Hi folks. After reading the confusion surrounding what qualifies as a building, I thought I needed to clear up a few things. First, poor Scott R was taking some heat about his cylinder jump, but on a seperate forum (Official BASE Numbers) he did say it was occupied by people with phones ringing etc. which makes it pretty close, but not close enough. There are grey areas here, but before Joy and I will issue an official BASE number, the building must be clear. Incidentally, we do try to fit all objects into one of the 4 if we can. There is no catagory for "OTHER" as far as Official numbers go. For example, a smoke stack that comes out of the center of a building like a power plant can be a building if the opening altitude puts you next to the side of the building and not the stack. Otherwise it is a tower. A dam qualifies as a cliff (earth) jump due to the obvious similarities. Things that define most of our BASE jumps usually have to do with the physical hazards unique to each type of object. Like most towers have wires, but there are free standing towers and they still qualify even though they are safer. Buildings usually have some square corners known to cause reverse eddies on the downwind side, but a round building like Library Tower is still a buildiing. Unoccupied buildings still qualify. The neat thing about buildings are the unusual psychological factors surrounding the urban setting, all that concrete, visible stripes in the road, cars, powerlines, police, etc. They really make normal buildings one of the scariest of BASE jumps. There is just something about being on top of a skyscraper (as we old timers called them because we always looked for the tall ones). No object conjures up the complex fears and even though there are all of the physical fear factors, at the second of exit, most of us are only thinking about a good exit and staying away from the building on opening. We'll deal with landing later. In fairness, not all buildings will have all of the factors present. A legal building jump removes the chase and police fear, but still qualifies for a B in the BASE sequence. Therefore, if anyone is about to qualify for a BASE number with a building and you are not sure if the object will qualify, please feel free to e-mail me and I'll try to give you a reading in advance. My home e-mail is Cliffleaper@aol.com. My wife Joy who does all of the real work in keeping accurate track of the BASE numbers can be reached at Joyhgc1@aol.com. We also check BASEBOARD every few days. Also, lets all be nice to Scott R because the only thing his cylinder was missing is that it sounds like it was a free standing cylinder rather than one coming out of a building so it is like a stack that would qualify as a tower. I do agree with most of the comments that if you go out and do a real downtown building, you'll know and feel the difference and your BASE number will truly mean more to you. Take Care everyone and remember, pay attention to detail out there!!!
Blue Skies and Soft Walls
Rick Harrison
Director, USBA
BASE 38.
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