TomAiello

Hey! How many swims do you have? Are you an instructor? Leave the teaching to those qualified to do it! I taught adult swimming lessons for several years when I was in college. Do I get to comment? Seriously, most of my students were foreign graduate students. In the US, we have a real culture of teaching children to swim. This is not the case in many parts of the world, especially parts of Asia. I taught numerous smart, fit, young adults to swim because it had simply never occured to anyone to teach them before, or to them that they needed to learn, before they moved to a place where recreational swimming was more common. On (or off) the original topic, I found that a wrist mounted inflatable buoy was handy in Norway (I borrowed one, and used it). Especially if you are flying a wingsuit, being able to swim long enough for the boat to pull you out is a must. I recommend cutting away all your wings before you hit the water, since it's kind of a pain to find the handles once you are swimming. LQRS is quite useful in this situation. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Most of the structured rules weren't created until around 2000-2001, when there was that really bad accident year. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I definitely, and very strongly, agree with you. When I suggested this to the ABP, they were very clear that this is not one of their objectives. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

There is a long thread about some of these issues in the forum here. If you want more info than the thread has, feel free to drop me a PM. I ended up typing out a bunch of this stuff the other day, and kept a copy, but I don't really want to flood this thread with it. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Right. As long as this is going to turn into a forum debate: I find it incredibly ironic that the ABP is now sending out messages asking people not to give comments to the NPS. The irony is stunning because: a) The ABP has stated that they have no desire or need to interact with the greater BASE community; and b) The ABP did pretty much exactly that (i.e. started a letter writing and comment campaign) against the wishes of the "man on the ground" (Jason Bell) to directly lobby the NPS about Bridge Day. Why wouldn't the ABP want other BASE jumpers to voice their opinions to the NPS? It sounds to me like somebody has control issues. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I think I fixed my DivX issues. I'm uploading the second one (Smell-Campground flight) now, and I believe it should have audio, as well as better quality video. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'll re-upload the files with audio. Craig, can you leave the divx files up on SM.com as well? The quality of the video is better, and since I believe the original impetus was Kris' desire to evaluate the glide angle that he'll need to make the flights himself, having better quality video will be useful to folks who want to do that. Matt, the files were originally posted several years ago, so I bet you've got them from then. They somehow got lost off the SM.com server along the way. I'm adding straight raw footage of each flight at the end of each video, for those who want to see it in real time, without editing, camera angles, etc to confuse the picture. That ought to help for folks wanting to think about the mechanics of the flights and glide angles, too. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That's funny. I got that weird error message back, so I've started the uplaod again. Maybe the second copy will have sound? On my machine, the sound plays fine. If the second one has no sound, I'll try to encode it differently (divx gives me some weird issues, which I thought I had worked out, but I used it because of the size/quality calculus). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

At this moment, I believe Morpheus is a little backed up. Currently, I think that Apex and Asylum are pretty much rolling their gear out on the time lines they advertise. CR canopies come off the PD assembly line, so delivery times on those vary with delivery times at PD. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Ok, I've gotten a large number of messages on this. I'm making some copies now, and I'll send them out ASAP. If you don't hear back from me in the next day or two, it's on the way. I will have to message a couple of folks and ask for more info (like addresses, etc). James, is there any way I can forward the names of folks in PAL places to you? I'm NTSC, so it makes more sense if people who have PAL players get one elsewhere. Espen, can you let us know when more copies are available from VKB? All, Espen posted the cover art, so if you asked me about that, check out the attachment to his post. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Space, I really respect your opinions on technical issues, but I think you are wrong on this one. Or perhaps I am misunderstanding the terminology and don't get what you mean by "Deployment 180." In my experience, line twists develop in one of two ways; a) The canopy twists as it moves to line stretch. This is (I think) the "Deployment 180" that you are talking about. b) The jumper's body twists under the canopy after it reaches part or full inflation, and establishes heading. I call this "body position induced line twists" for lack of a better term. This twisting occurs because the jumpers body is headed in a different direction than the canopy, and it has to twist to line up with the forward travel of the parachute. It often over-rotates, causing line twists. In my experience 95% of slider down line twists result from (b) body position, and not from (a) deployment. I think the ratio is closer to 50/50 on slider up. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

1648 ft from the highest point, if I recall correctly. That might be to the highest exit though. It's a bit lower from the exit most people use (the last clear platform). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm uploading the first one now, and going to bed. I'll upload the second one tomorrow. I've added the raw footage to the end of the video, and I'll try to do that for the other one, too. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That tower has a long and colorful history in the BASE world. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Does anyone have a copy of this magazine they would be willing to sell/send/copy/post for me? I am interested in reading the ABP's letter to the editor about Jason Bell and Nick di Giovanni, and unfortunately there are no more issues available from the publisher, as per their web site. Any help is much appreciated! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I once through together a Walmart pair of smoke pants, and they blew out (one of the seams along the leg exploded) about 3 seconds down, throwing me into a nice spiral. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I haven't used that specific model, but I've used others. You might try PMing Towertopper or John Doe, as I believe they've both used similar systems for work, so they may have used those specific ones. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Keeping in mind that I have about 3 times as many BASE jumps as skydives, and am a firm believer in the advantages of the single parachute system; The skyhook system has 2 advantages over a single parachute system for airplane skydiving: 1) It allows faster ("trash") packing of the main parachute. Since there is a reserve, you can slam in a main pack job faster and make more jumps in a shorter time. 2) It keeps the FAA off your DZO, your pilot, and yourself. Obviously, if you are all 3 of these people, then it's up to you. But when other folks are involved, it makes sense to look out for their welfare as well as your own. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

What he said. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Travel to Karskland. Seriously. If you want to learn to track like them, why not go jump with them? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Avery, consider yourself warned. Please desist with the personal attacks, or I will ban you from this forum. Thanks. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Go for it. The more the merrier. You might also want to link to this thread, or the one in BASE, and/or copy some of the verbage that other people have come up with. LawRocket's words sound particularly good, in my opinion. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

There's a big thread in BASE about this video. If you haven't seen it, go watch it. Right now. It's mind blowing. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I have just done a pretty large clean up in this thread. There are some good points and valuable discussion here. Let's not lose track of that. I'd rather not have to remove the thread because folks can't separate the discussion from their personalities. If this spirals downward again, I'll likely lock it and leave it in the forum. People, you need to figure out when to make your points and leave it at that. Making personal attacks in conjunction with good input just detracts from your ability to convey real information and opinions. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Espen, If it's ok with you, I'll make some copies to send out to the folks on this forum who want them, but can't get them. If you want them to send you guys some money, let me know, and I'll get them to do that before I mail a copy out. Everyone else, If you want a copy (nothing fancy, just a burn of the DVD, which kind of sucks because I think the cover art speaks volumes), send me a PM with your mailing address. When I hear back from the VKB folks that it's ok, I'll mail some copies out. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com