Episode #16 - William “Wild Bill” Mitchell

Will Mitchell

Matt Blank: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Exit Point. In this episode, we talked to Will Mitchell, who is a BASE jumper developing a reputation for opening short- start wingsuit BASE jumps and some spicy lines in the U. S. He also has a very analytical approach and has been putting a lot of thought into challenging the conventional wisdom of BASE.

Matt Blank: So without further ado, let's get Will on the track.

Laurent Frat: I want to ask you right away, because I was looking at your Instagram, And, there's a section that's called BASE science in there. And, this is like one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you on the podcast is because this kind of stuff is what I've been hearing about you. So please tell me. So for people that may not know what I'm talking about here, there's.

Laurent Frat: a section in his Instagram page 

Will Mitchell: where he's got extended risers on one 

Laurent Frat: side and there's not a whole lot of [00:01:00] explanation, but I can just assume that you're with some questions that you're trying to see if actual body 

Will Mitchell: position matters or not. What, tell me about this experiment. yeah, the, BASE science was a joke name, but yeah, that's the idea is to do some actual testing on some of the stuff that, that Tim, yeah, in that case, the left riser was seven inches longer than the other.

Will Mitchell: And I took a poll of what would happen on a slider down opening. and I think over half the people thought it would cause some kind of heading issues, even like really experienced people at the bridge, who get paid to teach people how to BASE jump thought that it would have some big effect.

Will Mitchell: And my hypothesis was that it wouldn't have any effect on the heading at all. And it didn't seem to, we did like maybe just [00:02:00] 12 jumps with it, but, yeah, that was one of the fun ones. We've done some additional stuff as well. That has, I haven't just, I haven't put out yet, I haven't had the time to, and I want to go back to the bridge and do additional testing as well before I like really put out, findings, as, you might say, but I think we've seen a lot of really cool stuff that kind of like goes against some of the myths that people have I say myths, but like maybe some of the things that people believe about BASE jumping.

Will Mitchell: Yeah. The common wisdoms. 

Matt Blank: Yeah. So before we get into all of the common wisdoms, just real quick, what, led to your hypothesis that this was like the offset risers would not affect heading. What was the reasoning there? 

Will Mitchell: because for a slider down opening, the [00:03:00] heading is set by the way the canopy is, the bulk of the canopy is facing at line tension.

Will Mitchell: If that makes sense to like, typically if the pack job comes out and spins like 90, as soon as you wait, the lines that heading is the heading that it's going to open no matter what else you do. and that's, to me, it's yeah, it's a huge seven cell canopy, like low aspect ratio and that, and Lines that stretch. So having them offset by just a little bit immediately evens out when you put weight on them. And if you think about it, if you try to like harness, turn a BASE canopy, it doesn't really move that much. if you're just flying a BASE canopy. And you lean way to one side, it doesn't have that much of an effect.

Will Mitchell: So why would it in the opening, and how would it immediately cause that canopy to, [00:04:00] to whip like 90 just by putting like a little bit of harness and put in. And that's not to say body position doesn't have an effect, just that, like that type of, body position doesn't, if you're, if your body position is sideways, when the canopy comes out, It's obviously going to have an effect on the way the pack job moves, but simply dipping a hip or a shoulder, I don't think has any effect at all.

Laurent Frat: Wow. Yeah, that is definitely conventional wisdom. So what I'm thinking here, then based off what you're saying that I guess it would be yaw, right? Yaw position of your body on exit is more important for heading performance than 

Will Mitchell: actual, like your shoulders in, 

Laurent Frat: in a roll.

Will Mitchell: yeah, I'm not sure I exactly understand the question, but yeah, basically when [00:05:00] the canopy is coming out of the container, if it's influenced at all, if by a spin or like some kind of off hit off axis body position, then yes, it definitely has a big effect. But if you're like flat and stable when the canopy comes out, then what happens after that?

