B.A.S.E knowledge

BASE jumping is a sport involving the use of a parachute to jump from fixed objects. "BASE" is an acronym that stands for the four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump:

• Building
• Antenna (an uninhabited tower such as an aerial mast)
• Span (a bridge or arch)
• Earth (a cliff or other natural formation)You might be reading this because you are considering to get into BASE. Before you do anything else, make sure you understand what BASE is. Most BASE videos and images make the sport seem easy and fun. A nice parade of jumps performed by graceful athletes, backed up by a pumping soundtrack and sunny weather. How hard can it be? Right?

  Wrong

  

  BASE can be a great sport and incredibly rewarding. It can also be your greatest nightmare. Obviously, you can die doing it. http://www.basefatalitylist.com/ Read the BASE fatality list,

  read it again, and keep read

  ing it. Still want to BASE jump? It gets worse; the dangers and drawbacks of BASE extend far beyo

  nd your own death.

  What if you get injured and find yourself in a hospital bed for six months? Or even

  worse, you might end up in a wheelchair, unable to walk ever again. You will make friends in the sport, and then you will lose them; the people you love might die on their next jump.

  Then there are the minor annoyances. Are you ready to lose sleep to make night jumps? You will be at work the next day, overdosing on caffeine to stay awake. Have you considered what will happen when you get arrested on a less-than-legal j

  ump? You could end up in jail, be forced to show up in court, pay hefty fines, have a permanent record, and be unable to enter certain countries for a long time.

  How are you going to deal

  with being forced to climb down for the tenth time because security showed up, the winds got worse, or something just didn’t feel right? Can you deal with disappointments?

  Do you have the money to spend on BASE? Unlike skydiving, you don’t have to pay for plane rides up. Nonetheless, most jumpers agree that BASE is more expensive than skydiving.

  Last, but not lea

  st; are you ready to handle the confusion and misunderstanding from the non-jumping people around you? While a few may understand and support you, there is a good chance that some your friends and family-members will be disappointed, upset or even get angry with you for being selfish.

  Right

  Given the abo

  ve, why would anybody consider BASE jumping? That’s a great question. Only you

  can find the answer. But when you do, don’t stop asking the question. Even the most experienced jumpers still wonder from time to time what drives them to go over the edge.

  There are as many different reasons to get into BASE as there are jumpers. Some do it for the adrenaline rush, others for the serenity at an exit point. Some are in BASE for boogies and meeting other great people, while others prefer solo jumps. Some get video of every jump and brag to anybody they ca

  n find, others keep their BASE career a secret for all but their closest friends. Some do it because they want to fly like a bird, while others enjoy plummeting towards the earth like a brick. Some do it for the adventure, some do it to scare themselves, some do it for the sake of mankind, and some just do it because it is a lot of fun.

  What is important is that you try to under stand what

  BASE is and that you continue to refine this definition through your jumping career.

  Understa

  nding

  

• The fact that you are reading this blog is a good first step, but there is lots more to read, discuss and th ink about. Some argue that you won’t truly understand BASE until you’ve gone over the edge.
  

• The edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who know wher

  e it is are those that have g

  one over.

  Fortunately, there are many things you can do to figure out if BASE is what you are looking for. First of all, make sure you understand the dangers and emotional impact BASE can have.

  • Consider some of the scenarios above; is BASE worth dying for? Is it worth getting injured for? Are you ready to get arrested, ready to fall asleep at work, ready to hike down for the tenth time?
  • Are you willing to make great new friends, and then see them die?
  • Analyze the risks of the sport. BASE is a dangerous game with very little room for error. It is a near certainty that you will injure yourself at some point, and not unlikely that you might die.
  • Read the BASE fatality list carefully.
  • Read some of the Storiesespecially the incident reports.
  • Talk to your friends and family. Mentioning BASE to them before you even start will help you gauge how they are going to react once you actually do it. Since their reaction won’t be as strong when you’re just considering it, it will allow for better discussions.

  Then, consider more practical things that can help you understand what BASE can be.

