
Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016) - curtis
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/features/why-are-so-many-base-jumpers-dying/
======
chrissnell
I had a close call this summer whitewater rafting on the Upper Animas River in
Colorado and it has caused me to re-think every serious risk I take and has
changed me in a big way. I was participating in a multi-day trip run by one of
the local guiding outfits through the Upper section of the river, a much more
difficult and serious undertaking than the Lower Animas, which is frequently
run by average day-tripping tourists. We were on the No Name Rapid [1] and our
boat capsized at the entrance to the rapid. I was stuck below the boat, my
body somehow entangled in rigging, and was dragged underwater for some
distance through a very fierce class V rapid. I was finally able to free
myself enough to get my mouth above water and breathe, close to drowning. I
managed to fully free myself and swam to shore at the first opportunity. When
I made it, I kissed the ground and promised that I would never needlessly risk
my life in the pursuit of adrenaline again. I cried like a baby when I
returned home that evening and held my kids and wife again.

Prior to this trip, I had done many adventurous and dangerous activities: rock
climbing, ice climbing, lots of mountaineering, off-road driving, backcountry
skiing... it really brings it all into perspective when you have a close call.
All of that adrenaline-chasing just seems completely ridiculous to me now.

[1] The No Name Rapid. We capsized at the spot pictured at around 0:04s.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjO37ABQ6mI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjO37ABQ6mI)

~~~
dvcrn
Nowhere near that close for me and a lot more soft, but still one of these “oh
shit” moments was when I decided to go swimming when waves were bigger than
usual due to a coming storm. It was all fun until I realized I wasn’t able to
swim back to the shore to where I can stand. Every time I tried, a wave
knocked me further into the ocean and my leftover stamina kept dropping. I was
freaking out and had no idea how to get out of there.

Luckily the waves went smaller for some time and I was able to swim back to
where I was able to feel the ground and pushed from there.

I knew that in the worst case the coastguard or other swimmers would have
jumped in but still.

~~~
enriquto
It is better to swim parallel to the coast until you find an easier place to
approach. Fighting the currents is exhausting.

~~~
crocal
I confirm. I grew up near the Atlantic Ocean, in an area of high current. It
is something that was taught to us as teenagers.

~~~
emodendroket
I think knowing that and having the presence of mind to do it as you drown are
two different things.

------
cpncrunch
Proximity flying is just inherently dangerous. Even with power, many people
have died. Sparky Imeson, who wrote the "bible" of mountain flying, died from
flying too close to terrain. The strange thing is that he was actually flying
back to somewhere that he had had an accident in the past (the first time he
just got seriously injured, the second time he died). If you look at the
accident location, there is a valley at right-angles to the valley they're
flying up, possibly causing katabatic downdrafts or something similar.

Steve Fossett apparently died flying too close to terrain at high density
altitude with forecast winds possibly resulting in downdrafts.

Both of those people were extremely experienced pilots, but they just cut the
margin for error too low. The main problem seems to be that winds are somewhat
unpredictable, and if you're flying too close to terrain you might not have a
chance to recover if you hit a sudden downdraft. I can't imagine doing this
with a powered aircraft, never mind a wingsuit.

These pilots who died were 100-300ft from terrain, never mind a few feet like
these unpowered wingsuit pilots. If you stall from 100ft you're dead in almost
any type of aircraft as there isn't enough altitude to recover. (I don't know
how many of these wingsuit deaths were caused by stalls. It seems equally
likely that they just misjudged things or a small change in wind just pushed
them into terrain).

There's gotta be safer ways to get an adrenaline rush.

~~~
j_s
> _There 's gotta be safer ways to get an adrenaline rush._

I was suprised to see no mention of VR as a potential alternative anywhere in
the thread. I suppose realism still has a long way to go!

~~~
kbart
I doubt VR will _ever_ replace dangerous sports. You get adrenaline rush
precisely for the fact that you realize it's _dangerous_ with a real potential
of getting killed or wounded and the fact that you get away with it. Sitting
in an armchair with no such potential consequences might get you some thrills
but it's nowhere close to the real adrenaline rush. I don't actively pursuit
this feeling, but driving motorcycle regularly had put me in several close
calls over the years giving an adrenaline rush I realize can not be replicated
in the safer environments.

~~~
mulletbum
This is why I always wish I went into game development. Maybe it can't be the
same thing, but the experience can still be extraordinary. Even playing a game
like Kerbal Space Program makes you feel like an astronaut. I can't imagine
how good virtual reality can get.

