TomAiello

If I was a manufacturer, I'd make it a policy to buy every new piece of competitors gear as soon as it hit the market, just to keep up with new innovations in the industry. It'd be a definite component of my R&D. As far as I know, Basic Research is the only company that has actively done anything like this, and I don't think they have a formalized policy or anything like that. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm not aiming this at czechbase, it's just a general comment. Honestly, I feel like these things (stall point, riser stall altitude loss, and especially deep brake setting) are far better checked off a nice, friendly span over water. I just have a much better frame of reference to judge what is going on if there is stuff around to look at. When I do these drills out of an airplane (err, aside from the DBS--when I do that out of an airplane, the canopy experiences deployment stall and I don't get to test the DBS at all) all I see is open air. That means I'm guessing at such things as altitude loss during riser stall based on how it "feels" to me. Judging actual used altitude precisely on a skydive is very difficult. I do all my "new canopy" drills off objects because I want to know what's happening as precisely as possible. You can't test DBS out of an airplane. If you put a slider on a BASE canopy with properly set deep brakes, it's going to stall during opening, and you won't know if the brakes are too deep, or just right. DBS must be tested on a slider off opening. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Let me play devils advocate for a minute: [devils advocate] True. But it's not so far off what a lot of those so called experts have done. I can think of at least six cases in which a very experienced BASE mentor put a student with less than 10 skydives (in the majority of those cases zero skydives) off an object. Almost invariably the object was a bridge over water. I don't think we're talking about someone who doesn't have access to a mentor here. In most of the cases where I know this happened a very experienced mentor was involved. Find a mentor? Perhaps. In truth, the number of unqualified BASE mentors I've seen found at dropzones is staggering. Perhaps it is not such a bad thing to suggest that aspiring BASE jumpers seek their mentors outside of skydiving. Little or no canopy training? Or gear knowledge? Why do these things have to be acquired in a skydiving environment? Why not start all of our students out jumping from a nice friendly bridge over deep water? Wouldn't it be just as easy to learn to fly a canopy there as it is to learn to fly one from an airplane? Doesn't there have to be a first opening, a first turn, and a first flare in either case? In fact, by making the first landing into water, couldn't you actually reduce the incidence of twisted ankles (and similar injuries) experienced by first jump students? If they were landing in water, instead of on hard ground, they'd be able to practice the flare, and screw it up as many times as necessary, without the consequences. Why not start an aspiring BASE jumper in on BASE gear right away, rather than making them learn (usually dissimilar) skydiving equipment? Wouldn't it be better to teach them the system they are going to use in the long term? And why not drill into their heads, from jump number one, the importance of heading control, and instant response to openings? Didn't we all have to un-learn some of our (skydiving) responses to openings? We always say that it's important to make the right type of skydives, by which we mean primarily accuracy and CRW, to practice for BASE. Why not skip the skydives and go straight to the BASE training? In short, wouldn't we better prepare our students if, instead of saying "make 200 skydives" we said "make 200 jumps off that bridge in the potato state?" I've heard people argue as to whether those "safe" span jumps are "real" BASE jumps. But aren't they at least better BASE training than airplane jumps? [/devils advocate] Thoughts, anyone? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Let's split this off into a separate thread. I'm curious where this discussion will go. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I think Swooping is going to have the most visual appeal for a ground-bound audience. It will also be the easiest for them to understand. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Have you asked the SA guys how they feel about it? I haven't but I'd expect their opinions would be the most important. Still, if you want to discuss specific sites, I'd recommend taking the conversation to BLiNC. I'm not very interested in changing the rules here, so until Sangiro overrules me, I expect site names, legal or not, will keep getting edited out of posts here. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I don't know if he specifically does wingsuits, but Kevin ought to be able to do a little repair like that in his sleep. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That's actually a big question. There are various degrees of "burning". Sometimes a site is just a little "hot" (so you can jump it, but you have to be careful), and sometimes it's entirely "burnt" (just about impossible to jump ever again). As regards your specific case: There is an unusually high density of "BASE-dangerous" people around this site. That means that we have a huge pool of people who have some desire to BASE jump, have some gear that might work (typically skydiving gear) but have no training or experience. In my opinion, posting site details here is more dangerous (to the readers who could potentially jump it) than even showing a TV documentary across an entire continent. How many people in the "BASE-Dangerous" phase saw that documentary? I'd guess fewer than saw your post about it here. The point is not so much to protect the site (except incidentally). It's to protect those people who might go launch themselves off the site. I recognize that it's unlikely that someone is going to fly to SA just to jump that site. On the other hand, I do know several people who have visited SA to jump. Such people can show up without contacting locals and do some very bad (from a local jumpers perspective) things to the sites--like, say, bringing in a documentary film crew for their publicity stunt. It's better to be safe, in my opinion, than sorry. Why assume that the object is "burnt" so it must be ok to spread the info around as much as you want? What does that really help anyone? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

