TomAiello

I think the point of asking the question is more to make you think about it than it is to actually come up with an answer. I tend to be more impressed with people who put thought into asking themselves these questions, rather than either the folks who never engage in introspection, or the folks who think they have one defining answer. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

From an instructors perspective, there are lots of difficulties with setting a strict minimum jump number. The biggest one, in my mind, is the other folks who will take a prospective "student" jumping without the pre-requisite experience. Imagine that you, or I, say "I absolutely will not take a student with less than X jumps." Joe Doe, our prospective student, falls short of the hard-and-fast minimum. But his friend, Jack Hack, a 50 jump wonder, says "hey, Joe, no problem, I'll take you out and chuck you off stuff right now." Joe thinks; "hey, that's great, I'm going jumping." And he's off to the races. While he's racing, he possibly learns some bad habits, receives limited or substandard instruction, and then potentially goes in under a catastrophic rigging error. Now, as a BASE instructor, what do you do about this? Here are some options: 1) Soundly condemn Jack and Joe, and let them know you think that one or both of them are destined for places on the List. 2) Offer to instruct Joe (with better quality instruction than Jack might provide), right now. This opens up a whole new can of worms. Are you charging for the instruction? What if Jack is offering it for free? 3) Offer to instruct Joe, but only if he completes a set of pre-requisite exercises and skill development. It's likely that the only way that you can get him to jump through all these hoops is to offer the instruction for free when he gets there. 4) Heat up the tar and feather, and try to shut down Jack's activities. The underlying point is this: If the good instructors refuse to take people without pre-requisite experience (or on some sliding scale), there will always be several "Jacks" who will fill in the gap and lead Joe astray. It's probably too much to take all comers. But if you make it too hard, you'll find that suddenly all BASE instruction everywhere is being done by 50 jump wonders, and there is no real knowledge transfer, with the blind leading the blind into a phenomenally dangerous situation. And obviously, when you start offering free instruction, and using that as an inducement for people to develop prerequisite skills, you start running yourself ragged. It's really, really hard to give quality instruction for free on an ongoing basis. Pretty much no one has that much energy. I've been wondering if one good idea isn't to offer discounts on BASE instruction programs for various prerequisite skills: $50 off if you have more than 50 CRW jumps, $100 off if you have a good mentor committed to helping you when you get home, $50 off if you are a certified rigger, etc, etc. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Have a read over the BASE Training Pre-Requisites and the BASE Criteria articles on the ABA web site? I think they do a good job of emphasizing that it's an underlying skill set, not a magic number of jumps, that a prospective BASE student ought to be working toward. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I've made a couple hundred BASE jumps in 3 different pairs of approach shoes. The Five Tennies were the worst of the lot, and the Garmonts the best. I gave them up for my Crispis. I've not looked back, and it's likely the only BASE jumps I'll ever make again without the Crispis will be intentional water jumps. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

You know that 689 is a local to the site, and is generally quite helpful to visiting jumpers, right? MikeTB, I recommend PMing a local to the site (like 689 or UncleCharlie) and asking them for some help. Trying to follow directions sent via PM by someone half way around the world doesn't sound nearly as wise as just finding some guys who are out there regularly and can show you where to go. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

It is sometimes possible to get a bus at the airport that will catch up to the ferry part way there. I believe you can take the bus to Lauvik and then get on the ferry at that point. Also, check the fast ferry schedule (if you haven't yet) and see if you can get that one, which runs a little later than the tourist ferry. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