Will Mitchell: Has no effect on the heading, Okay. that's like what I believe, obviously I want to go back and do additional testing, and get good footage and that's the thing. It's we have the technology now to do like slow motion video and actually see exactly what's happening, which is why in the past, No one knew exactly people had like good hypotheses or like theories about what was happening, but you couldn't tell it all happened so fast, right? 

Matt Blank: So then if I'm understanding you correctly, it's really the direction your torso is facing or the direction that your pack is facing. That's more important than, your body position after the pack job [00:06:00] lifts off the 

Will Mitchell: container.

Will Mitchell: Yeah. yeah, that's one aspect of it. obviously there's other factors that play into heading on slider down jumps, obviously like wind, the wind, effect on the pack job as it's until it hits line tension, different ways you can pack. like if it. Yeah. it's a lot that goes into it.

Will Mitchell: Yeah. 

Matt Blank: before we get into what may cause an off heading, which could be like, a ton of different things. why don't we, roll through the list of things that you've disqualified at least a little bit, by doing some of this, BASE science testing, what were some of the other things that you went through?

Matt Blank: Cause I noticed that there's several other videos on there. 

Will Mitchell: Yeah. I don't know. What, would you guys say has an effect? one, one of the things we tested was like how you dress the center and style and where the [00:07:00] bridal like comes out of the pack job. And we did a bunch of ones where we just didn't pull it out nicely and left it tucked inside the middle.

Will Mitchell: It doesn't have too much of an effect, but if you took it and actually put it obviously underneath, like one of the ears, like way out to the side and then up above, it will like. Pull the pack job up and give it a nice, just like spinning momentum as it lifts off and has a huge effect. We didn't see too much, just like having it sloppy, but still in the middle.

Will Mitchell: Cause as soon as you get, The snatch on the snatch force of the pilot shooting the bridle pulling on it. It straightens itself out pretty quickly. I'm trying to think what else did we test off the top of my head? Yeah, go ahead. 

Matt Blank: there were a couple of, static line jumps on there where you're jumping offset from the static line.

Matt Blank: And that didn't seem to do anything, at least in the videos that you posted. [00:08:00] 

Will Mitchell: we only got to do a few jumps on that one. It's something I want to do additional testing on, but I was offset by maybe five feet and it didn't seem to have much of an effect, but then I extended all the way out to the end, like as much as you could be offset.

Will Mitchell: Someone was like holding the pilot chute and I walked all the way until my pins are about to pop and then jump. And I did get a, an off heading at like a 90, but it seemed like within a few feet of offset, it's not going to have much of an effect, but that's on the list too. to test next time. 

Matt Blank: How about this?

Matt Blank: this is one that I'm particularly interested in that I know that you've been doing a little bit more testing on, which is the primary stow and something that is hotly debated. people are going to know stowing their, their lines, some of them with one wrap around the line, some with double, some with different rubber bands.

Matt Blank: and I know that you, I think you've tried almost all of these. What have you [00:09:00] found? And what was the process by which you've, tested? 

Will Mitchell: Yeah. So I'll just go ahead and say, I think, yeah, it's really important to have one, everyone knows this, like slider up jumping, it seems like that's just people, all, people use them, but slider down, people.

Will Mitchell: Some people think it's like has no effect, it doesn't do anything, or it could potentially cause a negative effect to have a double wrapped primary stuff. I think it's really important to use one for all jumps that you do. And because it does, a few things like it keeps that bulk of the canopy all together.

Will Mitchell: if you imagine like where the line, what it's holding, it's basically like holding all the airline attachment points and like the whole canopy basically and a compact, the way that you pack it, a little package [00:10:00] just so that, because the more, the longer delay you take, the more when you have hitting it and it's going to want to inflate the canopy early.

Will Mitchell: So it's it's preventing an out of sequence deployment where the canopy would begin to inflate and oftentimes unevenly, like it's gonna, let's say, probably a stabilizer is going to catch when begin to inflate. And then come out at the side of the pack job and cause the lines to unstow unevenly because now you have the lines coming out of the, but the both ends of the tail pocket at the same time and up.