  • Read this entire website. There is a ton of information here that will help you fig ure out what BASE is.
  • Check out all the other resources. Beyond this website there is a ton of information that will help you learn more about BASE without actually doing it.
  • Participate in the forums and ask your questions. Most BASE jumpe rs there enjoy answering questions, as long as you show you have done your research first by looking at available resources.
  • Skydive to get the necessary canopy and gear experience, as well find out if you are ca pable of dealing with high-stress situations.
  • Be groudcrew for other BASE jumpers.
  • Do something else like mountaineering, climbing, rigging, platform diving, and so forth. The cross-overs will prepare you for BASE, but also teac h you more about what BASE is about.

  Giving Back

  
  

  

  Another thing to co

  nsider before you get into BASE is what you can do to help BASE be a great sport. Our sport is rewarding because of the people that put in a lot of time and effort to make it so. Think of the people that offer first jump courses, the people that organize events, the people that open up new objects and share them, the people that mentor new jumpers, the people that write about BASE and share their k

  nowledge, and all the BASE jumpers worldwide that always offer a place to stay to any visiting BASE jumper from anywhere in the

  world.

  This sport is only as great as the people in it. The last thirty years have been incredible. The future can be just as bright if

  not better! Be creative, participate

  and give back.

  BASE jumping is not for everyone. Give yourself a long hard, look, and decide if BASE really fits you. It’s virtually impossible to objectively evaluate yourself, so it might be helpful to have a (close and tactful) friend help you with this step.

  Does BASE jumping fit your physical abilities? BASE is not really about personal fitness (although it helps) or athleticism (which only comes into play in advanced sub-disciplines). In BASE, the important physical abilities are reaction time, coordination and balance. Evaluate yours.

  It may be helpful to ask some of the following questions: If you are sitting at a desk, and knock a pencil off, do you pick it up off the ground, or did you catch it in mid-air? When you spill a bottle of beer, do you have to get up and get a new one, or do you right it before you’ve lost most of it? Are you clumsy at all, or are you constantly sure-footed and graceful? H

  ow comfortable a

  re you with heights?

  Does BASE jumping fit your mindset? The best BASE jumpers are organized to the

  point of anal retentive. They also have an intellectual curiosity about almost everything. Have you ever wondered how the reserve system on a skydiving rig works? How many times did you trust your life to it before you started wondering? Are you always trying to find a pull-up cord to close, or do other people ask you for them?

  Do you make correct decisions in pressure situations? BASE jumpers need to react quickly, and correctly, in life threatening situations. Have you ever been confronted with an oncoming car in your lane? How did you react? Did you have to think about it, or did it just happen for you?

  BASE will best fit

  a person who is intellectually curious, has good reactions, responds quickly and correctly (without having to think during the emergency), has excellent coordination and is highly organized and detail oriented. You can definitely still be a BASE jumper who has trouble with one or two of these things, but if you are weak in most of these areas, BASE is not a good sport to take up.

Incident Planning

If you B

ASE jump long enough, there will come a time you witness an incident. The key to succesful risk management is having a plan in place for any risk that can materialize.

Such a plan can be as simple as “we’ll improvize”, which is a good idea for the risk of being struck by a meteorite. However, it is an absolute necessity to have a plan for what happens when somebody injures himself or worse; dies.

Even more importantly, it is recommended you discuss this plan wit

h every jumper on the load before you make a jump. At the very least, make sure they know what to do when you get injured to the point of being unable to speak.

When this incident occurs on a less-than-legal jump, things get even trickier.

Of all things you can do to prepare for BASE, skydiving can be the time best spent. However, make sure you focus on the right things. Being great at freeflying and swooping won’t hurt your BASE performance, but there are other things you could be doing that will prepare you much better.

If you don’t already skydive, put BASE out of your mind for a while and stick to being a skydiver. Go thro

ugh your AFF, PFF, static-line

progression or whatever it is called and do what your instructor and jump-master recommend. This will not only be safer, it will also make you familiar with some of the vocabulary that the rest of this website contains.

