100' bridge jump...blast from the past

[2Cats]

OK...I've found a better composite image of the 100' bridge jump made back in 1986. See attachment. You can see that it's made up from a series of stills stuck together side by side and vertically. Start from top right and work left. When you get to the left hand side then pan down and back across to the right. This composite makes the viaduct look much more impressive than it really was (is), because there are not of course so many high (?) arches.

I've had this picture up in the attic for years & just got it down. Unfortunately it's too wide to scan in one go. I had to scan in 4 goes & use a panorama package to stitch the sections together. You can see that the stitch didn't work perfectly in some places...but you get the idea.

More details of this old stuff are posted under the Golden Gate Bridge question thread, in the Beginners section..if anyone is really interested in this old stuff. If not...then just ignore.

100' was pretty 'marginal' back in 1986. I guess it still is now...but someone would probably freefall it with modern kit. 100' was a 'pessimum' height for me then...but it was what was available. Higher was better...more time to get things right. Lower was better...less impact speed if things go wrong. Does anyone do 100' freefall ???

This bridge has water to land in...but it's not vey deep. Most of it you can stand up in.

If I get +ve feedback from this thread then I'll see what other old stuff from the 80's and 90's I can dig out. Is anyone interested ? Does anyone care about early BASE history....or is it all on record somewhere else already?

2Cats

[hamsandwich]

Yes yes, dig more!

Thanks for those PDFs in the other thread; that was sweet.


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[2Cats]

I'm not sure what is OK to post here...particulary with respect of copywrite of old stuff. Historic BASE stuff I have got in pdf format include:

BASE Magazine 1981 - All the original 6 magazines from Carl Boenish

Jump! 1983-89 - All issues of original underground BASE magazine

BASELINE 1986-88 - USA early BASE magazine produced by Phil Smith

The Fixed Object Journal 1990-92 - well of course this is Nick DG's old magazine. I'm sure Nick will have a view on his old magazine being posted here for 'historic purposes' ... but I've no idea whether Nick would be OK with this...or totally against it. Nick ??

Odds and sods - A collection of magazine, newspaper articles, clippings etc from the 1980's

I need some guidance from the Moderator before posting any of this stuff here.

There is also the problem of file size. Check out the attachments here. You can see that most of these are pdf files, which are about as small as I could get them. They are still up to 3Mb in size, which is well over the upload limit. There would have to be a way to do this...but it's outside my hands to permit this.

To be honest, I would have thought all of this stuff is so long ago that no one would feel protective of it any more....but people can be strange and so I need Moderator guidance before doing anything more.

2Cats.

Yes yes, dig more!

Thanks for those PDFs in the other thread; that was sweet.


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[stevenm]

If file size is a problem, you can zip all the files up and upload them to some site like rapidshare, megaupload, etc.

I would love to see some of this old stuff... Would BLiNC have a problem with hosting this material, provided the permission issues are worked out? Mick?

[hamsandwich]

BASE jumping has for a long time been about "ask forgiveness, not permission".

Go ahead and post what you have. I'll talk with Mick about finding a way to host the PDF's in the articles section of the site so they're more easily found.

NickD is not to far I'm sure. Anyway, from what I hear he owes some paying customers magazines they never received! Nick, this will even the score.

[NickD]

Stop commenting on things that you know little about. There were some folks who fell through the cracks when the Journal folded. But I paid back as many of them, or sent them mags from what was left over, as I could long ago. We even had a last call here on BLINC (or the other place) and I paid some people I wasn't even sure were subscribers.

Do you think everyone got a refund when BASE Mag folded. or when BASEline folded, or when the BASE Gazette folded? All three of them went down owing money.

And this was all long before you started jumping so why are you going on with this . . .

Besides, if anyone is intentionally being dishonest it's you. You initially ripped-off the BFL, that was my work, my research, and my writing without my permission, after I worked on that for over twenty years, like you had some kind of rights to it.

And your comment, "Go ahead and post what you have," shows the lack of respect you have for those who came before you and the work and effort they put in . . .

"This is a beg forgiveness, not permission sport." That's rich coming from someone who lives and jumps in Twin Falls.

And here's a lesson you're too young (or something) to know. You can be as bad ass as you want but you don't steal from the tribe.