Will Mitchell: And sometimes it's like as much as two or three feet of lines coming out. Like from the like the a line attachment points down to the tail pocket and so you have that inflating and it can cause heading issues as well. So pull the pack job as it's inflating, so you, it's just [00:11:00] causes additional chaos that you don't need.

Will Mitchell: And, out of sequence 

Laurent Frat: openings can. Be the root 

Matt Blank: cause of all things bad in parachute openings. 

Will Mitchell: Exactly. 

Matt Blank: So this is an interesting one because the previous generation has pretty much said that one, all across the line, an out of sequence deployment with slack lines can lead to a whole ton of malfunctions.

Matt Blank: And yet our generation has skewed away from that conventional wisdom without any real, proof saying what exactly, what was the advantage supposed to be of taking off the primary? 

Will Mitchell: I've heard a few theories about it and none that have been that convincing to me, they used to talk about this pivot point thing.

Will Mitchell: that's what I've heard as well. Yeah. I don't think it, it makes any sense or at least explain that real quick. And no, because I [00:12:00] haven't, no one's explained it to me or 

Matt Blank: explain like what the reasoning 

Will Mitchell: was, I guess the concept is that it would Cause off heading openings, because some kind of tension is happening, like in that, in the middle of the canopy, causing it to have an axis about which it will spin.

Will Mitchell: I don't know. I'm not ready 

Laurent Frat: to totally discredit it. I always use a primary still someone that I really respect. Mario Richard was like saying that, he did not use one because he thought it was a pivot point and that was completely wrong. Derived from asymmetrical inflation before the primary still break causing it to rotate.

Laurent Frat: I've never actually witnessed that or have any strong opinion one way, against that, but 

Matt Blank: I've heard too many, 

Laurent Frat: we talked about this earlier about how. There's so much science missing in this [00:13:00] sort of domain that most of what we're talking about comes from intuition and our own personal experience.

Laurent Frat: when people have different experiences, I'm not ready to completely discredit it, but what I like about what you're doing is you're spending a lot of time observing at the bridge, taking these slow motion videos and also doing testing, which is, stuff that, I'm not seeing a whole lot of, so yeah, I'm going to lean towards what you're saying and take that with, more 

Will Mitchell: weight.

Will Mitchell: Yeah. And it's difficult. are you ready to discredit these? Not quite yet, but, it's something that we're actively working on and we're going to put something out. soon, ish, hopefully with detailed analysis and video as well. it's difficult to explain exactly on a podcast, but yeah, I would say, once that comes out, then [00:14:00] hopefully it will at least.

Will Mitchell: we'll get some good discussion going at least, and BASE jumping, what I found is it's, you can't, convince someone of something like this, because up until now there hasn't been good video evidence. So it's just like what you say versus what they say and what they believe, and like you said, most of most people, it's it's just what they've been taught from someone that they really respect, And I think some of the. Old, guys like did a lot of jumping with no stove because they thought it was better, and that's what they taught people that they were mentoring. So it's just been passed down and that's just what they've been doing. And it, actually like, and it works.

Will Mitchell: That's the thing. It's like a good friend of mine, doesn't use one and she has a lot of slider down jumps and she's I've never had an issue, It works every [00:15:00] time. And I'm like, yeah, it's the actual effect might be that you have a 5 percent chance of like maybe a little bit of an offhanding opening or like a 0.

Will Mitchell: 5 percent chance of A line of her attention nod or something, it would be less than that. But anyway, it's it's difficult to, say exactly how much it would help. And on like static line jumps or, like the static line PCA type jumps, I don't think it matters one way or the other, because you don't really have that, the wind to inflate the canopy.

Will Mitchell: So in that case, it's the same, but the longer delay you take them, the bigger effect that it has, Like nobody would jump slider up with no primary stow. Yeah. You went to skydive with a canopy with no D bag and no stows at all. Would definitely not. 