Number of Skydives

The debate on how many skydives a person

needs before he can get into BASE is a recurring and heated one. The problem is that BASE is a complicated sport with a broad range of required techniques. Its preparation can’t be captured in a specific number of skydives. Those that try are bound to be corrected quickly with some random number that will be wrong in the eyes of a third group of people.

Since it is such a popular discussion however, BASE wiki has dedicated an entire page to it. It provides an easy answer, followed by a more difficult and more useful answer. You decide:

How many skydives do I need?

BASE Is Not Skydiving

While skydiving is great preparation for BASE, it is very different too. BASE introduces a large nu

mber of risks that skydivers simply don’t have to worry about. Tom Begic has written this article explaining the differences.

Skydiving Exercises

Wait until you have your A-license or at least thirty jumps before considering to try the drills listed below. Even better, postpone it for a while and go have fun in other skydivi

ng disciplines like fr

eeflying or relative work. Skydiving is a great sport. Don’t miss out on the fun just so you can rush into BASE.

Remember that BASE isn’t going anywhere.

Always ask around before attempting any of the drills below. Talk to your instructor, jump-master, and other jumpers at the dropzone. Not everybody will always agree with you, but at the very least you should be able to form an educated opinion on whether or not you are ready for the drills below. Learning to form such opinions is an important skill that you’ll need for BASE.

Canopy Choice

Ideally, your skydiving should happen on a similar canopy to the one you intend to use in BAS

E. From ideal scenario to not ideal but possible, the following canopies can be used:

1. The very BASE canopy you intend to use for your own BASE jumps.
2. An old used BASE canopy, probably unvented.
3. A canopy relative work (CRW) or accuracy seven cell canopy.
4. A b ig student nine cell, possibly rented at your dropzone.
5. Your own canopy, as long as it’s not a heavily loaded crossbraced swoop canopy.
6. BASE WIKI has a special on page on skydiving a BASE canopy.

In Freefall

Great freefall skills ar

e not crucial to being a succesful BASE jumper. They don’t hurt, but all BASE jumps start in dead air. All the skills you use to move your body at terminal speed won’t help when you’re falling at subterminal speeds. In fact, sometimes they can be counter productive.

This is why platform diving is a great addition to your path into BASE, because it teaches you body awareness and stability control in dead air.

That said, there is one important skill that can be practiced during freefall, namely tracking. Given that the biggest enemy in BASE is the object behind you, it makes s

ense to find ways to get as far away from it as possible. The first few seconds, only a strong launch, potentially helped by a running exit, is going to help you gain distance from the object. At some point, your body will meet air resistance, and it’ll become possible to leverage this to track away from the object. It is this latter

part that you can succesfully practice on your skydives.

Talk to experienced skydivers and your instructor to learn how to track. Then do tracking-dives where you leave the plane at high altitude and do nothing but tracking for the entire duration of the jump. Experiment with your body position and see how it affects your speed. Look at the ground to gain a sense of speed or, even better, do tracking dives with a coach or a friend and use the relative speed of the other person to judge your tracking skills.

In BASE there are diffe

rent schools of thought as to what body position is best for tracking. Furthermore, the transition from dead-air to a terminal track introduces new challenges. Being able to track away as early as possible in the jump is what can give you the extra distance you’ll need to turn the canopy around in case of an offheading.

BASE specific tracking is discussed in more detail on the tracking page.

On Opening

Analysing a jump from exit to landing, the time in which the canopy comes out of the container and inflates is the most crucial. While the jump isn’t over until you land (and get away) safely, a succesful opening of the parachute in the direction you want to fly will greatly improve your chances of having a successful jump all to gether. The key importance here is flying in the direction you want to fly. In BASE, that means away from the object.

On your sky

dives, start analysing your openings with a focus on heading. Learning to get consistent onheading openings and learning to correct your heading quickly can someday save your life.

Body Pozition

The first thing to focus on during the opening sequence is your body position. Keep your body level with the horizon throughout the opening sequence, from th

e moment you reach back for your pilotchute to the moment the inflated canopy jerks you upright in the harness.Dropping a shoulder at any point can be the difference between getting an onheading opening

, getting an offheading or even linetwist. The important point is to make sure that both risers get loaded and tensioned at the same time during the deployment sequence. If one riser is loaded before the other, it will initiate a turn in that direction.