~~~
slazaro
But you get the rush from playing those games, not developing them. I mean,
you do get a rush from releasing something you finished and believe in, but
it's not what you're looking for, right?

~~~
mulletbum
Correct, 100% right. However, I like to think of it like a musician. If I
don't like music, I make music I like. So if I wanted an awesome experience
from a game, I could make the game and experience I want. Of course, all that
is harder to do with programming (than music), but you get the drift.

------
AmVess
The most telling fact is that there is no clear bias of experience in these
accidents. This simply means that the method is wrong. For sure, this is a bit
like calling water wet, but people will continue to turn themselves into high
performance lawn darts until they change their approach to safety.

I think a lot of them don't fully appreciate how little room for error there
is. They fly at around 150 MPH which is 220 feet per second. Once someone has
realized there is a problem, they have gone 55 feet. Once their body and
flight suit have reacted to that problem, they could easily be well past
having traveled 300 feet. This is assuming perfection in body and suit. It's
radically easy to blow through 600+ feet before your mid/body/suit can come up
with a survival plan if you are even a little bit panicky.

Quite a few deaths are from impacting terrain. By this I mean in transit
terrain, meaning that they flew into something like the talus or a giant rock
and didn't have enough time to avoid it.

Quite a few more deaths are from inability to deploy the parachute in time.

~~~
TremendousJudge
I think there are a lot of parallels with motor racing here. It was extremely
dangerous on its early days, and didn't get safer when drivers got more
experienced. It got safer when the cars got safer, and we still get deaths
anyway (most recently in F1 the death of Jules Bianchi)

~~~
amygdyl
No.

I have been a serious F1 fan for closing on four decades and I must implore
you and anybody else who might be tempted to discount to present values the
hope that you express, to consider just how far motorsports* the physical
environment and envelope of racing has been altered:.

\- magnesium (not alloy!) monocoque body shells were ruled out.

\- as were countless rare or highly expensive materials that created paper
thin transitions in operation before failure.

\- strict cockpit exit limits are enforced, 5s max to be standing on the
tarmac and already have the steering wheel replaced

\- pit speed limit introduced and lowered

\- cornering radii universally enlarged, both by track design and track
enlargement

\- ditto above because high torque hybrid formula propulsion gives you more
apex profiles

\- driver aides have been a feature of F1 regardless of the rules, at no time
has every assistant device become illegal

\- hundreds billions of dollars in chassis, monocoque and aerodynamic R&D have
been expended since I was born.

\- delta sector split times read out on the steering wheel, feeding the driver
closing dynamics and other indicators alert to track slicks and debris

Those were in no particular order, but all changes to far more than likely
possible with wingsuits and skydiving.

Moreover these changes happened over decades.

That may be too obvious.

Until you next hear a water cooler cringe worthy moment when a proverbial PHB
or sales jock exclaims how everything is enabled nowadays to the ultimate, by
modern technology. We're all susceptible to a little bit of that..

* in my example F1, which suffered a near 30% fatality rate in years around the time of my birth, causing F1 to take a early lead, but it is not the solitary work of F1, the HANS device is a NASCAR R&D product that has saved F1 lives certainly.

(I'm a rare advocate of taking much more of the American culture than would be
popular, as I feel that avoidable accidents have occurred due to overreliance
on the systems and that gut instincts are not on balance a negative in racing,
as you may be inclined to imagine, if you are a American fan visiting your
first F1 weekend. But the culture as a danger is something that F1 had to
address internally, or be outlawed, very early in relative time.)

Edit: phone

~~~
TremendousJudge
So, you're agreeing with me? F1 got safer because the cars got safer, not
because the drivers drive more safely (safety measures were pushed by drivers
though)

------
dghughes
I've seen this mentioned before, it seems to be the main point.

