TomAiello

Actually, the first (and so far only) time was on the line-over I had earlier this year. As I recall, the first thing I said after dealing with the line was "that was pretty f--ing exciting, let's see if I can land this s--t." I think you can even hear it on the video (the hook knife was in my mouth, so it's a little muffled). So, I lost my cool a bit. But, hey, it was a pretty frightening situation. Oh, just remembered, I did cuss once before during a jump. I pitched, saw that I would impact just after line stretch, and reportedly, the people underneath me heard me yell "F--k" just as I impacted. Not sure if that counts as being under canopy or not. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I cut and pasted this from this thread at BLiNC. It was written by Earl Redfern. Earl was one of the first BASE jumpers to make 1000 BASE jumps, and he had nearly 20 years of BASE experience. Earl died July 18, 2000, in an airplane crash in, while scouting new BASE sites. This is great advice for any new BASE jumper, and I think it bears repeating. Blue Skies, Earl. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

It only appears to be the one thread. The others are behaving normally. I've tried it on four different machines, and it happens on all of them. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I don't know. I feel that the reward (for me) has been greater than the (rather high) personal cost. If there were no such thing as BASE, maybe I would have found something else that could have given me the same, or similar, rewards, with a lower cost. That would probably be preferable. Definitely. Still, it's my subjective, biased, personal opinion, based on three years of active BASE and seven years of active climbing, that BASE is more dangerous than climbing. I never saw, or knew, anyone who died climbing. The worst injury I saw was a broken ankle, and I probably only saw six injuries. BASE has been a little harsher than that. There are obviously a lot of people experienced in both skydiving and BASE who feel that BASE is more dangerous than skydivng. It's all anecdotal, "fuzzy" type evidence. But for all that, I'm willing to accept it. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Despite several new postings to this thread: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=296767 It doesn't seem to update the "last post" time, nor does it move up to the top of my forum view. The icon also isn't changing (to reflect new posts). I'm not sure what's up with it. Help? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I believe this is the achilles heel of vented canopies. I also think that several people know this, and aren't saying anything about it. Their reasons for not discussing it are their own--I understand that one of them "refuses to discuss the research of this shop with our customers." Don't get me wrong, I do think that secondary inlets are a major advance in BASE technology. I just don't think that they are the magic solution that so many people seem to think they are (and that they are sometimes marketed as). There is a lot of work that still needs to be done here, and saying that we've solved all the problems seems counterproductive. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That's not the ideal wingloading according to BR. It's my personal feel for the brake settings on the BR canopies I have experience with. You should always customize the brake settings on any BASE canopy. It is particularly important for slider down non-span jumps (where you will have less separation from the object). The "new" standard brake setting on Vtec FOXes is identical to the "old" shallow setting on standard FOXes. BR used to recommend using this brake setting for slider up, and a deeper one (factory set 4 inches deeper on all FOXes, regardless of size) for slider down. Now, they recommend using the "old" shallower setting for all jumps. You're going to have to draw your own conclusions. OK, that probably ought to be a different thread. This one has already diverged from canopies to deep brake settings, which is more than enough topics for one thread (maybe I'll try to split this up). If I find the time, I'll try to start it. If not, feel free to start a "what is the effect of winds on openings" thread yourself. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Deep Brake Settings need to be customized for every jumper. The brake setting for a particular canopy needs to be adjusted based on the suspended weight. (Minor differrences in CG can also have some effect on brake settings). It is impossible to set a standard brake setting based solely on canopy size. BR sets the brakes on their canopies based on their "ideal" wingloading. In general, I've found that the single brake setting (the shallow setting) that they ship canopies with is set for slider down openings with a wingloading around .7. Obviously, if you use this brake setting with a higher wingloading, you will see opening surge. If you use it with a lower wingloading, you can experience deployment stall (and opening backsurge with a vented canopy). That totally depends on where the brakes are set. My experience has been that my best setting for an unvented canopy creates a backsurge of approximately one half canopy length when used for a vented canopy. Proven phenomenon. I have very good video of backsurge on both a Blackjack and a Vtec FOX. I started out by setting mine at plus and minus 3 and 6 inches (so, five total settings) from the factory settings. It's probably not necessary to put the lighter settings in, but I'd try setting them about at three inch intervals. Are you familiar with the effects of tail (and head) winds on deployment stall? It can become important with deeply set brakes, mostly if you are doing low, wind-through objects with a tailwind. A few other places to look for information on DBS: Brake Settings thread from BLiNC Technical Archives. In particular look at the comment from Adam Filipino which includes the following: Another comment from Adam is in this thread. Customizing your own DBS is mandatory for slider down BASE. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Disclaimer: My skydiving knowledge is very limited. Asking me for advice about skydiving gear is probably a bad idea. The idea of a venting PC to reduce oscillation was first thought up by French BASE jumpers. However, I believe they used these PC's on their skydiving gear first. In that sense, those PC's were an idea that BASE jumpers borrowed from skydivers, not the other way around. It's just (far) more critical in BASE, so the idea has spread faster. Vented PC's were designed to reduce oscillation and orbiting. The idea is to improve on-heading percentage, which is badly degraded by orbiting pilot chutes. Since opening heading is a far greater concern in BASE than skydiving, the extra money to get a vented PC is well worth it in BASE, but perhaps not in skydiving. Hmmm. I think I saw him somewhere around here. Let me try to find him. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

