"Your" Biggest BASE Mistake!

[guest]

the date: january 1982

the equipment:
container = wonderhog II
canopy = gargano spirit ~ 220 ft 7 cell (in a bag)!
pilot chute = ~32" F-111
bridle = ?????? ~ 6 foot standard skydiving bridle.

the object: a bank building in LA

the 1st big mistake:
me, " hey Carl, how do you think a bagged canopy will work on a building jump?"
carl b. " should be fine, let me know how it goes."

the result: 180 off-heading opening, got the canopy flying backwards, but still slammed into the face feet first, fortunately the canopy never touched the face. i landed on the street undamaged and very happy to be alive. so happy, the fact that i was being detained by 2 big black guys with baseball bats, (security guards), did not faze me in the least.

biggest mistake(s):
1) gear selection........ duh!
2) talking to the media about this afterwards.

results:
1) never used a bag again on a face jump.
2) never spoke to the media again about an illegal jump.

i'm on bonus time.
hope you get to enjoy some too if you REALLY need it.

cya

kleggo

[guest]

Biggest mistake? Probably just being born, but here are a few off the top of my head...

First mistake: late-childhood imprinting on Carl's national geo. El Cap. jump special; a pbs mind in an mtv body!

Second mistake: learning to base jump before learning to skydive.

Third mistake: parachutes don't have the same glide ratio as a c-150.

Fourth mistake: water landing smack dab in the middle of NR with jeans, t-shirt, sweatshirt, thick socks, jumpsuit, shoes, helmet, thread-thru rig without floatation.... and I actually tried to _save_ the canopy (dumbazz). Closest I've come right there!!! whew. get the willies just thinkin' about it.... fortunately someone was at the bottom to help me out ;)

Fifth mistake: jumping the same object twice on the same day in the middle of the day (what a dumbazz I was). The conditions were perfectamundo, however ;) This was long ago people.. don't get any kinks in your thongs.

Sixth mistake: got married (i'm outta that now, tho - woo hoo!!).

Caught someone's legstraps not fastened _after_ they gimped on a countdown one time... that would have been interesting...

Saw some new (to me) video the other day... seems there's a strong tendancy for people to try to wrestle to save a canopy when they've landed in the water. Give it up!!! Save yourself first.. then worry about the canopy. Wear flotation when jumping over water without rescue boats. Accept no less than perfect conditions... sure it reduces jump opportunities.. but the objects aren't going anywhere.

bsbd,
Gardner

[PerFlare]

My name is PerFlare and I got hurt on my second basejump. This was in 1998 at Kjerag (Norway) I jump my own brand new gear PRISM and FOX.

As the T-shits say, No ##### there is was, it was bad weather rain, fog and hi winds (you could see the white tips on top of the waves below). But I really like to jump so I decided to jump anyway. When I was starting to get my gear on I was thinking on what Tracy said when we where walking the LZ & If something happen and you cant make a safe landing on land chose the water, remember you dry faster then you heal. So I thought if I could not handle the wind I was going for the water.

Then it was my turn to jump. When I was standing on the edge I could not see the LZ all the time for the fog and the horizon was not there to look on but I tough, How hard could it be! and jumped. The exit was HEADDOWN and the ledge was right there and I was falling towards it. After a few seconds and starting to pick up some airspeed I was able to start tracking. After deploying I turn my canopy in to the wind & and went backwards towards the LZ but it seemed like if I just did a fast 90 degree turn and then up in the wind again and I could land on the grass area. My 90 degree turn become a 180 degree turn and I was really travelling, I mean REALLY travelling and I then all of a sudden I did not want to get my gear I wet!!!! Made a hookturn and hit one of the big stones it is the size of a trailer and it did not move :-)

When I was lying there between the rocks I felt really stupid so I when I could speak again (just got the wind knocked out of me) I stood up and said Im ok. I was a little bit embarrassed so I did not said that my back was feeling funny! After sitting and sleeping for three months I really tired of the pain so I did an X-ray and found out that that it will never stop hurting. Cracked two disks and the bone in-between, the X-ray showed that I cracked my lower leg and my heel to & well I guess that that explain the pain I had in my leg to ;-)

Well I learned a lot but the price was hi, and the doc was right my back hurt more and more for every day and I remembering him say, you be back when it wears down to the nerves so I guess that stiff back operation is coming closer.