> Most beginners who die appear to be making variations of the exact same
> error, according to Webb. “They jump off a cliff, get flying, and for some
> reason there's just this human reaction to try to hug the air like a big,
> gigantic beach ball,” he explains. “By hugging air you feel as if you're
> creating or catching more lift than you actually are. What ends up happening
> is your suit can only grab so much air, and it starts to stall. When it
> starts to stall, it loses lift, starts to drag, and then, splat.

~~~
jdietrich
A lot of highly experienced jumpers are also dying, probably due to a mix of
complacency, envelope-pushing and the inherent lack of margin for error in
terrain flight. This point is made in the latter part of the article:

> Figuring out why the best are dying confounds, saddens, and even irritates
> just about everyone I’ve spoken to in the wingsuit BASE world. “It’s really
> puzzling to me,” says Rich Webb. “I wish I knew, but I think it has to do
> with complacency.”

> Webb points out that many of the best are dying on flight lines that might
> be considered either “easy” for them, or they’re lines that they’ve done
> before. “It comes down to the fact that they're so comfortable in a stupidly
> high-risk environment,” says Webb. “We just don't have the luxury of margins
> in our sport, so at some point it catches up to you if you're not on it all
> the time.”

> Andy Lewis speculates, “I would say so many experienced wingsuiters are
> dying because they are trying to execute jumps with very low margin for
> error. Eventually when you make a mistake you hope you have room. And now
> low margins are so standard in the sport. It just kills people.”

~~~
j1f4
This reminds me of Freeman Dyson's research on British Bombers during WWII --
the data showed experienced crews didn't fair better than novices, but they
didn't figure out why till after the war.

> Bomber Command told the crews that their chances of survival would increase
> with experience, and the crews believed it. They were told, After you have
> got through the first few operations, things will get better. This idea was
> important for morale at a time when the fraction of crews surviving to the
> end of a 30-­operation tour was only about 25 percent. I subdivided the
> experienced and inexperienced crews on each operation and did the analysis,
> and again, the result was clear. Experience did not reduce loss rates. The
> cause of losses, whatever it was, killed novice and expert crews
> impartially. This result contradicted the official dogma, and the Command
> never accepted it. I blame the ORS, and I blame myself in particular, for
> not taking this result seriously enough. The evidence showed that the main
> cause of losses was an attack that gave experienced crews no chance either
> to escape or to defend themselves. If we had taken the evidence more
> seriously, we might have discovered Schräge Musik in time to respond with
> effective countermeasures.

...

> the German pilots were highly skilled, and they hardly ever got shot down.
> They carried a firing system called Schräge Musik, or “crooked music,” which
> allowed them to fly underneath a bomber and fire guns upward at a 60-degree
> angle. The fighter could see the bomber clearly silhouetted against the
> night sky, while the bomber could not see the fighter. This system
> efficiently destroyed thousands of bombers, and we did not even know that it
> existed. This was the greatest failure of the ORS. We learned about Schräge
> Musik too late to do anything to counter it.

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/406789/a-failure-of-
intel...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/406789/a-failure-of-
intelligence/)

The wingsuit jumpers consider possible dangers to lie with complacency of
experts on easy flights, experts envelope pushing, or novices jumping
unprepared. But these factors are all so contradictory that I'm left wondering
if there is a hidden risk that affects novices and experts alike.

~~~
Dwolb
That's a great story.

My first instinct for where to look to find things that would affect experts
and beginners alike is manufacturing defects or poor suit design.

I'd say also weather but that seems more likely to be highly variable and
prone to skill (i.e. experts know when conditions are poor).

~~~
jacquesm
I would look no further than the basic ingredients of the sport: speed,
gravity, zero margin for error and over a long enough run of events you are
destined for the morgue. This is not a sport, it is suicide in disguise.

~~~
dhimes
One more thing: it's turned into a small industry. Some of the work in it I am
certain is considered to be partly art (I am thinking of the analogy to the
sailing industry in the early years of yachting). I wouldn't rule out a look
to "advances" in suit design where the new engineering has an unforeseen
consequence. Something the advanced guys would jump on board with, but we
don't have enough data yet to determine the failures.

------
itsdevlin
Active BASE jumper and wingsuit pilot here. Instructor of both.

2016 was by far and away our worst year on record. We lost newbies, heros, and
damn near all levels in between. Since then, a few sites have taken a more
locked-down approach where we used to be welcome, and as a community we've
made progress to band together to push education and conservative decision
making over 'dude that was so sketchy.'

A lot of people have brought up the why - why do people do this when they know
it's so dangerous? Well, that's a question that everyone needs to make for
themselves, but for me it's quite simply that it's the only time I've found my
mind to be quiet. It forces me to be present, assess everything in a level of
detail that is unparalleled in any other time in my life, and quiet down every
other distraction.

Also, it's beautiful. Being in the mountains, on top of buildings, out on
bridges, climbing antennae, all with some of your closest friends? It's
incredible. There's absolutely nothing on the planet like that level of
adventure.

With all that said, it's fucking dangerous. I've managed to have a somewhat
clean track record in my two years in the sport, with only two broken bones,
but I have probably 20 of the people on the Base Fatality List still in my
phone, four of whom I'd call great friends. It's fucking awful losing friends
like that, but it's who we are. If they wouldn't have lived a life like this,
would _they_ have been _them_?

A little while back I had the lightning strike closest to my family, when we
lost Ian. Here's his story:

[https://vimeo.com/167054481](https://vimeo.com/167054481)