There has been some testing on slider-up tailgate mods. However, to my knowledge it is still just testing. It's probably not a good idea to start modifying skydiving gear, unless you are a test jumper, or willing to accept the risks involved with test jumping. BASE jumpers have historically avoided combining sliders and tailgates because of concerns about snivels, entanglements and slow or inconsistent openings. I'm sure that some skydiving manufacturers have looked at BASE gear for ideas, but it's really just a starting point. The two jumping environments (and their respective gear) are different enough that simply pulling gear out of one and using it in the other sounds like a bad idea. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I apologize for giving that impression. I did not intend to offend anyone. I asked four different women to review my posting before I put it on the forum. My goal was to reduce offensiveness. I then wrote a second draft based on their (excellent) feed back. Obviously, my writing skills were inadequate to my goal. I was not trying to say that all men are going about this BASE thing correctly. I'm sure that in a while (once we've finished this discussion), I'll probably write rant #2, about ego and instruction, and follow that up with rant #3, on destructive competition. But I only have so much energy at a time (and I'm sure no one wants to read a 30 page rant), so I started with this one, because another thread triggered most of the writing. Again, apologies for offending you, or sounding condescending. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Let me clarify: Is a reference to my feeling on what percentage of people are getting returns worthy of the risks they take. Is my stock response for someone considering BASE. Whenever someone asks me if I think they should try BASE, this is my response. Well, normally I just say "God, No!", but you get the idea. Sure, that means that 20% of the people I advise not to start might actually, be better off, in the long run, if they did get into BASE. But perhaps I can convince a few to find a safer way to get what they need. Maybe they can find the same rewards, at lower risk, in rock climbing, surfing, kayaking, or inpatient psychotherapy (that last one is a feeble attempt at humor). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Student injuries. An underprepared student is far more likely to be injured than killed. Also, people tend to under-emphasize certain factors after a fatality, especially in official reports. I've been close enough to several different fatalities to know that the printed reports rarely give a complete set of facts, and never give the "feel" of the situation. I very purposely did not include statistics in my rant, because (a) our statistics are incomplete, (b) accident reports are often skewed, especially as to motivations, and (c) there are no reliable injury statistics. As I stated at the outset this is largely based on what I have seen, and know about, and a review of the (limited) sample of incidents that I have an in-depth (more than just web research) knowledge of. I guess we'd better all get out there and find some pretty girls to take jumping, then. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I think that the participants would be radically different, as would the culture of the activity. You can see these differences already, by talking to jumpers from places where BASE is mostly legal off big cliffs (like Europe or Africa), and places where it has a history of being banned (like USA or Australia). They are generally quite different in their outlook on the sport. Well, I did meet a tandem master who's two great passions in life were BASE and Golf. He would skip BASE jumps for good tee times, on occasion. So, I guess at least one person would. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Someone posted this question to BLiNC a while ago. Check out that thread. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Full Quotation: "Real BASE jumpers are rebels more than freedom fighters. The good ones seek neither publicity, permission, or support. They are the last cowboys of parachuting and when they disappear BASE jumping will be just another pastime like golf and bowling." - Nick Di Giovanni, BASE 194 -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

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

Go to Perris and ask around. It seems like whenever I'm there half the people jumping are stuntmen. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