Nick

[hamsandwich]

And here's a lesson you're too young (or something) to know. You can be as bad ass as you want but you don't steal from the tribe.

That's because the tribe is supposed to be sharing.

If you take the list back over like you said you were going to in your email 6 months ago, I'd take mine down just like I said. But you haven't so quit whining. It's going to be up for "the tribe", as you put it, to share.

What do you want for your hard work? Money? Fame? Power? You just want to take it away from everyone that can benefit from the list? You don't sound like much of a tribesman. You sound like an asshole.

Yeah I live in Twin Falls just like 10 other jumpers. You jealous?

Go jump off your boat's mast with lead rig. No one needs your shitty attitude.


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[2Cats]

OK...here's a few more words and pics from the past also posted on the Beginner's forum. They have probably got lost in there.

I recall that we organised a "BASE Seminar" weekend for a group of us who were getting started. There had been a high profile fatality around that time (Frank Donnellan) & information was very hard to come by. The British Parachute Association were having a very agressive attitude and were threatening a lifetime skydiving ban on anyone associated with BASE...even if you weren't a jumper ! Anyway, a known BASE jumper gave a very informative series of talks and practicals on site selection, BASE pilot chutes (hard to get !), BASE trash packing, exit technique...and so on to a group of 6 newbies. We had a balloon organised for the weekend...but the usual British weather binned this. A pity.

Anyway, at the end we asked a building owner to let us in and use the top of his 80' building. No shit ! Of course no one was going to jump it...but we hauled a huge rucksack full of rocks to the top and chucked it off the top strapped to a buddy-deployed rig. To our amazement it had a full deployment of the canopy before it landed. I have to say that the rocks hit the ground pretty hard and gave pause for thought...but we figured that it probably would have been survivable....with a couple of broken ankles !

This gave us confidence to try out the 100' bridge (without the BASE guru) a few weeks later.

Everyone on the seminar went on to do a successful BASE jump or more. Within the year. There was a 1000' mast (SE England), a 400' mast (N Wales), 200' building (NW England), 350' tower (NW England), 500' tower (NW England), 330' sea cliff (SW England). Below is a pic of the 500' tower and also 1st ever 2-way from a 250' bridge in SW England. I'm not sure if there had been a 2-way in the USA by then...probably, with all your high stuff. It was a new and exciting time to be in the BASE scene. No one got hurt ! ...not sure if this 2-way has ever been repeated from that bridge (?)

Well...that's all a blast from the past. I leave it to the younger hotshots to show how it's done now and watch from the comfort and safety of my armchair...but still an active skydiver. I have to say that I'm really impressed by the recent stuff from the blade of a wind generator. Respect to those guys. Yay!

On posting the old magazines & stuff here. The Fixed Object Journal... Nick DG says this is probably OK. I respect his views & leave the final OK or not to him.

The other stuff...well I've emailed a couple of tasters to Mick Knutson to look at. We'll get this moving...it's just a matter of how to upload the larger files and wher to put them. Over to you, Mick.

[Mac]

Hey 2Cats,

The west country span pic, I have seen before on the wall of someones house.... You know SS then?

Also, you do know there is a UK board that you maybe interested in.... a couple of other UK old skoolers on there

Loving the UK history..... keep it going!

[NickD]

>>Go jump off your boat's mast with lead rig. No one needs your shitty attitude.<<

Almost wish I could. I'm in AZ. Got here yesterday. It's 110 in the shade, and there's not much shade . . .

Nick

[2Cats]

Not much more to say...you've pretty much had it all. I'm just a 1-BASEjump wonder !!

I'm a bit woolly on the B'pool Tower history. I'm pretty sure it was done first by one of the Dunkeswell guys...the author of the 'Groundrush'. book ...you know who I mean. I heard he did it alone using a static line with a break-tie. The local paper made a fuss about his jump and made a big deal of the 'evidence' he'd left behind...i.e.the strop with the broken tie. Of course they didn't know what it was...but a helpful skydiver told them what they were looking at. This was the proof to the world that the jump had taken place. Of course there were eye-witnesses as well...but he didn't get caught. We'd already heard about it on the grapevine and were a bit miffed about the Southerners coming up and jumping our patch !

