TomAiello

When you say it "works great" can you be more specific? How many hard impacts has your setup taken? Any damage to the helmet or jumper from those impacts? It's generally been my experience that skydiving helmets are much worse in terms of impact protection than a variety of other helmets available at lower costs. Most of the camera helmets I've seen are primarily camera mounting platforms rather than protective helmets. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

The reason they don't get called for anonymous posting is usually because one or more non-anonymous posters know who they are, and can sort of "e-vouch" for them. Check out the "Troll Police" bit where someone wanted to know who Hannes was. Generally, people will talk to other jumpers in a non-public (i.e. off the forum) way about such a jump. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

By definition, you couldn't know how often they are jumped without onlookers. By my personal definitions, you couldn't know how often they've been successfully jumped. Be careful how certain you are of those things. I've met lots of people who live here and are "certain" that there have been at least 5 BASE fatalities off this bridge. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Have a look at Tom Begic's summary of the similarities between CRW and BASE here. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Hey Dr. S, Can you help us with a reference that works for those who are not on your "genius from another dimension" physics level? For those who don't know him, BASE 460 actually is a physicist (with the fancy doctorate from a prestigious university, and all that). Kallend, here on the forums, is also a professor along those lines. I'll try to drop some PM's around and see if anyone can point us in the right direction. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I miss the old "skulls and smiley faces" version. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Not exactly, in either case. But since I haven't taken the time to compile a chart of my own, I'm not going to complain about the free information being offered by Apex. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Have you read the required reading list for my FJC and Skills Camp? Two books on there: BASE 66 and Understanding the Sky. Understanding the Sky can be a bit dense, so if you have a recommendation for something a little easier to digest, I'd love to hear it.

Definitely. It's rare to find people who are just looking for adrenaline rush sticking around very long. There's an awful lot more to this sport than that. At this point, I think I'd probably be more likely to take on a student who had those kind of long term BASE goals than otherwise, but it's hard to form those goals when you haven't jumped yet, simply because you may not realize what the real achievements are. Other life experience is always a big positive. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Varying your PC size has a lot more to do with pack job deformation than with opening speed. The idea of sizing the PC is to get the appropriate PC for the airspeed you are travelling at. If your PC is too large, it rips the (freepacked) canopy apart on the way to line stretch, effectively destroying the pack job you spend so long laboring over. A small PC, as you correctly surmised, will have something of the opposite effect. The point of using smaller PC's as you gain airspeed is to keep the pack job in shape on the way to line stretch. This will actually yield faster openings (and more symmetric ones). So in some cases, a smaller PC (at higher airspeed) can actually yield a quicker opening. Keep asking the why questions. They're very important. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

When I had maybe 50 jumps, I went out to this place one of my friends knew about. It was a bridge, in a small town in southern Idaho. Reportedly, the police didn't mind BASE jumpers (an idea I found almost ludicrous, but which turned out to be true). On the first day I was there, I met a bunch of jumpers who had come in from Portland, Oregon. One of them was a tall, thin chap with a funny accent. On a load that afternoon, I saw him do a jump that just looked purely insane to me. He had two of his friends hold his legs, dangle him over the edge of the bridge, and then drop him. Riding the boat back to the packing area, I commented to him that he must have the biggest balls in the western hemisphere. His reply stuck with me. He said "BASE jumping is about brains--not balls. If people jumped more with their brains, and less with their balls, there'd be a lot more of us still around." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

The information I was referring to is all neatly compiled in a chart here, which I'd hope folks would have already found on their own. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Because the signal to noise ratio is very high on both Blinc and DZ.com. It's pretty easy to just click the poster's name and hit "see all posts by." I like the Wiki idea, though. Hmmm... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Presumably, they could acquire this information by testing a large variety of loadings (simulated jumper weights), and creating charts for each of their canopy sizes. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Don't just wish you were younger--be younger. I know you've got the mindset to do that. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Still sounds good for slider-down testing. Which is where the most critical testing takes place. Jaap, if you'll manufacture me a set, I'll test them (a lot) this summer. Or Chad? Or Marty? Anybody want to make me some? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

