TomAiello

Bad Girl! You are supposed to bring your girl friends into the sport. There are already plenty of guys, and they don't appreciate your interest in non-jumpers. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Agreed. Still, the altitude of most bridges would seem to indicate that a good, tall, wind-through tower with a stiff tailwind at opening would be a better choice for a first fixed object wingsuit flight. As with every fixed object jump, it totally depends on the specifics of your particular object. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I have no idea. I bet Yuri knows, as he was there at the beginning. If not, I'm sure that Robert, Jari or Kim would know the answer. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I spent the night after Bridge Day partying with Russians. This is no coincidence. They may be the wildest people on earth. When Outrager visits a place and reports that he felt like a nun, you know things are out of control there. Can't wait to visit! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I once went stowed from 300 ft, on an object with a very bad landing area and no outs, to impress a girl. It worked, too. Girls are always getting us into trouble... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

My first skydiving rig was a Vector II V2-2. I had a Sabre 150 and a PD 143 reserve in it. They fit about right. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

What camera do you have? If it's an IP series, you have to use Movieshaker, since the Mpeg compression the IP uses is not compatible with any other editing program. Otherwise, try Premiere (on the PC) or Final Cut (Mac). iMovie is pretty cool, too, but misses out on some of the features in favor of ease of use. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Given my limited knowledge, and other more experienced BASE jumpers, please correct me if I'm wrong, but the short answer is "not necessarily". Um. I think you're wrong here. It's true that a slider up opening is not necessarily less stable and reliable than a slider down opening--but it is more reliable 99% of the time, which 99% includes every jump that you are ever likely to do. The slider is a great reefing device for high speed openings, but slowing an opening down (which a slider does) almost invariably degrades heading. No one should be jumping a slider off canopy without a tailgate. It's pretty much a mandatory piece of BASE gear. The tailgate actually has a better track record than the slider in inhibiting line overs. Still, I'd rate a two second slider off non-tailgate opening as more reliable than a three second slider up delay. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

It's a trusty racer. Yes, there's a raven 1 packed in there. No d-bag, freely packed. I worked gear checks at the exit for two hours. Brit's racer was a long, long way from the scariest setup I saw. At one point, I had to bail out and ask Marta for help checking some guy's pull out(!). Some of the organizers were talking about banning skydiving containers next year, but I kind of hope they are still allowed. It's just too hard for most skydivers to lay their hands on a real BASE rig for their one jump per year. But, if I ever saw someone on another object with a skydiving rig, I'd steal their cutaway handle and jump with it, and only return it once they had climbed down to get it. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yes, removing or pulling down the slider makes the canopy open quicker, which results in statistically better opening heading. A canopy with a slider (of any kind) can still do some bouncing around during the inflation sequence, which degrades heading. Even a long delay would have better heading with no slider--it's just that the canopy would blow up and your body would break in half due to the speed of the opening. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm not sure I'm following you, but... Why would a hackey handle for BASE be in a different location from skydiving? In general, handles are only used on terminal BASE PC's. Hackeys are generally not recommended for BASE, due to a potential to cause PC hesitation or choke-off. Still, if you do use a hackey handle for BASE (very few people do that now, especially after the fatality in Switzerland a few weeks ago), I can't see why you'd put it in a different location from a skydiving PC handle. The jumper doesn't have to be at terminal. See fatality #17 on the list at http://juliabell.home.att.net/. This jumper died as the result of PC inflation at 3 seconds causing unstable deployment, followed by line twists and object strike. I am personally convinced that this sort of hesitation in the burble was the primary cause of the most recent BASE fatality. Nope. I can't see how they would be a good idea. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are driving at, though. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Exactly what he said. Same canopy, same wingloading, same experiences. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I prefer to jump my Troll with my wingsuit. The Troll has great flight characteristics, and the things I don't like about it (openings) are minimized in the wingsuit environment, where you are well away from potential object strike, and the nature of the opening (lots of forward speed) greatly improves heading performance. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm responding to a post from the incidents forum. It seemed to be getting off topic there, so let's see if we can move the discussion here... In general, a rock drop done from a wingsuit exit point will impact (straight down) in around 8-10 seconds. However, since the suit begins flying before then, the flight can be significantly longer. For example, rock drop impact is at approximately 8 seconds on the Cold Steel exit, but the total flight altitude is 2500 feet, since there is approximately 1700 feet of slab that can be outflown with a wingsuit. On one well known big wall, rock drop impact is at 14 seconds, but wingsuit flight can exceed 60 seconds, due to 3500 feet of slab and talus below the vertical wall. Nope. Very few people have taken wingsuits off bridges or buildings, since the benefits are quite limited (most of those objects aren't really high enough to fly much, so it would really just be a stunt jump, rather than a flight. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Hey, where's my choice? I have jumped that high--on a BASE jump. Highest jump was a 5500' wingsuit flight. Out of an airplane? I dunno. I think it was one of those 18 grand sunset loads at Monterey. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Packed up and ready to go... Headed to the airport now... See you all there! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Say hi to Douglas for me! I'll be at the pro-bureaucracy, anti-freedom, we are all merely enslaved peons, sell your soul for a lousy bridge jump day. But I promise to exercise my anti-government leanings in the week immediately following... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Jumping a round shouldn't be a problem. There's lots of deep water under the exit. If you take a delay of 5+, it should be virtually impossible to miss the deep water. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Does anyone want to suggest a meeting place? Or perhaps whoever checks in first can just post their room number? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That's actually a pretty big topic, but the short(ish) answer is: On a slider-down or slider-off deployment, we route the control lines outside the guide rings (and slider if it's still on), so that the toggle can be pitched to clear a line over. This hasn't really been necessary since the advent of the tailgate (a reefing device which has an extremely good track record in inhibiting slider down line overs). On a slider-up deployment, we route the steering lines just like a skydiving canopy (through the rings and the slider) since the pressure from the control lines is critical in driving the slider down the lines (slider up jumps with the lines outside the slider have resulted in fatalities). There have been some attempts to test a tailgate system for slider up rigs, but so far the idea has not really caught on. The only jumper I knew who was using it regularly was killed last week in a BASE accident (not related to his slider up tailgate system). The latest, greatest BASE innovation is a releasable toggle (sold by Gravity Sports, Ltd as the SuperToggle, or by Vertigo BASE Outfitters as the WLO [what line over?] toggle). This allows the release of the steering line in the event of a slider up lineover (very rare--I know of three documented cases, all of which cleared except for mine, which required a hook knife). If you are wondering, I have ordered a pair of WLO toggles, and will pick them up at Bridge Day. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'll arrive Friday morning. Look for the fat, lazy, strung out American being dragged around by a Sepwegian and a couple Russians... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I am uploading my line over video to ftp.skydivingmovies.com. The file is lineoverRT.mov and contains both real time and slow motion footage of the malfunction. Upload should be complete around 8am PDT. Several people mentioned that they couldn't watch it off my web page. Hopefully, this will work. Now, a day of errands, and then I'm off to Bridge Day... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

It's been up and down due to the conversion to registered only posting. It's back up now, and Mick says it should be stable. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I will post a real time video on the skydivingmovies ftp server as soon as possible. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Troll 290. I kept it stable with about 3/4 right toggle input. The canopy made one complete 360 before I established control. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com