Stay safe!
//PerFlare

[guest]

Kjerag 1999, exit point #7
4-way (2 in front 2 in back on exit)
I was in front with a belly mount camera facing down. The goal was to exit slightly head down to get my buddy coming off behind me then track safely away.
What happened- I took 3 steps, leaned forward and pushed off. The last step slopes downward, so that in cunjunction with me leaning forward caused me to go too far head down. In fact. I went all the way onto my back and got stuck. I thought I could correct my position and get clear of the wall. As I was falling on my back and actually "back tracking" toward the wall I thought this is not good. I could see the 12 second talus getting closer and closer :o. I somehow got belly to Earth and deployed immediatly. Luckily I packed an on-heading opening!! After looking at the video I deployed at 9 to 10 seconds after launch, probably less than a second from sniveling into the cliff.
Lessons learned: 1. Focus on good body position, no matter how easy the jump seems to be.
2. Don't worry so much about getting "the shot"
3. If ever in that position again, continue the front flip and get the hell away from the object.
4. No matter how hard you try to "roll up the windows" it won't help you recover from a bad launch. HA, HA.

Always, always, learn from the mistakes that don't kill you!! CYA, 570 :-)

[bps]

Great idea Nick! Now it's my turn to contribute...

I learned a good lesson just a couple of weeks ago. I was traveling with friends on the yearly pilgrimage to Moab. The first leg of our journey found us driving all night to a nice cliff in Arizona. Now I am usually very good at taking my time to analyze all aspects of a jump (ie obstacles in freefall, obstacles on landing, all possible outs, etc.), but on this particular jump I looked at the cliff for 2 minutes and then started up the approach. I was letting the excitement of the road trip and the first object get the best of me...

So there I am on the exit point with my buds. It is sort of a blind exit of sorts...

There is a cross-wind from right-to-left, but in my hasty pre-jump observations, I had only seen a fin of rock sticking out on the right-hand side.

Hmmm...no problem here. 3..2..1..C-ya!

As I'm in freefall, I see a buttress sticking out on the *left-hand* side. Wow! That thing is kinda close.

I pitch, and crack! I have a 120left. Now that crosswind is a tailwind because of my off-heading opening.

I'm on it lightening-fast and bring it around just fine, but I noted just how close my end-cell was to that cliff.

After landing, and coming down from the excitement, I looked over at one of my freinds and said, "Ya know...we sure were stupid for running up that cliff without taking the time to explore all aspects of this cliff - I didn't even know that buttress was there until I was in freefall!"

Lessons learned:

Off-headings are going to happen, but you should at least be aware of the upcoming obstacles well before you have to deal with them.

Take the time to analyze *every* aspect of a jump because things will go wrong. Having a well-thought out plan may make the difference in a "wow-that sure was close" and a bodybag!

C-ya,

Bryan

[guest]

Gear: 1978 Wonderhog, 150' Strato-Flyer, 6' bridle, 32" pilot chute, Canopy side packed with lines figure eighted into the bottom of the container. (none of this is a factor, just funny to think what I was jumping)
Imagine if you will... Noon on a Sunday, three of us on a rural antenna in the SouthEast. John had been here before, Mad Dog's first base jump and the other two were going to photograph. We made a slow ascent of this 1400 footer depositing Mike at 1100' with his super 8 camera, me at 1200 with 35mm, John at 1300 and Mad Dog at 1400.
John goes no sweat. (In fact I think he had the nads of a gladiator when I think of our exploits back then.) Mad Dog goes off head down, flops over and deploys totally unstable, has 180 and line twists, flys back at the tower and just misses it. John and MD land uneventfully.
Mike and I spend the next 30 minutes getting our gear ready reveling in the view and talking myself into jumping. (I always had to do that before I got my Reactor and Fox)
All of a sudden a faint tink, tink, tink could be heard. I looked down to see a large brown car with a blue light on its roof sitting at the base of the tower. Somebody down there must really want to talk to us if he is beating on this thing with a bar. Gee, wonder who that could be?
What are we to do? climb down? I don't think so. We jumped and were away in the cow fields, I mean gone, safe, they couldn't catch us if they had tried. Oh yeah, we are waaaay out in the boonies. Oh well let's go back and see what happens.
A technician from the TV station had come out on that day to do some small work and had spotted us on his way in and called the county sherrif. He pressed charges and we really had nothing to say to the judge that would justify our trespassing.
We totally burnt one of the best antennae in the country. We did get a few more at night and in the fog but it is now alarmed and impossible to jump.
no stealth... how's that for a screw-up?

[guest]

>Have I missed any BASE issues that you think should be dealt with? If so let me know.

Here's an issue you missed.

People like you who bottom feed for gullible young BASE jumpers that you'll only exploit.