Laurent Frat: Yeah. I wanted to touch on what you said about your friend saying that nothing is, that's always worked.

Laurent Frat: [00:16:00] I always have these like flashing red lights whenever I say that, or I hear somebody say that, because what is that a data point of even if you have one time where it goes wrong and it's like one in 1000 for me, that's still not, even if you have 3000 jobs, you have a couple of those and it's still, that's not good enough for me, and that's not really good enough in any sort of safety standard for any other industry.

Laurent Frat: I'm not saying she's wrong. And for me, I just always like, that's, that takes a moment of pause to be like, wait a second. Okay. Like my own personal data isn't good enough. It's not large enough to make a real solid judgment on if this is working or not. 

Matt Blank: Yeah. Nobody, not even like the highest jump number of people in our community have any kind of jump numbers that are statistically significant enough to say in my experience, this isn't a problem.

Laurent Frat: And it's, it gets thrown out a lot, like even people with [00:17:00] 200, 300, 400, whatever. that's, always been fine, Okay. 

Will Mitchell: yeah, that's a good example of that. It's like the debate that's going on now with the slider gates, like her tape gate, with slider up jumping, if they caught, if they help with tension knots or if they cause tension knots, I saw a post on Facebook of someone like a really experienced saying, no, slider gate definitely causes tension knots.

Will Mitchell: You shouldn't use one. And then like equally experienced people being like, no, it definitely helps you should use it, 

Matt Blank: And by the way, we're about to talk to Matt Gerdes and Will Kitto about the research that they've done into, Tension knots. And it seems to be a different thing. That's affecting those, not the slider gate, but, more on that later.

Matt Blank: real quick back to the, primary stow, so far, it seems that, your recommendation is to use a double [00:18:00] wrapped primary stow, to avoid an out of sequence deployment, which can cause a couple of different. Issues. while you have nothing to, totally discredit, using no primary stow, I've also heard you say something about using a loosely wrapped primary stow.

Matt Blank: And I've also seen you post something about that on birds, maybe in, the near history. can you speak a little bit to that? 

Will Mitchell: Yeah, I think it's, yeah, that's a good point. using like a single, rap store or a loose band is the same as not using one at all. From what I've seen, I have video footage of, that as well.

Will Mitchell: It has basically the same effect as none. I think some people think it's like maybe the best of both. Like it's going to help a bit, but, yeah, it does nothing. So if you feel like it's helping you at all. I don't know. 

Laurent Frat: It's emotional. It's emotionally [00:19:00] supporting you. 

Matt Blank: I saw you post, maybe just to go specifically into this.

Matt Blank: At one point you, you noticed that somebody's primary stow band was elongating and like snatching a couple of loose lines. and, you asked them like, Hey, it was just a double wrap or a single wrap. And they said single. And you're like, that could have potentially caused some kind of issue here because like it's, basically elongating and grabbing half of your slack lines and the others, the other lines are sliding right through.

Matt Blank: Is that something that you've also caught on slow motion video? 

Will Mitchell: no, I don't have video of that, but yeah, it could potentially be worse than having no stow at all. Because like you say, it will hold some of the lines, but not some of the others. But the, that post on Facebook was like, someone doing a jump, like a skydive with a BASE, like a [00:20:00] single parachute system, a terminal jump slick, and he had a line over.

Will Mitchell: And then they posted the video in slow motion of it opening. And it was caused by, yeah, he, had, a primary stow that was either single or wrapped or like some kind of non standard setup. and it, yeah, it caused exactly that. Like the lines came out of the tail pocket from like the canopy side and the canopy got a lot of distance away from the shell pocket.

Will Mitchell: And then. It caused a line over, I was able to see a still of that happening and yeah, that's a, that's like a terminal jump, but the effect is the same. 

Matt Blank: So moving forward, we've, touched on a couple of things that you're discrediting, or at least attempting to, yeah, attempting to.

