Back in the day, skydiving was generally considered the most suicidal thing you could do with your clothes on. But since those days times have indeed changed, and things have got even more radical: now there’s a new kid on the block, and his name is BASE jumping…
To the uninitiated, BASE or Bridge, Antennae, spans(bridges), earth(cliffs) jumping is now officially the second most dangerous thing you can do which also involves falling through the air at ridiculous velocity towards planet Earth (now narrowly pipped to the post by the even more lethal “Wingsuit flying” which involves donning a ridiculous looking outfit that makes you look exactly like a giant and very fashion conscious flying squirrel).
BASE is, quite simply, the art of chucking ones self gracefully (when it goes to plan) off of a very high object and falling for as long as possible before opening the shoot and landing, preferably with both legs intact. Basically it’s sky diving on acid, so you could say it’s not for the faint of heart. What makes BASE different from skydiving? The time factor and the risks that are ramped up as a result. While skydivers have things easy, with minutes to deploy their chutes and enjoy the scenery, BASE jumpers have literally only seconds. Even more daunting, they jump not out of a plane but off of a cliff / bridge or even a sky scraper…anything high really. Even seemingly low buildings have been the target of renegade urban BASE jumpers during the night.
As with becoming a sky diving instructor, becoming a BASE jumping instructor offers a number of advantages over the conventional office environment, and with more highs than drinking a hundred coffees non-stop could ever provide: lots of fresh air, no boss (quite literally) on your back, and a freedom that money simply can’t buy. But don’t think that means it’s the perfect job: more people die BASE jumping than any other high-octane activity. In fact, the ratio of jumps to deaths makes climbing Mount Everest look like a decidedly tempting challenge by comparison…
So we’ve established that there are vast differences between becoming a BASE instructor and a sky diving instructor. The major one being that as the fall time is vastly less than in sky diving, the former doesn’t have the option of doing a tandem jump with a new student: in other words, there’s no being there to deploy the chute should they pass out or something else go wrong. This means that once a student makes that leap of faith, they are on their own and you had better be confident that you taught them everything they needed to know before they left your side…
The most important thing you need to know about becoming an instructor, or doing BASE in general, is the risk factor, which can never be underestimated: according to reputable sources, you have something like a 5% chance of dying sometime during your BASE career. The more jumps, the greater the risk. Also, experience with sky diving is essential, and most courses require that those wishing to become BASE jumpers already have 200 or more skydives successfully under their belt. In addition, to graduate to instructor level you would then need another couple of hundred base jumps added to that. This is definitely not the kind of job that you could just suddenly decide to start one day.
So, assuming you can handle the pressure, here are the characteristics of a good BASE instructor: a keen eye for organization (to pack your kit and know it’s safe), good balance and coordination, and an ability to think fast when the pressure is on. If you’re missing any one of these vital characteristics then it may be a very good idea to steer clear of this exhilarating yet outrageous occupation altogether.
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