And thanks for spamming a very educational thread.

Nick_BR
:-(

[guest]

SINCE EVERYBODY'S FESSING UP, HERE'S MINE. I HAVE OVER 900 SKYDIVES AND 125 BASE JUMPS, AND I'M THE PRACTICAL EXAM AWAY FROM BEING A SENIOR RIGGER, SO I AM KNOWLAGABLE ABOUT EQUIPMENT.IT WAS THE THIRD JUMP OF THE NIGHT OFF OF A REALLY TALL BRIDGE, I HAD A COMPLETE 360 BECAUSE MY LEFT TOGGLE RELEASED ON OPENING. I THOUGHT IT WAS STRANGE BECAUSE I'VE NEVER EVEN HAD A 180 WITH MY SLIDER UP. WHEN I WENT TO REPACK THE RIG I SAW THE PROBLEM. I HAD PUT THE TOGGLE TIP INTO THE ELASTIC KEEPER ON THE TOP SIDE OF THE RING,RIPPING IT OFF THE RISER,INSTEAD OF PULLING THE BRAKE SETTING THROUGH THE RING FIRST. THE BRAKES LOOKED SET BUT THE ONLY THING HOLDING THEM DOWN WAS THE ELASTIC KEEPER.I'M VERY LUCKY I DID'NT HAVE A LINE OVER AND LUCKY IT WAS'NT A TOWER.I SAW A GUY 2 WEEKS EARLIER DO THE SAME THING WITH A SABRE AT THE AIRPORT AND IT WAS A NASTY LINE OVER.UNDERSTAND, THIS WAS NOT A RUSH PACK JOB. I HAVE THREE RIGS AND THIS WAS A HOUR LONG ONE IN MY LIVING ROOM. LESSON LEARNED,1. AFTER YOU DO SOMTHING AS SIMPLE AS SET THE BRAKES, EXAMINE THEM CLOSELY LOOKS MAY BE DECIEVING. 2. DON'T WATCH BRIDGE-DAY VIDEOS WHILE PACKING,PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU'RE DOING. BE CAREFUL FOLKS.
C-YA

[guest]

All on the same load...

It's late ,we're starting to pack for the 3rd or 4th jump
of the night.I decide to snooze a few minutes knowing the others are just getting the packing down and I would be done at the same time even if I pass out 10 or 15 minutes...so I do.

When I wake-up , my brakes had been stowed by someone...(Of course I didn't double check them) So I finish the pack job and off we go to the local Bridge (380')

I go off first and open on heading,I unstow and pull on the left toggle to go for the LZ but guess what, the canopy goes right ! I look up and see steering lines crossed, not fully understanding what the problem was, I choose to ditch both toggles and fly with the rear risers.I barely make it over the boulders on the shoreline.

I look up to see # 2 go off, Bang ! line-over, he manages to stop the turn and lands it without releasing the toggles.By this time I can't believe what's going on,I must be dreaming or something.

I look up again for # 3 and bang ! perfect 180.He's really slow to turn it around and I could see him lift his feet to barely clear the pedestrian guard rail as he's flying back out of the structure...

Once on the ground, we all look at each other in disbelief.For all of us, it was the most problems we've had to deal with on a jump

We blamed it on on beeing so tired to focus on the job at hand and the packing and the double checks and the....

Too much fun in to little time can bite you

Know when to call it a night

Base # 320

[Yuri]

Yo!

My first tower jump story.

The background: 4 NRGBD jumps and no base jumpers in the area to learn from. I get the sectional, ask a friend to be my ground crew and go tower hunting. It's about midnight, we see the tower in the distance but cannot find an access road. No big deal, walking through thorn bushes for an hour with a dead flashlight is a cheap price for fun! Hiking back to the car is much easier, since we know where the road was hiding ;-) Driving in is effortless, but the fear begins its mind-altering work. We park half-way through and walk the rest.

I'm so high on adreanline that climbing 1200' with a big skydiving rig doesn't bother me a bit. All of a sudden the tower ends with a triangular piece of metal - there is no transmitter! Gearing up takes a while: i'm flying through another universe while my robot-body gets the rig ready. Climbing out feels unreal. It's a pitch-black moonless night, the wind is howling and i'm standing on top of the world with nothing around me. There are lights in the distance and the rest of this world is Darkness.

