Stunts; pissing on our sport to make money.

Evel Knievel's jumps(?) were really a side effect on the sport of motorcycling, just as my jumps were a side effect of skydiving. I never bothered worrying about what anyone ( MOT or FAA or ANYONE ) would say, think, or react. I did what I wanted, and if someone was paying me for it, so much the better.

I did both chuteless jumps on my own, with no sales planned. If we made some money on it, GREAT, but we didnt make much ....so far, and I don't really see a change in that coming in the future.

However, if someone offered to pay me...before doing a stunt ( like the 9 jumps for a Molson Beer Commercial I did ), then I would bend/break/totally disregard any and all rules to get the job done.

The things I did were certainly noticed by the public, and air show organizers, and they reacted by hiring me and the Descenders Parateam for their shows and other special events..

I was paid $1500.00 for a 15 minute TV show interview, and we talked about what was soon to become "BASE Jumping", and CSPA went nuts. However, at their next AGM, they showed the first film on base jumping after throwing me out of their club for only hypothetically talking about it.

They even refuse to recognize my HALO record, which the FAI has certified as the Canadian record even though I was a member in good standing when I made it.
.They went to the bother of writing up a set of "new" records to reflect jumps that aren't really near the height of mine.

I agree with the posting, that said your ability to develop the sport is only limited by your imagination. That is well put, and stunts or any other type of jumping, for money, or for free, is all a part of skydiving...like it or not. Use your imagination and fly your best.

I wasn't referring to anyone in particular when I said some jumpers should "get a life" I was thinking of those who complain for the sake of complaining, and who knock someone for doing something because "THEY" wouldn't do it.

Its a matter of choice, but if you havent tried it...don't knock it.

Whats wrong with the Hell's angels? you ask. Well, they will find out when they get to the real HELL !!

I truly respect people that push the limits, innovate, challenge the sport, break the rules of gravity - but do it for the sport, or do it for themselves, privately or shared within our community. I also respect people who get paid to skydive in airshows, events, or publicity stunts. Heck, I was paid quite well for a commercial I did too.

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However, if someone offered to pay me...before doing a stunt ( like the 9 jumps for a Molson Beer Commercial I did ), then I would bend/break/totally disregard any and all rules to get the job done.

That is where we disagree and I fundamentally differ from your views.

This sounds like the same greedy attitude than caused Enron to crash - a CEO who was willing to totally disregard any and all rules for a paycheck. CEOs of companies, from Martha Stewart to Joseph Nacchio have gone to jail because their self centered profit motive has endangered other's people ability to live their financial or personal lives they hoped for.

If you truly believe, and live by your words:

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However, if someone offered to pay me...before doing a stunt ... then I would bend/break/totally disregard any and all rules to get the job done.

Then I fundamentally have little respect for your attitude, because if enough people adopted your attitude, the FAA would have to push down more regulation and enforcement on me, and your actions would directly effect my life. A rouge individual like you likely will do me no harm. A community of people with your attitude will.

I know you don't exist for my respect, and you are probably going to tell me to shove off. Oh well. I just hope the future of skydiving and BASE jumping is not ruined by a profit motive, and based upon the many PMs I have received from some of the most well known skydivers in our community, I am not alone.

Again, my argument is not about getting paid. My argument is about publicly showing everyone a blatant disregard for the few government (not USPA or CSPA) regulations that do exist - for the sake of a paycheck.

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Oh well. I just hope the future of skydiving and BASE jumping is not ruined by a profit motive, and based upon the many PMs I have received from some of the most well known skydivers in our community, I am not alone.

Hoping so is one thing. Actually occurring is entirely another. A well-known energy drink company sent an email just a few weeks ago wanting to inquire about filming certain types of BASE stunts. I was very happy to send them off to another photographer. Not only am I not a BASE jumper (does a bridge jump make me a BASE jumper?) , but the concept of shooting a BASE jump a commercially-motivated jump seems to be diametric to the BASE community.
But...Travis' jump was for the benefit of a film. I don't know how/if he truly ignored the permitting process or not. If so, it's not just bad for skydiving, but for the film industry as well.

