About BASE

WARNING!

Base jumping is an exceptionally dangerous activity! It demands experience in skydiving and special equipment! Without these the chance of a serious injury or tragedy is multiplying!

Base jump is carried out from low height and fixed object with base-parachute. BASE is an acronym for B=Building, A=Antenna, S=Span, E=Earth.

In the end of the 1960s some enthusiastic skydiver started jumping from higher cliffs and buildings instead of the good old aircraft. Carl Boenish was the first classic Base jumper who jumped from the El Captain cliff and several skyscrapers including the World Trade Centre using square parachute. In the beginning little changes were made in the equipment and in the way of folding the parachute. This enabled them to execute safer jumps from lower heights. Thanks to a lot of successful and even more unsuccessful jumps and the growing experience Base jumping has become a real sport activity which is enjoyed by thousands throughout the world. Today there is a kind of parachute specially made for Base jumps. Using this kind of equipment, the risk stays much lower than before. Profound skydiving experience (150-200 jumps) is inevitable. Due to lack of international guidelines the only way to get to know more about the details is to speak to other Base jumpers sharing the experiences. National Base jump organizations have evolved worldwide trying to give some kind of organized and legal shape of the sport.

There are countries and locations where Base jumping is prohibited but in plenty of countries it is permitted and legal. In Hungary just as in most of the countries Base jumping itself is NOT ILLEGAL because the law does now forbid it and aviation rules do not apply to Base jumping. It does not mean that Base jumping is permitted, it only means that jumping from a building does not break the law.

In Hungary the jumpers (Hungarian Base jumping and Skydiving Club-MBSE) and the Aviation Authority work together to solve the problem of this gap in the law.

In Hungary the history of Base jump goes back to 1998 when some brave skydivers did some jumps from cliffs in France. Due to lack of experience and some injuries the enthusiasm faded away. Then in 2000 along came some more determined young skydivers and their efforts resulted in the Hungarian Base jump Team and a club with 10-15 active jumpers. Thanks to our sponsors (SALOMON, BOMBA, JVC, OAKLEY, MOTOROLA) who realized the importance of helping us, the team have done some European expeditions, plenty of jumps nationwide and managed to attend the BASE World Cup in Malaysia which took place in Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Twin Towers and Menara Tower.