I go off and take a healthy 2sec slider-down. My canopy opens perfectly but i cannot see guy wires in the dark. To play safe i fly downwind for a while. When i turn around, the tower is just a needle of lights far, far away. To my surprise i'm still backing up and all i can see below is blackness that covers the forest. Luckily, the grey stripe cutting through the woods floats up as i get lower. I can make it and happily set my canopy flying along the clearing. Committed to land in the middle, i finally catch a sight that makes me feel unreal for the second time since the exit. Huge power line towers are floating up on both sides, and my canopy brushes the wire before it lands softly in the bushes by one of the towers.

When i get back to the car, my friend wakes up and says "oh, did you jump already?"... Hell yes!

The lessons i've learned saved me on countless ocasions, but i have never since had the same feeling: off into the darkness having no idea what it will bring to you... now i know ? ;-)

bsbd!

Yuri.

[Yuri]

Yo!

NRGBD-95 Combat CRW story.

Background: i've had about 30 base jumps and just made 3 two-ways with a good friend of mine earlier in the morning.

My friend has decided to stay at the bottom to take some pictures. I run up to the exit point still hyper from 2-ways i've just made. There's another 2-way on the ramp getting ready to go so i ask if they want to make it a 3-way. They agree, we quickly figure out delays (2,3,5), line up and go. We exit in a line one after another, i step off to the left expecting to be clear and see another jumper (2sec delay) almost directly underneath. I'm slider-up, not much choice... an effort to turn and track looks good but moves me nowhere. The rest is on video... We had a spectacular freefall/canopy collision. I've pulled at 6.5sec after going through the canopy and seing pilot chute-fabric-black-sky-river in a weird caleidoscope. The other canopy reinflated with some line twists. No injuries, except for a minor line burn. Life #2... or was it #3 ? ;-)

The lessons: multiple ways are a 3-D art and should be treated as such. Being able to see everybody on exit and in freefall is essential for survival. Some homework and a dirtdive are equally important. Specifically for that jump, we would have been fine if we stayed level. Being next to each other at the same level is ok, what got us was the vertical separation - enough to allow for a full deployment underneath. Open canopy takes much more space than a freefalling person: 10ft is enough to clear a body but too little to clear what became a canopy. You can never trust a closed rig underneath, even if the jumper won't deploy before you do. I've seen a few premature openings and had one myself. If you are above somebody, having enough horizontal space for an open canopy to go by is a must.

Somebody, whos name i have suddenly forgot ;-) has had a better (dead center!) ff/canopy collision at the same spot a few years later. Maybe he will post his thoughts too ? ;-)

bsbd!

Yuri.

[Yuri]

No message

[guest]

garnder,
lost your number, going jumping tonight, need to coordinate our efforts, call 770-454-0268
mike
atlanta

[guest]

I have been teaching a fellow to BASE jump lately. He has been using my only rig because the South Georgia "Kangaroo Court System" has been screwing me so badly that I can only afford one rig these days. This student is doing really well and has been exhibiting what I consider to be exceptional judgment in what he jumps and in evaluating conditions. The other day he came up to me as I was packing my pilot chute to be stowed in the pouch in the bottom of my rig and asked if he could do a jump. I said "sure" and since he had been hand holding the pilot chute, I just crammed it into the pouch after the bridle, handed him the packed rig and drove to the bottom to pick him up. After a long hike, he elected not to jump because the wind was not right and he returned the rig to me. A while later in a great deal of excitement I rushed out to take a large group of whining and bitching people to a site and because of impending darkness and lots of complaining, elected to do a cliff that was closer but had not been done. In the midst of all the bitching and complaining, I dropped a couple of rocks, got about five seconds, gave my gear a cursory check and jumped. I was in free-fall clawing for the second time for the pilot chute and only managed to pull out and throw the corner of the mess that I had crammed in the pouch earlier. I had totally forgotten that I had not packed it for going stowed. I'm still alive but I have kicked myself again and again for this near-fatal mistake. It is with much embarrassment that I am publicly sharing this with you all but that is the point of all this, isn't it. We all still have a lot to learn to stay alive. I will never again let that happen to me or anyone around me, if I can help it. Oh, and we named the jump "RUSH JOB". How appropriate! We all learned a great deal that evening.

Earl Redfern

[guest]

I was on the ramp behind this infamous jump. The other guy is a friend of mine. I didn't know his girlfriend. Anyway, the 5 sec. jumper jumped in his own "corridor" for lack of a better term. The 2 sec. delay jumped directly behind the 3 sec. delay jumper in the same corridor. There was no horizontal separation. The lurker on the jump relied on 1 sec. for separation. They weren't level with each other. Anyway, that jump arrangement is the worst I have ever seen. It wasn't a case of lack of execution. It was poor design.