Skydiving

[Ugly Bastard]

Wingsuits are badass. I tried a training wheels version of one once that was definitely one of my most memorable jumps. They generally want you to have ~200 lifetime jumps (or more) before exiting with a wingsuit. I only did 151 jumps. There are some good YouTube videos of wingsuit BASE jumps that are right up there with coolest things I've ever seen.

Here are some guys skiing off a cliff, ditching the skis, and flying away in a wingsuit.

Wingsuit Base Jumping - YouTube

Wingsuit Base Jumping - YouTube

Here are some more pretty sick wingsuit BASE jumps with guys doing really close fly bys of various structures.

Wingsuit Basejumping - The Need 4 Speed: The Art of Flight - YouTube

Wingsuit Basejumping - The Need 4 Speed: The Art of Flight - YouTube

Skydiving can get really addicting. I definitely think about saying fuck it and getting back into it sometimes. There's a lot of tools in that arena though and plenty of people die every year due to no fault of their own but because some dumbass did something he wasn't supposed to do and got someone killed. In a perfect world, it's something I'd prefer to do every once in a while but unfortunately currency is a major part of safety so it's generally best to be jumping often or not at all.

[Ironic Mustache]

Right after I did it I sort of had the attitude of, "scratch that experience of the list," but I've been thinking about it pretty much nonstop since then. I don't have the money to go all the time anyway, so hopefully this just wears off.

[Ugly Bastard]

I had a stretch of about two years where I dreamed about it literally every night. The rush you get from it is druglike, no doubt.

I just remembered that I had a VHS tape with a bunch of footage from jumps I did converted to DVD a while back. I should figure out how to get that uploaded online somehow.

[Ironic Mustache]

Since I went tandem I'm sure that I missed out on a MAJOR part of it, but the rush was still definitely there. I originally said that I wanted to go skydiving at least once in my life, but now I'm pretty sure that I have to go alone at least once

[Ugly Bastard]

This is how it becomes addicting. There's always some way in which you can take it further. You'll go jump "by yourself" but realize that you had two instructors holding you during freefall like training wheels and someone on a radio telling you how to land your parachute. "What would it be like to jump truly solo and pilot myself without radio assistance?" You'll be wondering the next day. After a while "I wonder what it's like to fly on my head?" or "wow I wonder what it's like to jump out of a hot air balloon?", etc, etc.

The guys on the cutting edge are currently wondering what it would be like to successfully land a wingsuit without deploying a parachute.

[f3lix]

I would be scared out of my mind to get that close to the mountain/road/anything

[Ugly Bastard]

So would anyone else including those guys doing it. Their lives are one tiny fraction of a second of something not going correctly away from being over.

[Ironic Mustache]

I just watched the video of the guy who flies through the waterfall. It looks crazy enough before he starts talking about how in order to be in position for the waterfall he has to be perfect for the entire jump prior to that. So much precision, and death if you fuck it up.

The guys on the cutting edge are currently wondering what it would be like to successfully land a wingsuit without deploying a parachute.

Is this just hyperbole or something that's actually been thrown out there as a possibility? These guys are easily crazy enough to try it.

[Beebs]

I could see how it might be possible, get going basically at a flat trajectory, find a hill, and angle upward as much as possible to scrub speed.

[DJ FC]

You could, in theory, constantly gain altitude and shed it to lose speed.

[Ugly Bastard]

@FC, what is this talk of "gaining altitude"?

@IM, maybe a little hyperbole but there are definitely guys exploring the possibility of doing it.

@everyone, I edited some of my skydiving footage into a 10 minute package last night which is currently uploading to YouTube at a snail's pace (Mexican Internet FTL). I'll share it ITT by day's end.

[vaga1220 *]

Not sure if it's been posted before but it seems appropriate to post it here.

Travis Pastrana Skydives without a Parachute - YouTube

Travis Pastrana Skydives without a Parachute - YouTube

[Ugly Bastard]

Wow that is seriously fucking crazy. Made me uneasy watching him jump out without a rig on. There was a guy that did that in the 80s on accident. Was so preoccupied with making sure his camera was ready to go to video a tandem that he forgot to put his rig on. That incident sparked a policy in the skydiving world that you have to have your rig on before boarding the plane.

[Ugly Bastard]

Alright the YouTube video finished uploading. I included some commentary below. For those of you from the Elkhart region, you may know the "heavy guy" I reference in the commentary. Guy named J.or.dan Mc.Mill.an. (<-- I guess I'd rather him not Google his name and find this).

My Skydiving Footage - YouTube

My Skydiving Footage - YouTube

0:00 - Exiting a balloon at Rantoul, Illinois from my perspective. It's a surreal experience since normally you're exiting to a ton of noise. Leaving a balloon is all quiet until you pick up velocity.

0:19 - A tricky thing about jumping from a balloon is that you're exiting wherever the wind happens to have blown you rather than safely over the airport. It creates an added challenge and element of danger. Here I'm setting up for a landing in an elementary school playground and it wasn't the smoothest landing.

0:56 - My 100th jump. Out of a big Russian helicopter in the air over Rantoul, Illinois. Had to oblige the group in front of me's request to snap a photo of them before they exited. My friend Scott is on video and gets a nice shot of the helicopter when he deploys.

1:40 - What they call a "hop-n-pop" where you exit at low altitude and deploy rather soon after. I did some backflips on the exit.

2:08 - If you look carefully you can see I had line twists on that deployment. That technically falls into the category of a skydiving malfunction but it is generally very benign and happens every so often. You just have to twist your way out of it.