Do some skydives where you actually deploy while dropping a shoulder or going unstable to experience what kind of effect it can have. This only tells you something about slider up jumps, but it’s an interesting experiment nonetheless.

Watch Your Heading

During and after your opening sequence, keep an eye on your heading. Find a reference point on the ground or horizon and see if you are flying towards it once you’re under canopy. You can keep track of your heading in your logbook and see if it improves over a number of jumps. Being able to see and feel what your heading is going to be as your canopy inflates is going to help you to deal with quikly as possible

Reach for

Risers or Toggles

Every now and then, for some reason, your heading isn’t quite what you wanted it to be. In BASE, this means you might find yourself flying towards a solid object. It is highly advisable to do s

omething about it. You need to be able to reach for your rear risers to fly backward or do a riser turn, or reach for toggles to do a toggle turn. Quickly, before you hit the object.

The debate on when to use risers or toggles is presented on the page about Offheadings. On your skydives, practice both reaching for risers and toggles as quickly as possible, being careful not to let it affect your stability (which would encourage offheadings).

Some jumpers can be seen reaching back for their risers as soon as they have pitched their pilotchute. Their hands are basically reaching back, waiting for the risers to appear out of the container and slam into their hands. Very good jumpers can sometimes even use riser input while the canopy is still inflating to avoid linetwist or offheadings.

Obviously just holding your risers or toggles isn’t going to help you much. You need to apply input to correct a potentially disastrous situation. This is what you’ll practice under canopy.

Under Canopy

The best skydiving time you can spend preparing for BASE will be under canopy. Try the drills below immediately after opening (to learn how to quickly deal with offheadings) but continue to practice this until you need to start thinking about landing safely.

Never compromise your landing to do more exercises; make sure you leave sufficient altitude to fly a correct landing pattern. Always be aware of the airspace around you and make avoiding other jumpers your first priority.

A good strategy is to get out of the plane last and pull high. This will keep you away from other jumpers, and gives you lots of time to play with your canopy. Discuss your plan with the jump-master and other jumpers on the load.

Stalling

The stall point of your canopy is a crucial characteristic you want to learn. Ideally you are flying the same canopy you intend to use for BASE, but if not it is still important to learn the stall point. There are several different configurations in which you need to find the stall point.

1. After opening, with the brakes still stowed, using rear risers.
2. Using the toggles.
3. Dropping the toggles, using rear risers again.

Play with all three scenarios and notice their differences.

To actually stall, apply so much input on rear risers or toggles that it seems your canopy is going to collapse. This is scary at first, but you’ll learn to go further over time. Stall deeper and deeper until your pilotchute is dangling in front of the canopy instead of behind it. Then slowly let up on the risers or toggles again to recover.

If you feel you’re ready for it, you can try stalling your canopy again and then suddenly letting go of the risers or toggles. This will be even scarier at first but after some heavy buckling of the canopy you will recover normal flight.

You want to learn the stall point of your canopy for two reasons. One is to fly backwards and away from the object when strike is imminent. This is explained below. The other important reason is that you don’t want to stall your canopy when you are close to the ground.

When you do a sudden stall recovery high up in the air, you will notice how violent this is. You want to avoid this when you are about to land, since it could smack you into the ground. When you do a really deep -close to vertical- landing approach, you will be on the verge of stalling. To avoid actually stalling and risking injury, it is important to know where the stall point of your canopy is.

Riser Turns

Once you know how to stall your canopy, it is time to play with riser turns. Obviously you are already familiar with turning with toggles, but it is important to learn how to steer with your risers as well, for two reasons.

1. Immediately after opening, you will be able to reach for your risers much faster than for your toggles. So when time is lacking, you might be better off reaching for risers rather than risking a misgrab of your toggles.
2. On most slider down jumps, you will use the line release mod (LRM). Unfortunately, a drawback of the LRM is that in some rare occasions you might lose a toggle, meaning you will be forced to steer and land using your risers. It is therefore an essential skill.