~~~
wazoox
If you need your mind to be quiet, and to feel present to your life, there are
non-life threatening ways, like mindful meditation and psychoanalysis, or
maybe even working in a charity.

~~~
ProAm
Or just continue to do what he's doing because it works and he likes it.
Everyone gets to choose their own path...

------
NegativeK
Chris McNamara, who's done some incredible climbing feats, gave a take on
getting into wingsuit BASE too fast and managing to get out:
[http://www.chrismcnamara.com/post/120721775716/base-
jumping-...](http://www.chrismcnamara.com/post/120721775716/base-jumping-
death)

------
delhanty
Six hours late on this thread and I can't see anyone calling out GoPro and
friends:

>Five days earlier, the GoPro star Uli Emanuele, 29, died when he crashed in
the Dolomites of his native country, Italy.

Freedom for these people (mostly young men) to die is one thing.

But part of GoPro's profits are knowingly built up by a quasi-suicide cult.

That's not that different from dealing heroin.

~~~
lr
You have to wonder, how many of them would be doing this (or any other "crazy"
thing) if there were no cameras, no YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram Live,
etc.?

~~~
JshWright
I don't know how many people are doing it for the "internet fame" (my gut
instinct is that it's a small percentage), but I'm sure there are many people
who got into the sport in the first place because they watched it on the
internet.

~~~
kogepathic
_> I don't know how many people are doing it for the "internet fame" (my gut
instinct is that it's a small percentage)_

I don't have any numbers, but as with anything else (e.g. Russian dash cams) I
don't feel that the behaviour of people has really changed.

The difference now is everyone has a camera strapped to them, and with social
media it's much easier to hear about someone who died doing X than in previous
decades.

BASE jumping is a dangerous sport. The advent of live streaming and HD cameras
small enough to strap to your helmet and hand haven't changed this, but rather
raised the profile of a failure.

~~~
logfromblammo
People were white-lining with their crotch-rocket motorcycles at 135 mph
before cameras got small enough to mount on their helmets.

They used to just be a page 3 story in the local newspaper. Now their final
rides are re-posted to every "rekt" thread.

Perhaps eventually, enough people will absorb the lesson that doing a
dangerous thing is dangerous, and will stop trying to make the "oh shit"
glands above their kidneys express their "we're about to die" juice.

I have seen enough of those videos that I'm pretty sure that the way I will
die is by my tiny commuter sedan being forcibly disassembled by a heavy
tractor-trailer or large SUV that crosses the center line. Humans are such
fragile things. Why would you intentionally do things that might get your
brains splattered across a rock, when we only have another 40 to 60 years to
go until you can make a backup almost as good as biology provided?

------
Havoc
Well yeah. That's kind like saying more people are dying from Russian
roulette...while Russian roulette is experiencing a surge in popularity.

Do something stupidly dangerous enough & in large numbers and you get rows of
bodybags.

Sounds callous but that is the reality of it.

~~~
NegativeK
That's oversimplifying or discarding the revelation.

People expected wingsuit BASE to become safer with experience; practitioners
didn't expect it to be a toss of the dice no matter what.

~~~
Havoc
>People expected wingsuit BASE to become safer with experience;

And I'm sure safety does improve with experience. They're still rolling the
dice though. Some roll it with better odds than others sure but ultimately:

>On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

~~~
chias
> And I'm sure safety does improve with experience.