You can pass the line through the grommet in whichever direction you please. In order for the toggle to get "back stopped" by the knot, it's going to have to slide down the line until it reaches the knot. Hence the knot must be below the toggle. If you place the knot above the toggle, the line would just slip through the toggle when you pulled on it. I rather suspect we all know what we're talking about, and if we were sitting around drinking beer, this would be a 30 second coversation, as well went "yup, that's what I meant." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

If you've ever been close to a bear in the wild, you probably don't need the reminders. I have one of those "indestructible" water bottles made out of lexan. A bear went rummaging through my (open) pack one night in Yosemite, and pulled the bottle out, then laid it to one side and walked off. The bottle still has the punctures from the bear's claws on both sides. It's pretty impressive. The closest I've ever been to a bear in the wild is about 25 feet. That's plenty close enough for me, for the rest of my life--and that was a fairly small bear. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Not really. Since it's usually something they haven't done yet, I'd be very surprised to find someone who was obsessed with it. I do think it's important to maintain some balance in your life, but I don't usually evaluate student applications like that. I do wonder if a certain amount of obsession, especially in the early stages, might not contribute to safety. edit to add: I do look for people who have given some thought to where BASE fits into their life. So if it's the obsession, that's ok, and if it gets put into the mix with family, skydiving and bowling, that's ok too. Just as long as they've done some thought and evaluated how those things fit together. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

To turn Sean's question on it's head: What do you look for in a BASE student? Since I get this question quite a bit (mostly from people wanting to get into my course), I'll start. In no particular order: 1) Someone who is "switched on". This means that they not only look at their environment, they consider it critically, and continuously. The actually evaluate what is happening around them and try to make decisions about it for themselves. 2) Someone who has put in the time to get prepared. Someone who has made the effort to go out and do some canopy training, make some CRW jumps, do skydives on gear that bears some resemblance to BASE gear. I really give a pretty strong preference to people with CRW experience. 3) Someone who has done their homework. They should have read almost everything that is available about BASE. If it's printed, or on the internet, they ought to have at least looked at it. I shouldn't have to teach them when to use which size PC--that's in a chart they should have downloaded, read (and memorized) a year and a half ago. 4) Someone who has asked questions, and is involved in a continuous learning process. Someone who has already started asking questions (from me or anyone else), is far more likely to keep learning after they are "off student status." 5) Someone who has audited a course. Someone who has taken the time and energy to actually follow along a BASE course before they could take one. I often give preference to people who have audited my past courses, because this (a) shows that they are committed to learning, and (b) has given me a chance to get to know them a bit (and hence evaluate them better). 6) Someone who has connected with their local BASE community. I dread finding out that I've given someone a loaded nylon flamethrower and sent them on their way. One way to hedge against this is to know that they've made real efforts to meet their local crew. This also gives them a source of immediate support for questions, as well as people to jump with. 7) Someone with an adult attitude. I look for people who have life experience that indicates they are unlikely to approach BASE recklessly. Experience at the high end of other outdoor activities is a big plus, just for the mindset it teaches. Someone who has already gone through their "young and reckless" phase is also far better prepared to approach BASE carefully. And, in all honesty, so is someone who has already been smacked pretty hard by poor decisions in some kind of outdoor sport. If someone has spent some hospital time, I know they understand that getting hurt really does hurt. Looking at these criteria, I notice that I haven't put "X number of skydives" in there anywhere. Anyone else have any thoughts? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Rhino, Threats of physical violence, no matter how couched, are not acceptable in these forums. Just because someone is baiting you is no reason to take the bait. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That's a personal attack. Consider yourself warned. What's the point of posting things that are basically just flames? This is supposed to be a discussion forum, not an insult forum -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Don't forget to be very careful about joining big flocks with relatively few wingsuit jumps. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That's a nugget for sure. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

The toggle would have to accompany the knot through the guide ring (since the knot is on the "down-line" side of the toggle). When you're at a point that there is enough pressure to pull your toggle through the guide ring, you've probably got other things on your mind. Given that the toggle won't be pulled through the guide ring in any but the most extreme circumstances, I'm having trouble visualizing a scenario in which the knot can be pulled through the guide ring. Additional tension on the control line will just pull the knot tighter to the toggle. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com