweden" segments particularly amusing. Definitely not to be missed. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Just curious, how many people have actually called the heli with standard tip/fib breaks / ankle dislocates that were not justified a heli call out? Unfortunately, there have been multipe incidents in which spectators called 911 to report a "parachuting accident" which they saw from the overlook. In many of these cases, an unnecessary helicopter was sent out, because the non-jumping spectator was totally unable to estimate the seriousness of the situation, and no communication was established with the jumpers in the landing area. Given that set of circumstances, it's understandable that the emergency response folks sent out their full setup (because they had no idea what was necessary, aside from the type of accident and the fact that the non-jumping spectator was telling them that it was "bad"). Jumpers have never called in a helicopter when they didn't need it. It's just that we're visible enough that other people call in the helicopter and we can't stop them. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm not so sure. For the folks who drive over the bridge every day, a screen or something out there is going to be very unusual, and cause them to get distracted and slow down. To many of them, seeing jumpers isn't going to have nearly that much effect. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Where I grew up, we knew that if a nuclear war came, we'd be left with the only non-radioactive beaches in California. I think that the Colorado Springs area was probably about 2nd or 3rd on the Soviet missile agenda, just after the Pentagon. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Originally posted by subterminal on July 28, 2006. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Using a jumpers nickname is fine. As a rule of thumb, if you can type the name you use into Google and come back with photos of the exit, it's a bad idea to post it. But using names like "shopping mall" (isn't that roughly what Gritsetskolten means?) or "Iguanadon" isn't going to do that. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I can say for certain that not thinking about the gear is extremely unlikely to improve the gear. To borrow from another thread: our greatest defense is that squishy thing inside our helmets--especially using it before committing to the jump. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

User search is a Premier Feature. It looks like the most regular readers of this forum among those are Mikki_ZH and BASE_1007. You should also check out the BASE 1007 web page, which has quite a lot of information on Swiss BASE. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I've moved your post from Incidents to Safety and Training. Please keep in mind that the Incidents forum is for discussion of actual, specific incidents. Thanks! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm basing my estimate of the Times-News impact on public opinion on the number of people I've met who only become interested in an "issue" (of whatever kind) after the paper runs an article or editorial about it, and the number of people who I've heard parrot back to me whatever they read in the paper about BASE jumping (no matter how accurate or erroneous, they were sure it must be the way it was because it was in the paper). These were generally well educated, intelligent folks, who had sophisticated opinions on subjects that interested them, but just seemed to pick up the newspaper's views on other topics (like BASE jumping). That's a set of issues that are unrelated to the quality or journalistic integrity of the paper itself, which appears to be what you are driving at. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Here's one of a friend who I did quite a few jumps with, but not that long ago. I'm pretty sure this picture was taken before I was born. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I've got three of them in use for FJC's, so I've got a pretty large collection of daytime video if you want to see it. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

In this case it's at least the 6 people who signed their name to the editorial by line. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Dan did pretty much everything right. He got perrmission from all the right people, checked in with all the right people, got buy-in from all the right people. And still, we're seeing this... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Agriculture, almost exclusively. Something like 85% of the local economy is agriculture. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I actually don't think that's it. We had major traffic congestion on the last event. If we could eliminate the traffic problems, I don't think we'd see anyone asking for anything more. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

A user search for location: Italy, and primary discipline: BASE jumping returns: -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

73. Have Jason Bell pay your fine. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Press Clip from the Magic Valley Times-News (the local paper here in Twin Falls). This is an editorial by the newspaper's editorial board, published on July 16th, 2006. A few things to keep in mind: 1) This newspaper has always been one of the biggest supporters of BASE jumping here in Twin Falls. This is a pretty big shift in their opinion. 2) The newspaper carries a fair bit of weight with public opinion in the town. 3) We've had a pretty bad run this summer. Accidents over Memorial Day, closure of the bridge shortly thereafter, and continuing minor issues are all contributing to a worsening of public opinion. High visibility events that keep BASE jumping on the public radar--even when they go perfectly to plan--aren't necessarily positive, either. Remember that this is what was printed in the paper, (obviously) not my own views. Whatever rebuttals to the editorial you post here aren't going to have much effect on public opinion in Twin Falls. Writing a letter to the editor of the paper might have some impact, but be very certain to present your case articulately and intelligently if that's something you wish to do, or you're in danger of just adding fuel to the fire. Almost no one in the town really cares about average day-to-day jumping. It's the big events (into which category public opinion lumps large, but disorganized gatherings like Memorial Day or Labor Day) that have people concerned. The major concern for most is simply traffic flow over the bridge (which is the main avenue into or out of town). If we could promise zero impact on the traffic flow, I think we'd be ok, but I also think there is no way we could guarantee that. My personal opinion is that it's time for us to collectively cool it here. High profile activities, even positive ones (like the one discussed in the editorial) are increasingly likely to damage our access to the bridge. Perhaps we ought to consider toning things down in terms of our community visibility for the rest of this season? We definitely need to pro-actively examine (and work to reduce) our impact on the rest of the community, before they do it for us, and decide we're no longer welcome here. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

My experience has been that a wet canopy will fly more like a ZP canopy--better glide, quicker response, stronger flare. I theorize that this is because the wet F-111 material is less permeable to the air, and is hence "more ZP-like" than dry F-111. In terms of openings, I'm not sure what effect this would have, but I'd suspect that it would get a vented canopy to a flyable state marginally faster, and an unvented canopy to an expanded (slowing you down but not yet flying) state marginally faster. That's theory, though, and is not based on any real world observation. My real world observations of wet canopy openings has been that it really makes very little difference. On the line/tension knot/line-fabric sticking issues, I think I might be a little more concerned. I'd guess these would be more of an issue with a slider up deployment (like the reserve deployments being discussed here) than a slider down deployment (which is violent enough that it's likely to blow things open regardless). I've jumped canopies in a variety of wet states, ranging from slightly damp (I've done this more times than I can count) up to "so wet they looked like a sponge squeezing out water when you closed the container" (I've done this perhaps 10 times). I've experienced no issues on any of those deployments. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Which ant bait? The Grants brand with the metal cannisters on the plastic stakes has always worked wonders for me. I've tried many other brands that just suck. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I've had exactly the same problem, and dealt with it in exactly the same manner. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Go up to Thailand, to the Krabi area. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com