The fact that people generally seem to assume it does (but that it actually
_doesn 't_) is the primary thesis of this article:

"What’s more worrying about wingsuit BASE fatalities, though, is that there
appears to be no consistent bias toward experience."

~~~
Havoc
>(but that it actually doesn't) is the primary thesis of this article

Kinda.

It does improve safety in the sense that someone with zero jumps under their
belt is far more likely to die than someone with some experience. That should
be fairly self-evident and the fact that they even list a common beginner
mistake shows this effect.

That quote you've got there to me is trying to communicate that experience
will improve your odds but won't save you from my "on a long enough
timeline..." quote.

The other thing that screw this up is that a noob and an experienced jumper
won't be doing comparable things. So the experienced jumper is safer, but is
also doing substantially more dangerous stuff. Measuring deaths vs experience
doesn't capture that.

------
cvsh
Probably because it's the most dangerous thing you can do short of actually
attempting suicide

~~~
damnfine
Bet its even closer than you think. Nobody I know who does BASE is still
alive. Some quit, others died. Everyone just kind of expects to die doing it.
Blue skies, black death.

~~~
eternalcode
Why is it not banned?

~~~
base698
It is in the land of the free. It's generally not banned in Europe, so most
BASE jumpers who are active spend at least a few weeks a year there.

About 10 to 20 die world wide in about a population of 1000 or so active
jumpers. It can be done relatively safely but the group isn't big enough to
regulate effectively and most BASE jumpers are hostile to anyone mentioning
the idea.

~~~
sundvor
How many would die of other causes, such as .. car crashes.

~~~
Spooky23
Probably a much smaller numbers. Cars are engineered to protect all but the
most reckless and negligent from death.

~~~
Zigurd
Inside the car. Globally about half of road deaths are outside the vehicle.

------
Raphmedia
Even birds and insects make mistakes. They spend most of their lives flying
and still hit trees or windows and die.

You can't expect a big monkey to stick wings on their body and not die at some
point.

------
WalterBright
Flying is not natural for humans. Our instincts are wrong, and our senses
misinform us. This is well known among pilots, and why one has to fly
regularly to keep the license, and why a large part of pilot training focuses
on trusting the instruments rather than your body.

~~~
base698
Pilot training only focuses on instruments during IFR training. Private pilot
and most VFR is done without emphasis on instruments. Aerobatics rely on
senses and no instruments.

Source: Skydiver, BASE jumper, paraglider, aerobatic airplane pilot, private
pilot land and sea.

~~~
WalterBright
> Aerobatics rely on senses and no instruments.

But I bet you check the airspeed and altitude before doing any maneuvers
that'll take you near the ground. I've seen the videos of pilots at airshows
pulling out of a dive and having not quite enough altitude to do it.

Also, stall recovery is well known to be something that runs counter to every
natural instinct a person has.

~~~
loup-vaillant
There's a difference between using one's own senses and using one's own
_instincts_. Stall recovery is easily done with one's own senses (sight,
hearing, and proprioception), even though the correct response is counter-
intuitive.

Looking at the instruments would even be a bad idea when you stall, because
you'd lose time which you could use to save your life.

I even know of a sailplane instructor that turn the instruments _off_ for the
student (not for himself, though), so the student can learn to read his own
sensory information correctly before relying on instruments.

------
crispytx
Wingsuit pilot & programmer here. The reason Wingsuit BASE Jumpers keep dying
is that you shouldn't jump your wingsuit off a @#$%ing mountain. Please stick
to the planes and the helicopters that you're used to.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Its safer than regular base jumping provided you don't try to strafe tree and
hilltops and cliffsides. These jumpers are trying to do ever riskier stunts
all for the clicks.

~~~
c0nducktr
I don't think it's all for the clicks, if it's like any other dangerous
sport/hobby. It's for the rush you get doing it. The feel of being right on
the edge.

It's an addictive feeling, and it can trick you, because you know it's
dangerous but you're always come out of it fine, great even, until you don't.

~~~
benjaminRRR
This is a very good point. Unlike other sports - when you push you can be hurt
badly, but ultimately learn from your mistake, proximity wingsuit is one-
mistake-one-kill.

~~~
ehnto
That's how motorcycle accidents were explained to me. It is perfectly fine
until it isn't, because there is so little room for error that it can only be
fine or a crash.

That was for motorcycles where accidents are survivable and things are much
more in your control.

For low wingsuit flying those last two points are both questionable.

------
lord_jim
Came across this Wikipedia list of wingsuit fatalities:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatalities_due_to_wi...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatalities_due_to_wingsuit_flying)

The past few years is pretty sobering, especially given that most of these
guys were experts and clearly knew their stuff

~~~
personlurking
This one seems a bit more comprehensive [http://base-jumping.eu/base-jumping-
fatality-list/](http://base-jumping.eu/base-jumping-fatality-list/)

------
nkrisc
Reading through I surprised to learn that both novices and veterans of the
sport are dying. I suppose that's just how dangerous it is.