I do not agree it was for greed. I made my living doing what I had to do to get the job done. If I had to go beyonf what the MOT would allow, I wouldn't hesitate, because it paid my bills and fed my kids.

Not once did I ever receive fallout from anything I did....unless you want to call CSPA's dumb reaction "fallout".

If they had any smarts, they could have milked what I did to their own favour, but being a vindictive organization, they handled everything badly. The Media recognized what they were trying to doing to me, and often members of the Press called me to feed the fued CSPA started.

It was all publicity, and it brought me and the Descenders Parateam into the forefront of the general public, and that meant more shows, and more bills paid.

Regards

Bill Cole

Methinks you have the wrong person here. You're quoting or addressing someone else's. Right until you get to the Hell's Angels part. That's about the only part that was in my last post. Go ahead, don't take my word for it, re-read them.

Uhh...Does anyone here know who Travis Pastrana is? Someone needs to look him up on wikipedia. He is a pro at everything he does. The stunt was for his own film and paid for by his sponsers...This guy is a professional.

I swear...whine whine whine is right...

Professional what?

We recently proved that being good at one thing does not immediately make you good at another.

Rather than make two posts, I tried to merge them into one. Sorry for the confusion.

Bill

I don't understand all that fuss. I only can say: Congratulations, Travis. I agree to what Bill Cole wrote since we are the only people in the world who know what it means to exit a flying aircraft without wearing a parachute. When I did it in 2006 there were similar reactions on the net from all those people who never would dare to do it.

Nobody could ever prove that such stunts are bad for the sport. I maintain the contrary: without them the public would much less be interested in skydiving at all although stunts are only a side-line and have nothing to do with skydiving as a sport.

If you want to see pics/vid of my jump just visit us at www.cirocom.de or www.xx-stunts.de.

Andi Dachtler

I don't know, I think we need to hunt down this Truman ass-hat and smack him in the mouth for making skydivers look like a bunch of skydiving hippies!
~El Josh AKA Ruby

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I don't know, I think we need to hunt down this Truman ass-hat and smack him in the mouth for making skydivers look like a bunch of skydiving hippies!
~El Josh AKA Ruby

He's easy enough to find...he posts here under the name "ZING"!!!

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Professional what?

We recently proved that being good at one thing does not immediately make you good at another.

Travis is a professional stunt man. Amongst his many talents, he's a skydiver with over 250 skydives under a parachute. He learned to skydive at Skydive Utah, and trained there for his famous motorcycle jump from the Hell Hole Bend portion of the eastern Grand Canyon. Having seen him in the air (with a rig on) the kid is a talented skydiver. It's not like he woke up one morning and decided to jump chuteless; he's been skydiving for five years. His ESPN book talks about skydiving as well, and the book was finished at least a year ago.
Given the "why" he did it, (unless he violated a ruling by the FAA after he told them what he was going to do), I don't see the problem with it.

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I don't know, I think we need to hunt down this Truman ass-hat and smack him in the mouth for making skydivers look like a bunch of skydiving hippies!
~El Josh AKA Ruby

He's easy enough to find...he posts here under the name "ZING"!!!

LOL read about that yesterday

Uhhhh ... did I miss something here?

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Uhhhh ... did I miss something here?

LOL So how was it when you were on Fandango?
~El Josh AKA Ruby

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Uhhhh ... did I miss something here?

Naa...just seein' if ya payin' attention!

Okay man ... just keeping me posted!

Most non jumping public 90% just think your a retard dumbass and stupid for doing it (jumping) with a chute let alone without a chute and having one handed to you. Stunts like this do very little to improve the image of the sport, in fact it helps to feed the idea that people who jumpout of an aircraft are stupid death wishing morons who deserve to die when the chute don't open & the only reason a lot of people would tune in to a live TV show, would be to hope to see you go splat and then they would be disapointed if you don't.

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Professional what?

We recently proved that being good at one thing does not immediately make you good at another.