First thought: Have you checked out the BASE Board at BLiNC? Lurking that board for a while, and reading the archives there might give you a better feel for what experienced BASE jumpers think. I also (somewhat conceitedly) recommend Getting Into BASE if you haven't read that. This is a question that only you can answer. The potential rewards are great for some. The risk is tremendously high. In the last three years I have lost two good friends and several acquaintances, seen numerous injury accidents, and spent more than two months in the hospital. I've also acquired a good chunk of titanium in my spinal column, and fourteen screws in my right ankle. Everything else was, fortunately, temporary. Have a look at Vertical Visions X-Ray Page. I am number 7. This is not the highest price I've paid for my participation in BASE. You can read about the worst price here or here. You might also want to read my morbid post in the Boyfriends and BASE thread. My quick advice on this is that, for 85% of people who try BASE, it probably isn't worth it. The trick is deciding if it's worth it for you (or not) early, so that you don't take the risks when the reward isn't worth it. Again, that is going to be different for everyone. Since you'll have to do a lot of skydiving before considering BASE, you'll have some ideas on that yourself before ever starting. Many people choose both. You don't need to exclude one or the other from your life, just as you don't need to exclude any number of other things if you want to skydive. The experience is much different. Is it worth the greater risks? That's a personal decision. The good news is that you have all the time you need to make the decision for yourself. Relax and take your time. BASE is only getting safer. Who knows? If you start in ten years, the technology may have advanced enough that it's as safe as golf or bowling. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I have less than five jumps on Bombproof rigs. I have seen several, chatted with Bombproof a bit at Bridge Day, talked to some experienced AZ BASE jumpers who know them, and had a fairly good look at a friend's rig. All of these rigs were NEO's. I'm not sure if Bombproof makes any other rig, but that's what these comments pertain to. Bombproof, like other manufacturers, continuously improves their rigs. These comments were made based on the rigs I have seen. Current rigs may have been improved in these or other areas. If anyone knows different on any of these instances, please post a follow up. If you feel a need to flame me, please PM or email me. Here are my thoughts: The rig design seemed ok. Not stellar, but workable. I had minor concerns about the riser covers (seemed too clunky, and perhaps snag prone while wiggling onto an exit). My major concern was the pin cover flap. The flap seemed undersized, and I was concerned that it might not provide adequate protection for the pins in a terminal aerobatic or wingsuit flight. Bombproof's testing program for this (they held the rig up in the back of a truck, and drove as fast as they could through the desert) seemed inadequate to me. The quality of workmanship seemed somewhat variable. Some of the rigs I saw looked great, but some of them seemed to be a bit substandard in construction and assembly. I saw a few that had bits of thread sticking out of the corner closures. Some of the stitching in bits of the harness seemed odd, but this was likely a stylistic difference. In any case, this stitching was not on a structural component of the harness, so it was not a safety issue. I also saw a couple (two of the six I've examined so far) of the older Bombproof pilot chutes that looked a little questionable to me. The attachment point on the center line had been hot knifed roughly, and not cleaned up. This left a hard, sharp corner inside the PC. I worried that this corner might pierce or catch the mesh or ZP fabric, inducing a PC hesitation. I've also heard a few rumors about Bombproof's business practices and customer service that worried me. I know that they have had dealers for BASE gear who had under 150 jumps. It seems questionable to make relatively inexperienced jumpers your dealers and spokesmen. It should be noted that these jumpers were the most experienced active jumpers in their areas, so, as a marketing decision, the only alternative was to simply not have dealers in that geographic market. I've spoken with some people who had concerns about a First Jump Course being held at a legal, slider down cliff in Arizona. This object is definitely not suitable for a first BASE jump. Bombproof has discontinued this practice. A Bombproof customer received a FOX demo canopy, but believed the canopy was a Flik. I am uncertain if this error was made by BR or Bombproof (both companies deny having told the jumper the canopy in question was a Flik). Bombproof pushes NEO's (pin rigs) for beginner jumpers. I do not feel that pin rigs are an appropriate choice for beginners, especially in the environment (generally slider down cliffs in the 300-600 foot range) geographically close to Bombproof. The use of pin rigs for beginners is open to much debate among experienced BASE jumpers. There have definitely been jumpers who felt that Bombproof was trying to capitalize on their location (on a major dropzone) to make a few bucks off skydivers who might not know better. Edit: I have revised this posting after a recent conversation with Kevin at Bombproof. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I don't recommend giving up your life in pursuit of any one goal (jumping or otherwise). The jumper in that video clip was happily married, had two children, a nice home, and a good career as a software developer. You don't need to abandon everything to get there. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

