Re: [NickDG] tandem base!!!
That's an extremely humorous response Nick.
Or was it serious????
There have been a number of people toying with the idea of BASE tandem money making machines.
My personal thoughts: I've done a couple of BASE tandems with people and a number with a pet dog. As Tom A said, my passenger was an extremely experienced BASE jumper. In fact, one of the best ever. With a lot of preparation and planning, we still did not execute perfect jumps. When exit timing was even slightly out, there was a greater propensity to go head down. If you had an inexperienced person doing this, the chance of line/leg entanglements are high. The momentum and speed on the swing through is much greater with a pair than a single jumper if head down. This will load the risers even more, and if uneven will exaggerate and accelerate off headings and line twists. Have you ever tried kicking out of line twists on a tandem at 300 feet? Neither have I. I've done it at 3000 ft and its still not fun at that height.
Throw in the possibility of water landings whilst wrapped in lines and having a passenger suffering sensory overload and it becomes real fun. There is a higher chance of concussion both during opening and landing, especially on lower bridge jumps where the canopy may not have enough time to transition from deployment to surge created by brake release to flare on landing.
Are BASE tandem sausage factories possible? Of course. But many things need to be managed & considered & overcome prior to progressing to the mass market.
Your SOP's must be very detailed and your instructors trained extremely well. Every detail from exit timing, equipment maintenance and stress testing (due to water landings), customer screening, instructor training & development, etc.
You would also have to modify the deployment sequence, include a back up plan for situations like line entanglements, etc.
What about doing these over land instead of water? I am sure that if someone set up a successful BASE tandem operation over water, someone would like to do the same where there is no water. Can I hear an ouch from the tandem master? How often do you get a tandem passenger who takes several minutes to respond to your instructions? How often does it take your passenger to change from the I can't lift my legs stage to actually lifting the legs? Lucky you have 4000ft to achieve this. Imagine trying this from 400ft. What about sensory overload lasting tens of seconds? OK from 10000ft but not so good from 1000ft! Are side spins with zero exit speed possible?
There is also the issue of quality assurance systems. Government departments would need some higher level guarantees that this activity would be relatively safe and that an independant body would exist that could audit the activity. One major accident and its outlawed. This usually means an umbrella organisation
Liability in places like the USA and Australia is also a huge issue. Lucky the Kiwis aren't a bunch of prudes like us Aussies and the Yanks. They have much more relaxed liability laws!!!
My personal opinion, BASE tandems are more hassle than they are worth. It would be easier to do BASE solo's over water. Maybe I'll change my mind. Good luck to those that give it a go.