2:50 - A three-way exit that I cut off pretty quickly since the guy on video was pretty heavy and sunk like a stone rendering him unable to keep us in the frame for the rest of the jump.

3:19 - I don't know what this was. I guess a buddy and I decided to have a little fun on the ride up and make a video pretending it was my first jump. Clearly, I'm not a very good actor. I exited in the classic n00b fetal position, a big no-no for proper skydiving form.

3:55 - This was what is known as a "tracking jump". When you put your arms down to your side rather than holding them out in front of you, the change in weight distribution propels you horizontally across the sky. It's as close to flying as a human can get without wearing a wingsuit.

4:27 - Two-way exit again cut off because of heavy cameraman. Seated in the pink shirt is my friend's girlfriend who rode up to altitude with us to watch us exit. That experience alone is pretty hairy since most people have never ridden in a plane so small let alone been 3 inches away from an open door.

5:03 - This was a pretty good jump with me on camera filming the heavy dude. He hesitated on exit but managed to fall fast enough to catch up with me for a dock before we had to break off and deploy.

6:30: - This is me on video filming a tandem jump. What you see at the beginning of the jump was the closest I came to any type of serious catastrophe in skydiving.

7:25 - Tandems deploy very high for safety reasons so the videographer can usually take a long enough delay to keep their deployment in the frame before having to deploy himself. I was pretty proud of the effort for it being the first (and only) time I videoed a tandem; staying with them and keeping everything in frame like that is pretty challenging when you have as little experience as I did. The girl doing the tandem opted not to pay to have it videoed so I was videoing it sans-pressure to just practice. After the dropzone owner saw the footage he was mad at me for giving it to her for free since he said it was high-quality enough that they could have charged her for it.

7:30 - So this is a slo-mo replay of the exit on the tandem jump. What you'll notice happens is that the tandem's "drogue", which is designed to slow down the heavy package to a more sane rate of freefall, hits me on deployment. It was an "oh shit" moment at the time that ended up being no big deal. I just made a bad exit since I wasn't experienced or prepared enough to know how to properly exit a Cessna with a tandem and ended up in a really bad location for the drogue deployment: right above them. Fortunately, I didn't get tangled in the line or panic and collide with them (which can happen when you're right above someone due to the dead air their freefall creates above them). Having a guy with only 100-some jumps video a tandem was a pretty "wild west" move that a bigger dropzone would never in a million years allow. But we had fun in Goshen since it was a pretty small crew and sometimes little liberties got taken here or there.

8:26 - Two-way jump with my friend Keri. Poor girl was always getting hit on by everyone since she was decently cute and more or less the only female around. Interesting side note is that she was raised Amish but decided jumping out of planes was a little more fun than practicing the Amish lifestyle.

9:30 - Keri hits a perfect landing on the gravel pit. I opt for my own shadow instead.

[Ironic Mustache]

Pretty sweet. I got the video from mine but i have yet to upload it and it's also way not as awesome as this. I'll try to get around to it later tonight.

[BigDongedHoe]

I actually have 15 jumps. I made my first tandem at 16 in Zephyr Hills, Florida (where UB went through the AFF program and got his liscense). I made my first solo jump on a static line at 18, I ended up spending my entire graduation money on skydiving. I never got my liscense because I ran out of money and for whatever reason never got back into the sport again. After watching the video UB put up there are times I consider going back into it now that I can afford it. I just can't see myself being a regular skydiver though, the lifestyle is just too crazy. I remember being on UB's second jump or so and I think at the time I was on 4 or 5. Low clouds prevented me from jumping!

UB funny side note Keri turned very conservative again and married a Warsaw guy (Ri.chard Wo.l.fe). She's no longer skydiving.

[vaga1220 *]

Pics of keri plz?

[Ugly Bastard]

Re: Keri, she was never not conservative. Even when jumping out of planes she was like a mouse otherwise.

And yea, editing this footage has had me thinking about what it would be like to get back into it. But as you eluded to, I'm not sure if I'm nuts enough right now for the lifestyle. The actual jumping out of planes part is really special and I miss it. What I don't miss is the sub-culture of burnouts, weirdos, junkies, and poverty. Not sure I could associate with such a toolish element that regularly again.

[BigDongedHoe]

My brother who is a bit of a burnout would be on the highside of the skydiving culture and that's saying a lot.

Unbelieveable how many junkies skydive. My brother has told me stories of guys doing hits of acid and jumping. How many people are jumping drunk at a boogie?

[Ugly Bastard]

Most places generally have a rule where you can't open a drink until after the last load of the day has taken off. But obviously there's no doubt that some people are sneaking alcohol on the side or drank so much the night before that they're still drunk on the morning jumps. I definitely don't miss having my life expectancy being exposed to people like that.

[Beebs]

Now that you're older, I imagine you won't care as much about the subculture. Junkies though? That's funny, can only imagine a guy nodding out as he plummets to the earth.

Jumping on Acid sounds pretty sweet though.

[Ugly Bastard]

On the contrary, I think I care more about the culture now. Back then, I wasn't even really aware of the "types" of people I was around. I was just some dumb kid happy to be doing something exciting on the weekend. Now that I'm a little older and understand the world a little more the idea of falling through the sky with some of the people you'll find at a dropzone doesn't appeal to me.

[BigDongedHoe]

Agree... At 21 or 22 life is a party and being around skydivers fits right in. At 30ish? Notsomuch.

[Beebs]

I see; I guess now that you say that you don't really have a choice, the people are going to be there.

[thekremlin]

You guys are 30ish? That sucks.