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 a…
> died from flying too close to terrain Is that a euphemism for crashing into the ground?
Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)
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Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Why is it not banned?
Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it not banned?
Why isn't climbing mount everest (an activity of similar lethal consequences) banned?
Twice in one week without supplemental oxygen:
http://www.kilianjornet.cat/en/blog/kilian-jornet-summits-ev...
Anyway, it's a good economic resource for those countries.
Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)
#64I 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 tou…
Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Why is it not banned?
Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)
#66Proximity 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 a…
> died from flying too close to terrain Is that a euphemism for crashing into the ground?
Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)
#67> 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
Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it not banned?
Why should it be? It's not like poeple don't understand the risk - especially by the time they get to the point where they can actually do it. What about all the other 'extreme' sports where death and/or serious injury is a possible outcome?
Because someone one has to clean up the mess. And it wastes the coroners time.
I'm not saying I agree that it should be banned, but those seem like two obvious angles.
Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)
#69>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.
Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)
#70I'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 e…
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 kn…
> 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...
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.