Re: [mvaugeri] Base jumping database
mvaugeri wrote:
I respect thoughtful dialogue, such as yours. But comments like those from DarkSidedan, PikeyBASE, 460 and epibase don't contribute much knowledge to the topic.
As for my reason for wanting to know, I thought I had answered the question sufficiently, but I guess I hadn't. Bottom line is I'm just curious. I started looking for these locations after I had seen some of the videos from these jump sites. I went to Google Maps and others and found the general locations of the sites. For example, the approximate locations of these sites are:
<sorry, we're not doing that here ~TA>
On Google Maps they have terrain maps showing the elevation gradients and I tried matching the observed elevations in the above areas with the published numbers of the jump sites. For example, Katthammaren is reported to be about 1300 meters and Preikestolen is about 600 meters. On Wikipedia they say the “Troll Wall is the tallest vertical rock face in Europe, 1100 meters from the base to the summit at its tallest.” However, the Katthammaren Wall is 1300 meters, so I think the Wiki statement about the Troll Wall must be out of date or just wrong. Google Maps terrain information shows elevations as high as 1500-1600 meters in the area of the Troll Wall. So naturally, I wanted to know how high the jump site was.
The video from the movie "Adrenaline Rush: The Science of Risk" is great (see
http://www.tubewatcher.tv/198). This was supposed to have been shot at Katthammaren. In the video they talk about a potential record 28 second freefall. This got me interested in how you determine how long it takes a typical skydiver to fall a certain distance. This led me to the so-called "rockdrop" method (see
http://www.offheading.com/tabels.html). There it says it takes about 28 seconds to fall 1300 meters, whereas if you ignore air resistance you'd fall about 3800 meters in the same length of time. Now I'm trying to find the drag coefficient and projected area of a typical skydiver so I can verify by calculation the values given in the above referenced table.
The point is I'm a curious person and I like to learn things. I'll never be a base-jumper - I'm 68 years old - but I admire the people who do the jumping. As for my contribution to this forum, maybe I don’t have anything to offer, but I came here expecting to find people that would have knowledge of the subject, not jerks that don’t have anything better to offer than “he's probably not socially secure”.
Mike
Seems so simple when on paper.
A fall from 2000ft will take approximately 15 seconds if i am to pull my rip cord and open the tarp at 500ft. This of course does not take into account that im tracking like a banshee and decided to wear a skirt today... i wonder how much drag im creating and what formula will help.
I've been doing it all wrong and opening when the ground gets big!
Edit to Add: Thats some nice research so far though. Excuse our earlier posts. Its usually annoying people who come on with "i have no experience, i want to BASE jump, where can i do it"