To learn how to steer with your risers, just play with them. Input on the right rear riser will initiate a turn to the right, the left rear riser to the left. Also try pulling down both rear risers and then letting up on one side. Experiment with your front risers too, which create turns with a different glide angle and turn radius. Finally, practice turns where you pull on both rear and front risers.

Flying Backwards

This was already briefly touched upon when you practiced stalling. If you give enough input on your risers or your toggles and verge on stalling, you will be able to fly backward. Note that the word flying takes on a different meaning here. Compared to the usual forward flight of your canopy, flying backward is really nothing more than gracefully falling in the opposite direction. The canopy stays inflated above your head, but its shape is so deformed that it creates enough drag to take you in the opposite direction.

You’ll never create a lot of horizontal speed flying backwards. Your vertical speed will increase significantly though, and it is not recommended to land a backward flying canopy, not even if it is BASE sized. The only exception is on actual BASE jumps when your choice ends up being between flying backward and stalling it into the ground, or hitting the object and then hitting the ground.

When practicing to fly backward, try applying more or less input on one riser or toggle and learn to turn while flying backwards.

Heading Correction

Having practiced all of the above, you now have the three ingredients to deal with a potential object strike.

1. Being quick on risers or toggles
2. Being able to fly backwards
3. Being able to turn

The next exercise is to combine them all together and simulate quick and responsive heading correction. Practice this whenever you open your parachute, but also after once you’re under canopy.

Again, the topic on whether to use your risers or your toggles for heading correction is discussed when Basejumper talks about offheadings. For now, let’s assume you’re going to use your risers.

Let go of your toggles (or leave them stowed) and drop your risers. Visualize an offheading and then quickly reach up for your rear risers, yank hard on both sides and start flying backward. Then, let up on one side, and turn away. Sometimes you can even reach across to the front-riser too and pull on both front and rear on one side to turn around even faster.

Experiment with different techniques to turn around as quickly as possible, trying to consume as little forward and vertical distance as possible. This is hard to tell on solo skydives, and that is where canopy relative work (CRW) and obstacle avoidance drills off a bridge become useful. They give you relative sense of how much distance you cover and altitude you lose while turning away from the imaginary object.

Flying with One Toggle and One Riser

On slider down BASE jumps you will probably be using the line release mod, which helps you in case of a line over. However, occasionally a premature toggle fire means you will lose your toggle. This means you now have to steer using your rear riser.

You have already practiced steering using both risers, now practice steering using one riser and one toggle. See how the inputs differ from each other. Also practice flying with risers when you have one toggle still stowed, and the other one released. If a toggle release on opening, your canopy will start a turn. On a BASE jump, you want to counter this turn quickly to keep flying straight and away from the object. You will need to provide riser input to do this.

Most people will drop the other toggle too when they accidentally lose one. The advantage is that their steering mechanism is symmetrical again, now using two risers instead of one riser and one toggle. However, if you lose a toggle during opening, you need to be able to correct as quickly as possible, and using riser input is going to be the fastest. Once you are flying straight, you can decide to drop the other toggle or not.

Flat Turns

On BASE jumps you often have to make turns much closer to the ground than any skydiver will recommend you do. When you do a steep turn on a small skydiving canopy, you will swing out from underneath your canopy. At some point you will have to swing back underneath it. If you hit the ground while doing this, you become another low-turn incident, which seems to be the biggest cause of accidents in skydiving.

Fortunately your large and docile BASE canopy, combined with a technique called flat-turning, will allow you to turn close to the ground and still land safely without injury. Practice flat turns with sufficient altitude first. Once you are comfortable with them, you can consider taking them lower. Remember that it is your responsibility to watch for other traffic in the air.

A flat turn is performed by slowly giving equal input on both toggles. Then, by letting one toggle up, you will perform a slow turn in the opposite direction. This turn will consume little altitude, and you will remain close to vertical underneath your parachute. Once you are good at it, you can try initiating a flat turn by giving input on both toggles, but more on one side than on the other.