What did you do Tom?Know there were a slider,but did you cut both? I kept the right toggle in my hand, but flare on both the rear risers. This was the technique I learned when I first started jumping, and I haven't re-visited it in a while, but it seemed to work out ok for me. In general, the people I have heard referring to "keeping the toggle" were referring to this technique. Doug, have you practiced landing with an actual toggle stroke on the other side? I tried that one weekend, ate it about three times, and gave it up. I'd be curious for tips on how you manage it. Can you tell how you do this?Is it good enouf yhat i feel good or does i need one more to watch? Case in point. Many people are BASE jumping without customizing their DBS. BASE manufacturers need to start (or resume) including DBS instructions with their gear. Read this from the BLiNC Technical Archives. About halfway down I've posted a common method for finding DBS on a non-vented canopies. Note that following this method for a vented canopy will likely yield a DBS that creates opening backsurge. Read the rest of the thread, too. Dwain is perhaps the world's best BASE jumper, and his strike avoidance technique is the best one I've seen. The best way I've found for identifying good DBS on vented canopies involves sewing in multiple brake settings, and making a bunch of jumps off a friendly span while switching between them. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Sorry, now I'm just thinking aloud. If a canopy can fly both faster and slower, and glide both steeper and shallower, what is the downside? It's not too hard to grab your toggles and hold the canopy back. In fact, it's standard practice on all BASE approaches (with any canopy) anyway. If you're going to be flying in half brakes anyway (and you should be), what is the negative of having more control range available on both the top and bottom end? I guess the downside might be that you would mis-use the greater range of the canopy--same reason you don't give a student a Stiletto. Let me think about that a bit. Hmmm. This is starting to sound like a conversation that Doug and I had in Amsterdam a while back. Maybe the Flying Dutchman will pop in here on a bicycle in a minute... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

See: Lukas and Per in the BLiNC technical archives. I'm pretty sure the Swedes ended up removing their Multi's altogether. This may be a matter of perspective. As a PDX guy, you're probably exposed to more BR thoughts on the matter. In general, the CR thinking is opposite. I don't think it's fair to characterize me as "very, very, very much in the minority". I can think of at least six jumpers with more than 400 jumps (including a major gear manufacturer) who are also in my "minority." I could not agree more. It scares me that so many people are doing this, and that some manufacturers don't tell people to customize their deep brake settings. Not true. BR has removed all suggestions for DBS customization from their documentation and gear. When I inquired as to the reason, they responded that the bottom skin vents created "weirdness" with deep settings, so they had removed their factory "deep" setting, and were shipping all canopies with the "shallow" setting only. What scares me is that they didn't even tell people this, they just started shipping shallow braked canopies to new jumpers--with no notes on customizing DBS, and no instruction to do so. Worse, CR followed suit, and now ships Blackjacks with only the one "shallow" brake setting, rather than a "best guess" custom DBS they used before (fortunately, CR does include a note on DBS). I believe that this statement, in the BR owner's manual, reflects their view on jumpers installing their own (gasp!) customized deep brake setting: This thread has another good illustration of BR's "no DBS" policy, and it's impact on new jumpers (this guy didn't customize his brakes because it would have been "against the manufacturer's recommendations" to do so). I don't know about Vertigo, but the only manufacturer that I know tries to customize DBS based on body weight is Morpheus. If you set the brakes for minimal forward on a canopy, then cut vents in the same canopy, and jump it, it will backsurge on opening. With vents, you can be faced with a choice between surging forward (what BR chooses to do with their canopies) and surging backward. While I feel that, for me, the riser responsiveness gains of secondary inlets overcome this problem (I can often pre-empt the surge by applying early riser input and getting a response), I do feel that a beginner should have a little more time to grab the risers. It's a bit like jumping into an already moving car, and trying to avoid the crash it's headed for. With an unvented canopy, you're driving a big truck, and it's going 5 mph. With a vented canopy, you're driving a highly responsive sports car, but it's going 20 mph. I'd rather see a beginner driver in the slow truck. A vented canopy with overly deep brakes backsurges on opening. I'd rather see a beginner "jellyfishing" straight down than backsurging into an object. And I am one of them. But there are many experienced skydivers who have sold off all their F-111 PD 9 cells--does that mean that students should be jumping VX's? I tend to think it's like recommending a big truck, rather than a racy sports car. The sports car is cool (like a hot swooping canopy), and everybody wants one eventually, but you're probably safer to start in a big slow, simple truck (like student skydiving gear). Hey Doug, do you feel like we've rehearsed this show, and are now giving it as a performance for the benefit of the skydivers at DZ.com? [humorous aside] "They just used to open facing the cliff--and we all just accepted it! We just though, oh yeah, that happens, you just have to be on it."[/humorous aside] Edited to illustrate that BR is giving a "no DBS" recommendation. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

When I was learning to jump, at MB #1's home DZ, there was a very common saying: "You'll be awright, you got your muffs on." I'm still not sure what it means, but every now and then I toss it out at exit, just to see who laughs. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com