The break tie was popular wih those military guys before they had a couple of near misses on Clifton. One had a premature break. The container opened but the tie broke before the canopy extracted. Fortunately the jumper was a CReW jumper and realised what had happened. He managed to beat the canopy out from the conatiner with his elbows and had a looooow opening...landed in the mud, but was OK. Phew !

I heard that another from that crowd put too strong a break tie on and ended up ripping the top of his canopy away from the cell walls. A bit scary...but I'm pretty sure he made it OK...just a change of underwear needed afterwards.

Not suprisingly..the break-tie method went out of fashion after this. We never used it. Our 'guru' had warned of the risks...but news and reliable info was hard to get hold of in those days & I guess the Dunkeswell guys were using what we thought were obsolete methods.

We used the buddy-assist method of getting a good friend to hold onto the pilot chute and bridle and extract the canopy from the container. Of course this had it's own problems. On one jump the helper held on too aggressively and got skin burns. Didn't do the canopy much good either ! On another jump a non-jumping helper just threw the pilot chute after the jumper as soon as he left (!) It eventually opened...but from a 250' site this is less than ideal...I bet the jumper could probably have done a better job deploying the pilot chute himself.

Of course the buddy-assist freebag system came along after this & solved the problems of both systems.

2 of our crowd did Blackpool Tower together a month or two later...not a 2-way...2 separate jumps about 2 mins apart. One got spotted by an off-duty policeman. He would have gotten away with it even so...if one of the getaway cars hadn't driven over the tramway and onto the beach to pick him up. The copper got the car numberplate and traced it back to him. the other guy got clean away unseen. Amazing that with several thousand people wandering around the tourist traps of the golden mile...probably only 100 or so actually saw a parachute (in fact 2 parachutes) land and most thought nothing of it. If you walk away easily and with a cool attitude then no one suspects that any 'wrong-doing' has taken place and everyone ignores you. It was only because the getaway car driver was in such a hurry to get 1 jumper off the beach that things went pearshaped at all. The policeman didn't know anything about parachute legality or BASE jumping...but he knew you weren't allowed to drive on the beach and so some sort of crime was being committed...so he took the number down. A pity.

Yes .. I know SS and of course I knew JF, the freefalling jumper at Clifton. Won't see JF for a while now, will we ?

If Blackpool Tower has been done again recently..I guess that makes it #4, unless there's stuff going on I've not heard about. Take care !!!

Cheers, 2Cats.

Hey 2Cats,

The west country span pic, I have seen before on the wall of someones house.... You know SS then?

Also, you do know there is a UK board that you maybe interested in.... a couple of other UK old skoolers on there

Loving the UK history..... keep it going!

[airdog07]

nice post 2cat now if you can up load the pdf file we all appreciate it.

[badenhop]

• And this was all long before you started jumping so why are you going on with this . . .
  
• And your comment, "Go ahead and post what you have," shows the lack of respect
  you have for those who came before you and the work and effort they put in . . .
  
• And here's a lesson you're too young (or something) to know.
  You can be as bad ass as you want but you don't steal from the tribe.

Nick

Hello,
Nick, are you saying whatever happened is none of his business?
And did all that work and effort get done so the information could be hidden away?
And would not a real tribe accommodate all its' members?
Avery

[sabre210]

Hey 2cats

thanks for all this stuff. It is appreciated.

That NW tower has been done a few times now.

100ft is still a low basejump even with modern BASE equipment.

The 2way 250ft bridge jump was featured in BASE (or was it Jump) magazine didn't it?

ian

[2Cats]

Hey 2cats

thanks for all this stuff. It is appreciated.

That NW tower has been done a few times now.

100ft is still a low basejump even with modern BASE equipment.

The 2way 250ft bridge jump was featured in BASE (or was it Jump) magazine didn't it?

ian

Yes, here it is, attached.

As I said originally..this is all old stuff, nothing new. Just new to jumpers who weren't on the BASE scene then & don't have access to this stuff. Here's the page from Jump! of the 2-way.

Still looking for a way for Mick to upload all of these early documents from the 1980's. TFOJ is subject to an OK from Nick DG. The others I'll leave to Mick's discretion whether to host. All of this stuff is 20 years old. I can't imagine anyone getting protective about it now...!

2Cats