Landing

Although it is argued that the opening sequence is the most crucial component of a succesful BASE jump, if you fail to land your canopy safely, your jump cannot be called a success.

BASE landings are generally more technical than those you will on most dropzones. You will dodge objects, trees, fences, sometimes even cars, sometimes to fly to a landing area that can be smaller than the square footage of your own canopy.

It is therefore important to work on your landing skills on every skydive.

Accuracy

On every jump, before starting your landing pattern, pick a spot where you are going to land. This does not always have to be the bowl in your dropzone’s landing field. Just pick a safe spot, away from other canopy traffic. Try to land there, and keep track of your landing accuracy over a large number of jumps. Make sure you improve.

It helps if you are jumping a seven-cell canopy, or even better your BASE canopy. It allows you to set up high, and do a steep approach, sinking it and descending nearly vertical.

A general rule of thumb on BASE canopies is that you want to err on the side of being too high. BASE canopies generally have a very steep angle of attack, and when flying close to your stall point you’ll be able to put it almost straight down.

That said, sometimes overshooting a landing area is more dangerous than undershooting. Always take all dangers into account and make backup plans ordering them from safe to less-than-ideal to potentially deadly.

There are plenty of resources on learning accuracy. Talk to your instructor and some of the old-timers on your dropzone. They’ll have great accuracy tips. Within no-time, you’ll be putting your toes on the penny in the center of the bowl

.

Low approaches

In skydiving the landing pattern starts at high altitude, often as high as 1000 feet. In BASE, a lot of jumps are lower than that, which means your flight pattern has to be executed below that as well.

On the ideal object, your landing pattern will be nothing but a direct straight in approach. With an onheading opening, you just fly straight, flare, and land. Unfortunately, obstacles like buildings, trees, cars, etcetera, combined with wind considerations, often means your flight pattern will include some steering. This means you need to be able to fly your canopy close to the ground, without hooking yourself into it.

This is where your flat turn experience comes in handy. Your skydiving course made you aware that turns low to the ground are to be avoided. And indeed, an aggresive turn low to the ground can easily be deadly if you don’t have enough time to plane out the canopy. Flat turns are different however. Make sure you practice them at higher altitude (as described above) and when you get a feel for them, try to take them lower.

Progress to lower and lower altitudes, to the point where you are comfortable doing two full 90 degree turns below 300 feet. That means, flying with the wind, then doing one 90 degree flat turn, flying straight for a bit, and then doing another one, and then bringing it in for landing.

When you start doing this, it becomes especially important you talk to the jumpmaster and your instructors. Make sure that they agree you are ready to do this, and also that everybody on the load is aware of your unusual landing pattern. It is your responsibility to avoid collisions with other canopy pilots.

Steep approaches

As mentioned earlier when talking about accuracy, practice steep approaches. That means setting up as if you are going to overshoot the object, and then going into a deep brake to sink the canopy down close to vertically.

You want to practice this because someday you will find yourself close to a landing area but much higher than ideal. Sinking your canopy down almost vertically will save your life. There is a potential danger; sinking your canopy means you will be hovering close to the stall point. Actually stalling your canopy close to the ground can be dangerous (causing a sudden surge coming out of the stall), so you want to know where your stall point is before you start practicing this. As usual, play under canopy with sufficient altitude, and once you’re comfortable start taking it lower.

PLF

You will have been taught the parachute landing fall (PLF) during your skydiving course. However, as soon as you could land on your feet you probably forgot about the PLF and continued landing on your feet.

In BASE, the need for a well executed PLF comes up much more often. Think about the following scenarios, that in skydiving are much less likely:

1. A night-jump where depth perception is trickier.
2. A secondary landing area that is sloped and full of boulders.
3. The only available landing area forces you to land downwind
.
4. The only available landing area involves a low-turn that even with a flat turn will give you a lot of forward speed on landing.