As for myself, while I'm sure these are incredible experiences, there are
other amazing things I can experience in life that aren't nearly as deadly.
I'll stick with those and optimize for total volume of as incredible life
experiences as is possible before I (hopefully) die of natural causes at an
old age. Having a kid on the way changes my perspective as well.

------
siteshwar
Carl Boenish, who is considered father of modern base jumping, died while
performing a base jump next day after marking his name in Guinness World
Records. 'Sunshine Superman'[1] a documentary made on his life and death is
worth watching.

[1]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1322313/?ref_=nv_sr_1](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1322313/?ref_=nv_sr_1)

------
ucaetano
> We’re talking about real, human-powered flight—or, at least as close as
> humanity has ever come to it.

Apparently the author hasn't heard about all the human powered flight
initiatives, including crossing the English Channel:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-
powered_aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-powered_aircraft)

~~~
perilunar
Yeah, not human-powered at all. Gravity powered, like any other glider.

------
honestoHeminway
There are just to many factors you do not controll, especially if you fly
close to terrain.

That tree that was upright yesterday, might have dropped. The birds that where
far away in the morning, might get in your way. The little pond on the way,
that was just mud, is dryed dust today swirling up.

Wind drafts coming and going.

------
levi_n
I plotted the total BASE + wingsuit deaths since inception:
[http://i.imgur.com/BdlUrFK.png](http://i.imgur.com/BdlUrFK.png)

* Note that the BFL has some errors in it's dates, which account for the downward trend in 1993 and 2000

------
emodendroket
> Wingsuiters are striking apple-size targets from a mile away. And they’re
> flying mere inches above, around, and sometimes even through terrain that’s
> barely wider than their own outstretched arms.

Well, seems like they've answered their own question.

------
pzs
Previous discussion on this article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12418937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12418937)

------
coldtea
> _In researching 2016’s dramatic rise in BASE jumping deaths, I was almost
> unable to keep up with the pace with which people were dying._

Perhaps something to do with the increased popularity of social media and
action cameras -- thus attracting a large body of non-seriously committed, in
it for the views, darwin award nominees?

~~~
emodendroket
This is dismissed later in the article.

------
m3kw9
Numbers and percentage can be deceiving. Also another reason if the percentage
is increasing is that there is more of a urge to try to copy what daredevils
do on YouTube, maybe they make it look easy. Or they want to create highlight
videos themselves but highlights are the tricky stuff others haven’t done.

------
DrScump
A friend of mine died on the Stanislaus before New Melones Dam was built (and
not even in a rapid).

------
solidsnack9000
> Wingsuit skydiving has virtually zero fatalities...

Virtually zero or really zero?

~~~
base698
Occasionally a single person will die in a year. As opposed to almost 20
fatalities in a much smaller population of wingsuit BASE jumpers every year.

------
eighthnate
A 2016 article? A dangerous sport that rapidly grew in popularity in recent
years has increases in death? What do you expect?

------
tootie
Extreme sports like this just feel so dumb. Why are you risking your life for
a momentary thrill? You'd get a better rush and be safer taking heroin.

~~~
base698
It's a challenge mentally? Overcome fear see different places, have different
experiences?

I've been skydiving and base jumping longer than I've not been and it's led me
to some of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

~~~
corporateslave2
But those experiences are just self induced near death experiences. It's an
illusion of meaning

~~~
danielharrison
Just like sitting in a chair all your life and eating fast food until you
actually have a real self induced death experience , sans adrenaline.

------
dlevi
A

------
perilunar
\- because they're going too fast when they hit the ground?

\- because their sink rate is too high, and gets worse when they stall?

\- because 3:1 is a lousy glide angle?

\- because their wings are too small?

~~~
drdrey
Regular BASE jumpers perform worse on all these metrics but don't die as much.
All these metrics apply the same to skydiving wingsuit jumpers but they don't
die as much.

The real problem is that flying closer to things leads to more likes.

------
659087
HN attempts to sound authoritative on yet another subject it doesn't
understand. A few people pretend to be skydivers after studying the wikipedia
entry about the sport, but give themselves away through improper terminology.

~~~
base698
I have a three digit BASE number! I'm legit! I swear!

~~~
659087
I was going to add: "...one actual BASE jumper shows up", but was suffering
temporary memory loss after being exposed to the cringeworthy material in the
rest of the thread.