Travis is a professional stunt man. Amongst his many talents, he's a skydiver with over 250 skydives under a parachute. He learned to skydive at Skydive Utah, and trained there for his famous motorcycle jump from the Hell Hole Bend portion of the eastern Grand Canyon. Having seen him in the air (with a rig on) the kid is a talented skydiver. It's not like he woke up one morning and decided to jump chuteless; he's been skydiving for five years. His ESPN book talks about skydiving as well, and the book was finished at least a year ago.
Given the "why" he did it, (unless he violated a ruling by the FAA after he told them what he was going to do), I don't see the problem with it.

Don't know Travis personaly and can't comment on his skills, but he is setting a pretty poor example for other skydivers.

250 jumps pretty much prepares you for squat these days.

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250 jumps pretty much prepares you for squat these days.

250 jumps/over 5 years = novice

for most of us

(I don't have an issue with stunts, but quoting those numbers as qualifications is silly)

They weren't posted as "qualifications" but rather to say the guy does jump. He also has 100 plus regular B.A.S.E. jumps, holds virtually every motorcycle record there is, is a paraglider pilot, etc.
He could be as experienced as anyone out there in the air, and some folks would find a reason to piss on him.
His stunts are *very* well planned out, he has a stunt coordinator that works with him to plan how these things go. He may not be able to turn 20 points in a skydive, but he doesn't need to. Can you do a double backflip on a motorcycle? Do you need to be able to do so in order to ride one really fast on a track?
IMO, the -only- way this is seen as negative is if he went against any FAA recommendations, and I'm fairly convinced he did not. Some see it as a negative for the sport, I don't. It shows skydiving in a positive light, IMO. (young guy, sports star, loved by adrenaline junkies, holds several world records, very articulate on camera, has good things to say about safety and skydiving/high-risk sports).
People pissed all over "Point Break," "Dropzone," and similar movies too, yet these were all good for general skydiving. There will always be those who piss on their turf and get tweaked because someone else flew over it.

That is just what I was think of when I wrote that, it's human nature to watch the on comming train wreak.

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Can you do a double backflip on a motorcycle?

only once

- I didn't want to get into the thread other than a quick note about experience.... But here you go

I didn't even watch any clips or anything because it doesn't appeal to me either way, but if you want to do a stunt, I'd say currency/experience is the responsible way to begin it. So, to me, that part of the "planning" was pretty dumb (much like a newbie with 250 jumps over 5 years carefully "planning" out his first swoops on a velocity). And, yes, I think this is an EXCELLENT analogy - especially with the arguments now being presented by the supporters.

I'm sure the rest was thought through and analized and so forth to his credit. When I saw the topic, I had incorrectly assumed this was an experienced jumper, not a low jump/low currency quasi-jumper.

I also don't think it's a negative for the sport - any press is good press - sometimes not immediately, but long term

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

I'll try and explain again.
To my knowledge, Travis didn't begin planning this jump 5 years ago and only did 250 jumps between then and now. I *beleive* he has round 100 jumps in the past year. I don't see that currency matters at all for this jump. I bet a monkey could have been trained to do it within a few jumps.
He's a stuntman. A good one. A guy with a great sense of balance, timing, and physical ability. He also happens to be incredibly intelligent. He has no desire to die that I'm aware of, but rather a desire to live, live large, and get attention doing so. He's a monster on a trampoline, rally car, big trucks, kiteboard, skiis, paraglider, mountain climbing, and motorcycles.
Unlike some in our community, he's unpretentious and friendly as hell. He's a willing teacher.
He'd be the first to tell you he can't freefly or whatever else. He jumped from an aircraft, had to be stable, and wait for someone he trusted to rodeo him and clip his climbing harness to their webbing. From then on, he was a tandem.
I fail to see how currency or lack of it, contributed to this skydive in any way. He jumped with a tandem the week before and had a successful dock (twice) with the student, so he obviously has some skills, whether he has 365 skydives in a year or not.

Google Travis' name. He's incredibly successful, no matter what he's doing. And has been so since he was about 8 years old (he was world freestyle champion at age 14). He's a professional athlete that pushes the envelope, and does so with as much (if not more) consideration and training than some of the people revered within our community.
Some folks just -HAFTA- piss on success when it's not theirs.