All, I've removed a bunch of fairly useless noise from this thread. I think there is some useful discussion here. Can we keep this thread productive, please? There are plenty of other threads about crayons and rock throwing that you can use to bicker needlessly. RayLosli, SBCmac, Please go easy on the personal attacks. I know you're both capable of disagreeing, and even arguing, without slinging pointless insults. Thanks! Oh, and this bit, from Ray Losli, was actually reasonable discussion, so here it is again: -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Basically, it makes the opening less consistent. That can result in any number of problems, starting with off headings and working your way up from there. In TF, a normal slider up delay with the wrong off heading pretty much guarantees a wet landing, at a minimum. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I recommend you also check your PM's, where I answered your question and referred you to organized expeditions to that site, and kindly desist from reposting this. Thank you. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yes. bsbd! Yuri. I don't believe you. I suspect that at home, there are far more other substances, and less alcohol. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That's my exact point... None! I will never do it either... Same as burning in... I don't have to actually do it to know that it will kill you... I've done plenty of slider up here, and I agree with SBCMac. In my opinion, there are 3 main reasons to go slider up off this bridge: 1) You are training/practicing slider up jumps (especially packing, but also feeling the deployment) for other objects. 2) You are staging a multi-way. 3) You are old and soft, and can't take a slider down opening. I admit I've been guilty of number 3 before, but it's going to be a pretty poor excuse for getting hurt or killed. Numbers 1 and 2 are actually safety oriented reasons, so I'm willing to entertain them as "good" reasons. Slider up jumps from this altitude greatly increase your risk, because you are deploying a slider up canopy with what is really insufficient airspeed to drive the slider for a consistent opening. Also, if you take a slider up rig here, you had best be prepared to get wet. Insisting on a dry landing is going to be a good way to get hurt sooner, rather than later. Bottom line: If you want to go slider up here consistently, be willing to accept that you dry faster than you heal, and that occasionally you'll need to prove that (both ways). edit to add: Slider up can also suck here if you've got strong wind going the wrong way. Don't forget that you need to allow time to deal after the opening (which I think is part of SBCMac's main point), which includes time to turn around (as well as to fix anything that's wrong). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

All better now. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Please read the Before You Post! guidelines linked at the top of this forum. Thanks! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Sure you do. And your name is Bryan Rapoza. I banned your login (Avenfoto) from this forum for PA's. So you started posting from this one to circumvent the ban. Please stop. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

No, dude, the proper thread title would be Ray is so slow that he needs a Crayon, or maybe Here's your crayon, Ray, now give me 50 Ringitt. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Come on, Nick, you're better than that. That's a personal attack. Consider this your warning. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

As of 90 minutes ago, no. The official word from the Sheriff's office is "wait until the road to Centennial Park is open." I drove down there and checked, and they were still hauling rocks out of there about an hour and a half ago. They were supposed to be done yesterday, but then again, it is a public works project, so who knows? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

His DBS should be shallower, not deeper. Heavier suspended weight requires deeper brakes. (More weight = more forward speed = needs deeper brakes to slow down) I'd worry that your brake setting (even the shallow one) would put him in a stall at opening. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Guide lines: Use this thread for discussions of the specific incident (the fatality over Memorial Day in Idaho) under discussion. Start new threads for discussions of appropriate gear configuration for the object, or discussions of personal BASE decisions, or other things not specifically about that one incident. Thanks! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I've removed the discussion about use of sliders from this object, and given that stuff it's own thread. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I've split this off the "Twin Falls Fatality" thread, to keep that one on topic, and to give this topic it's own thread. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I talked to the Sheriff's office today, and they said that the road is still closed, and that they expect it to re-open sometime tomorrow. Construction, as always, is taking longer than expected. They'd like us to hold off jumping until the road is open. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

How about 30? Shakes head. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I think it's unlikely that anyone is going to be able to estimate the total number of jumps from the bridge well enough to actually take a stab at a statistically accurate jump/injury ratio. It will be interesting to see how serious the "average" injury is, though. I think that non-jumpers sometimes have a perception that all BASE injuries are very serious (fatal or critical), while my personal perception is that the vast majority are things like broken or sprained ankles that aren't actually nearly so bad. It's tricky to evaluate this, as well, because of the number of people with minor injuries reporting them as caused some other way ("skateboarding accident" or "slammed a car door on my foot" or whatever), such that it appears that almost every accident reported as being BASE related is one in which a helicopter actually rescues a jumper and paramedics have to cut the gear off. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Whenever I get hurt, I take the plastic hospital wrist band and tape it to the page of my log book for that jump. It's a good reminder when you flip through the pages. Do you still have yours? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com