If you email it to me, I can put it on my web site and link it here. I have a similar clip, pulled off a TV newscast and copied from an old time jumper, of a nearly terminal tower coming down in a similar (but accidental) manner. I won't post it, because it is NSFW in the ultimate sense (there are multiple fatalities in the collapse (tower workers caught on the structure), all captured by the newscrew and broadcast to their nightly audience in the height of good taste). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Hmmm. I swear I saw a segment on the X-Games competition on the Flyboyz Party Mix video. Can anybody verify that Freefly has never been part of the X-Games? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

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

Yes it was. I met the guy, and have it on fairly good authority (from some old geezer in Houston) that it was really his number. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

If you make the same jumper do both things (and combine the scores somehow) you'll get a better group of well-rounded jumpers (who both swoop and BASE jump). Of course, that would leave out non-swoopers like myself. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I got mine from Lockpicks.com. If you're having trouble with dodgy Euro-suppliers, you might ask one of your stateside brethren to tranship the stuff for you. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yes. It's like a police scanner. It's not illegal to own it, but using it in the commission of a crime automatically adds another (felony) charge to the other case. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I know an Aussie who managed to convince a very experienced and respected BASE mentor to teach him when he had only a relative handful (maybe 50?) of skydives. He actually turned out fairly well, in my opinion. Of course, I might be biased because he taught me. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

When I asked about that project while giving my PC data to Annie at the exit, her response was: When I later asked Annie about the PC data she had collected her response was: Dwain later told me that as far as he knew, the data suggested that vented ZP and F-111 were about the same, and unvented ZP was noticeably worse. I realize that knowledge is profit. But sometimes, it's also life--and I think that's more important. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Have you considered wandering over to BLiNC and posting the whole story, with names? That might get the gear known, and allow both sides of the story to be told. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

In my opinion you shouldn't buy BASE gear without inspecting it first. If someone isn't willing to ship it to a rigger (or you, with a deposit) to inspect, I wouldn't buy it. I've sent full rigs out on at least five occasions to buyers I'd never met (I did check their references), who sent me a check as a deposit. The rigs came back fine every time. Inspect the gear, and know what you're looking at. Or if you don't find someone who does, and have them do the inspection. Generally, the original manufacturer will perform this service (and even act as an intermediary in the sale) for a fee. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yes. In general, I'll ask the prospective buyer their level of experience, then I'll ask who their mentor is (or, if their experience level is a bit higher, who they jump with most often). Then, I'll contact anyone I know in the area to inquire about them. I won't sell to someone with zero jumps. I will sell to their mentor, though, if that person seems a reasonable mentor to me. And yes, I have called manufacturers to ask about people who had taken FJC's (or even gone on trips) with them. Heck, I've done that a couple times to inquire about someone's skills before taking them to do a jump. What's the point in not checking around? The information is free, and more information about the buyer always helps--even if it only helps you jack up the price because everyone says "oh, yeah, he's got loads of cash..." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

In general, BASE jumpers want glide angle. Flatter glide is better for outflying talus. Whether that glide comes from more drive or more float is secondary. What I'd love to see is a suit that starts flying immediately. I'm pretty sure that they only thing that effects that much is the wingloading, so bigger, floatier wings may help in that regard. Hey, Robi, I'll keep looking for a suit that starts flying immediately, and doesn't fall down at all, and flies at very slow forward speed. But I think you're more likely to find it than I am. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Cedric sent me this email about the suit: -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Hmmm. Perhaps we are looking for different things in the suit. Honestly, I'd prefer a suit with less forward speed, if I didn't have to sacrifice lift to get it. "Floaty", from my point of view, is a positive characteristic. The real defining characteristic is glide angle. Slow forward speed and slow fall rate, or fast forward speed and fast fall rate, doesn't really make as much difference to me as the relationship between forward speed and fall rate on any particular suit. That said, if glide angle is the same, I'd prefer a suit that was slower (in both dimensions) for several reasons. The suit will be easier to maneuver in close proximity to fixed objects (cliffs, suspension cables, ski slopes, etc) since it will give the pilot more reaction time. Further, the suit will begin to fly sooner from a zero airspeed (i.e. BASE) launch. I wonder how long it will be before BASE and Skydiving wingsuits diverge in much the same ways that BASE and Skydiving canopies already have? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yep. Cedric emailed that pic to me somewhere in the midst of this discussion. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

- Surely this is incorrect? Not necessarily. A sail slider deploys slower than a mesh slider because of the air resistance. On a very short delay, there isn't much air resistance to hold the slider up yet. With minimal airspeed, the difference between a mesh and sail slider is actually fairly small. The difference becomes far more noticeable at higher (and terminal) airspeeds. I've seen people jump sail sliders as low as 500 feet. 100m seems just barely possible. I wouldn't advise it, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com