I took a rare opportunity to skydive from a paramotor using my base jumping rig!
Most scared I have been in a while, and being scared when base jumping happens a lot haha. Although this isn’t technically a base jump (as I am not jumping from a fixed object), I am still using my base jumping rig, which means it I do not have a reserve parachute like in sky diving. The reason for this is I was jumping from 900ft, so this is waaaaaaay too low for a sky diving system, these systems require a lot more altitude to get the parachute inflated.
Generally I wouldn’t bother with a sky diving rig unless I was at the very least at 3000ft, even then I wouldn’t bother, it would leave you very little time to get a reserve out in the event of a malfunction after a small freefall. If I got 3000ft next time, I would just pack my base jumping rig slider up, so that I could enjoy a longer freefall.
9 cell sky diving canopies are more unpredictable on their openings, and coupled with a sail slider, they take longer to inflate. I trust my 7 cell base canopy as it opens on-heading (the direction I am facing) 99% of the time and opens quickly, thus using less altitude up. Plus base canopies fly slower with less forward speed, and they allow you to ‘sink’ them in, therefore can give you better accuracy in tighter landing areas, provided you know how to fly them properly…
I chose my local beach as a landing area just before sunset, the beach was clear of people and we had plenty of run-off.
West Beach, Littlehampton, UK.
With over 600 skydives and 200 base jumps, I have jumped from various planes, helicopters, objects and a hot air balloon using my base rig, but never had the chance to jump from a paramotor, so naturally I was STOKED and jumped at the opportunity! (sorry about that).
We had a head wind of around 15mph, so the winds were on the limit with the tandem wing, it took quite a while to get to 1000ft. By the time I had got unbuckled and into position we had lost 100ft in height. It was super awkward trying to stand up as the chair is essentially a swing, and I had to use the carabiners that were connected to the risers to pull myself up, this was the scariest point of the jump for sure, just getting into position.
All the time I am trying to wriggle out of the harness, I have to be careful not to dislodge my pilot chute, or disturb my pins.
Here I start unbuckling:
Now I have to get my arms out of the harness to the outside:
These are the carabiners I hold to pull myself up (note arms still in harness, I just wanted to show you the carabiners).
Both arms free, now I try to get my heels onto the chair:
Now I am up, I need to step over the spreader bar:
As you can see, there is very little space for my foot, so I twist it just so I can get my whole foot on there. I was nervous at this point that I could potentially slip otherwise. I'm treading on what I believe is a thin piece of carbon with some material over it, and it moves...proper butt clench at this point.
I get both my feet over and I start to relax a little as if I fall now there is nothing in my way, although I still needed to have the pilot just have a visual check of my pins and pilot chute to make sure I didn't catch them on anything while getting into position.
I took in the scenery for 30 secs or so as it was beautiful with the sunset, and so cool to see my favourite local beach from up here!
I was conscious that we were losing altitude so took my hands off the risers and 3, 2, 1 see ya!
I had to make sure that when I exited the paramotor that I didn't push off, as the platform acts like a swing, so imagine what would happen if you stood on a park swing and did the same thing. I had to kind of step off into the fall.
I reach around to feel my pilot chute, I didn't pull right away but I wanted my hand on it. I was nervous and it made me feel better knowing my hand was where it needed to be.
For any base jumpers reading this that want to know why I was packed slider down, here are the reasons:
- The majority of base jumps I do are slider down or slider off, so this is how I leave my rigs packed.
- We had been out all day on the boats and had little time before the sun went down.
- This was a last minute offer, and felt I couldn't repack and configure for slider up in time before the sun set.
- My slider up friends were all on base trips in Europe so couldn't even borrow one that was packed already.
I was still more than happy to do this jump slider down, but it did mean that I wasn't able to take a long freefall delay. I took 2-3 seconds before deploying.
You can see the pilot swing back also once I jumped and that was without me pushing.
Beautiful on-heading opening even with my known trash pack jobs hehe. I turned 180 into the sun after opening and then turned towards the ocean for a short while before turning back to my pebble runway so I could be in to wind for a nice soft landing.
It's a memorable skydive for sure, I hope I get to do another one, but if not, I'm happy as this went so well. If there is a next time I will pack slider up for sure and enjoy a longer freefall.
Thanks @adrenalinewings for the stoke!
Thanks for reading guys!
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