All of the above scenarios are great candidates for PLF landings. Never be too embarrassed to PLF. Even when all the other jumpers on the load are standing up their landings, don’t be afraid to PLF. Even when your landing pattern is great and you think you can stand it up, PLF anyway. Not only is it good practice for when you do need them, you’ll also be laughing at the guy who did brake his leg because he was too embarrassed to PLF.

Your instructors will teach you how to PLF, so talk to them for more information. Then practice them a number of times on your skydives, possibly combined with one of the other exercises below.

The only BASE WIKI advice is that keeping your feet together at all times gets you halfway through a good PLF. Wearing protection like knee pads and body armour will make a PLF much more comfortable, especially if you are doing one on asphalt.

Rear riser landings

Most short-delay BASE jumping will be done using the line release mod (LRM). Don’t worry about understanding what the LRM is for (although BASE WIKI can tell you, including whether or not to use it on skydives), just remember that the LRM can result in losing one or two toggles, meaning you will have to land on your risers.

Some people prefer to land on one riser and one toggle when they lose one. You can decide to practice this too. Most people however just drop the other toggle as well and decide to land on both rear risers. The symmetry can make landing easier.

Talk to your instructor to learn how to do rear riser landings. The important thing is to err on the side of not flaring at all. Most people that have never tried a rear riser landing and are suddenly forced to do one, apply the same strategy they use for toggle flares. They pull down hard, causing the canopy to stall ten feet above the ground, dropping them down on the ground hard. Instead, pull down lightly on the risers creating more glide. When in doubt; PLF.

Down- and Crosswind Landings

Most BASE jumps happen in low-wind conditions. Nonetheles, even in low (4 kmh, 3 mph) winds, a downwind landing can give you more speed than you are used to. It is therefore recommended to do several downwind and crosswind landings so you can get comfortable with them. Start in minimal winds and slowly work your way up to stronger wind scenarios. Don’t do sudden turns low to the ground if the extra speed surprises you. Instead, use your PLF skills to save yourself.

Make sure everybody on the load is aware of your plans and prefer to land after everybody else has landed. The last thing a canopy pilot wants to see on landing is you coming from the other direction.

Flare Turns

Sometimes you will find yourself having to land amidst a turn. You try to avoid this in BASE by jumping easier sites or having a better flight plan, but one never knows what can happen and therefore it is useful to practice these type of landings on your skydives.

Fly in straight, and then simply flare slightly more on one toggle than on the other. Start of gently, maybe banking in only five degrees on landing. The more comfortable you get, the bigger the turn you can make. Good canopy pilots can turn as much as 45 degrees during their flare. When in doubt; PLF.

Malfunctions

Some people wonder why one would practice malfunctions. It just puts the jumper in a potentially dangerous situation without a reason. The key-word here is potential. A malfunction doesn’t become a problem until the jumper is unable to do something about it.

It is therefore highly recommended to practice some easily solvable malfunctions in a forgiving environment, such that when they do occur in high stress situations, you will be better equipped to deal with them.

That said, make sure you have many skydives. The canopy should be an extension of your body and you should have sufficient gear knowledge to analyse the potential consequences. Always talk to your DZO, instructor and jump master about your intentions.

Check the problems section of this website for more information on different BASE malfunctions. Some ha

ve information on how to best practice them on skydives. The following easily solvable problems are fun to play with on a skydive:

1. Premature Brake R elease
2. Line Twist

A line-over is another malfunction that can be practiced. Few people recommend doing this but for the sake of completeness it deserves to be mentioned. Only do this with sufficient skydiving experience, on a large docile BASE canopy, with a r

eserve you trust, with line-release toggles (WLO) or the LRM and always carry a hookknife. Alternatively, consider practicing a line-over at the PotatoBridge or a similarly forgiving site. See the line-over page for recommendations on how to safely do this.

CRW

CRW (Canopy Relative Work, sometimes called Canopy Formation Skydiving) can be valuable prep

aration for BASE. CRW develops an in-depth understanding of a 7-cell parachute, from both rigging and flying standpoints, both of which are important in BASE. The average jumper will spend perhaps seven to ten minutes, on a CRW jump, under a canopy which is similar in many respects to a BASE canopy — certainly better preparation than one minute or less unde

r a highly-loaded elliptical canopy.

Additionally, CRW — particularly at a competition level — demands consistent, on-heading openings in which the jumper is active, and immediate control of the canopy after it is opened.

If you want to get the most out of your CRW jumps, find yourself an experienced coach. M

astery of all of the controls (front risers, rear risers, toggles, and harness steering) on a ram-air canopy requires time and effort, but can pay big dividends in the demanding environment of BASE.

Balloon and H

elicopter Jumps

As mentioned earlier, BASE jumps start in dead air and skydiving won’t give you the environment to practice these type of exits in. It is therefore recommended you get into platform diving or gymnastics. Nonetheless, when you get the chance to do balloon or helicopter jumps, do some. Especially balloon jumps are ve

ry similar to BASE exits, except you won’t risk object strike. Helicopter jumps are a little different because of the prop-blast, but they can still be quite a useful experience.

At least one major manufacturer used a balloon to drop its first jump course students. They have now switched to using the Potato bridge but balloons continue to be great experience to practice dead air exits and transitions to subterminal and ter

minal.

See the section on exits for more information.

Night Jumps

While your first B

ASE jumps will happen in broad daylight, there will come a time you find yourself at the edge in the dark. If you have previous experience landing in the dark, you will have more time to enjoy the jump without worrying too much about what landing in the dark is like.

The big problems with landing in the dark are depth perception (it’s harder to judge when the start the flare) and obstacle avoidance; cars, trees and most importantly power-li

nes are much harder to see.

It is highly recommended to do several night skydives, to get more experience with what flying and landing in the dark is like. When in doubt; PLF. In fact, Basejumper highly recommends a PLF for your first few night BASE jumps, even when you think you can stand them up. Remember, doing a PLF is always less

embarrassing than fracturing your femur.

Canopy Control Courses

Many drop

zones invite famous canopy pilots and organize canopy control courses. Most of these are aimed towards people with an intention of getting into swooping. Nonethe

less, taking one of these courses is highly recommended as there are many things to learn from such experienced canopy pilots. They probably don’t visit your dropzone every day, so take the opportunity to ask away!

Become a Canopy Expert

There are many mor

e resources on canopy control out there. Learn about CRW, accuracy and general canopy steering characteristics. Try to fly many different canopies so you can compare them and have broader experience. Consolidated Rigging has

an article on skydiving exercises for BASE (PDF). Dropzone.com has several articles on canopy control. While not targeted to BASE, they contain a wealth of information that will help you in your BASE career too.

Legal or not?

This question cannot be answered in one sentence. Not every BASE jump is illegal, and not every

BASE jump is done with permission. Both are done daily, somewhere around the world. The situation differs from country to country. Jumps from cliffs might be tolerated somewhere, but you will perhaps never get permission to jump from a bridge there, due to different reasons (mostly questions of insurance). In some countries, BASE jumping falls under the jurisdiction of the same regional body that governs skydiving, while in other countries, low altitude

jumpers are not administrated by any “official” organisation. Therefore, BASE jumping is not illegal in and of itself. In most countries, you will need permission from the owner of an object from which you want to leap, as well as permission from the owner of the area where you will land. Usually, they require an insurance from you, which covers their costs or costs of a third

party that might be involved in any way. Each country has its own system of av

iation laws and insurance rules, therefore it is very hard to define an overall answer.

If you intend to do a less-than-legal-jump, you should think twice about what could happen. For example, trespassing in some states of the US is a very dangerous thing, someti

mes more dangerous than jumping a fixed object. In the event that you get injured, or you damage something, an unpermitted jump could cost you a lot more than you can probably afford. Usually, insurances only cover costs from official activities.

BASE jumping is a highly dangerous sport that can easily injure and kill participants. Think long and hard before making a BASE jump. We do not recommend BASE jumpi

ng to anybody. You, and you alone, are responsible for your safety.

Always seek proper training and mentoring before attempting any sort of BASE jumping. Wherever you jump; take only pictures, leave only footprints.

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