Matt Blank: I wouldn't 

Will Mitchell: say, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm just, yeah, I want to get some good evidence and help. Yeah. I don't know. 

Matt Blank: What are some of the other, problems or questions that you're [00:21:00] working on currently? 

Will Mitchell: I would have to pull up my list of them, but I've got a, I've got a document that I can send you. It's got maybe 20 things on it.

Will Mitchell: And it's cool. Cause a lot of people have sent me good ideas of things to test. And, I want to go back to the bridge with a few people and test them specifically with, with the slow motion footage. But, I don't have a list. 

Matt Blank: Okay. rather than a list, maybe, you can talk us through the process that you're using to test some of these things.

Matt Blank: And if you have any kind of like universality to the approach to intaking a problem and then, trying to test for it, we're super interested, cause I think it's something that all of us should be doing, rather than just, taking a test. Taking what we've heard from the previous generations as gospel.

Will Mitchell: it's just the basics like scientific style method, you have a [00:22:00] hypothesis and then you go and test it and then see if it lines up with the hypothesis and then if it does or doesn't you Change one thing at a time and see what effect it has. It's difficult to do in BASE jumping because Like you, for a lot of the stuff you have to get good, like high quality video of what's happening and that's difficult to do.

Will Mitchell: and there's so much like anecdotal evidence or anecdotal stuff out there, people just saying Oh, I had attention not, and I was using X canopy. So that canopy sucks. it's it's meaningless, but I'm just looking for like solid stuff that can apply to all.

Will Mitchell: Jumping to any equipment, and, I think we, we can do that and I it's really cool. I think what you said, Matt and, those guys have done some stuff like the wind tunnel testing with, the wing suits [00:23:00] and the pilot shoots was all really cool. stuff like that.

Will Mitchell: I'm a big fan of, there's 

Laurent Frat: also something to be said for presenting. Yeah. Preliminary evidence too, right? we're in a life and death activity here, even if you're not completely discrediting, what is the convention presenting data that goes against convention to make people think more critically about what they assume is the right way.

Laurent Frat: Seems to be. Beneficial all around wouldn't you both agree? Yeah, obviously will you do because you're out there doing it? But Yeah, I think it's good to take all these things with a grain of salt and be critical of what we think is the convention Because we're still in a very You know, very immature stage in our development as 

Will Mitchell: a 

Matt Blank: sport.

Matt Blank: Yeah. I like to think of it, or at least tell people that are progressing alongside me, that, [00:24:00] the, we have no space for trust in the sport and that. It should go from faith to knowledge, basically, and we should try and do everything we can to, not have to trust a piece of information. if I tell you, this is the best way I know how to do this, give me full faith and credit that I'm not, just outright lying to you.

Matt Blank: But, then don't just go trust that piece of information is like, Oh, Matt said that this was the best way I go and try your best to, figure out whether that is true or not, go from faith to testing the theory and hopefully eventually to something that like resembles knowledge.

Laurent Frat: we're talking about primary stoves. the frequent discussion that comes up is how long, what, do you have any thoughts on that? How long the primary really stow is as you [00:25:00] take a bite of the lines, 

Will Mitchell: how long should it, how long should it be? yeah, that's a good question. obviously you want all the lines to be held by the stow.

Will Mitchell: I haven't done much testing on that or know much about it actually. I would imagine that it could be too long and it, could be too short as well. But mine is usually just like an inch and a half to two inches long past the band, but I, that's something I'll add that to my list. Cool.

Matt Blank: Moving on to, some other parts of the list. do you have anything that's off the top of your head? 

Will Mitchell: I just pulled up that right now so I can look, I think some people found that's. The thing with the riser is really surprising, having that left one being long and it, besides that, [00:26:00] some things that like people talk about, but I don't quite understand, or haven't seen good evidence about is like the center cell strip.

Will Mitchell: Have you guys heard of that or know what 

Matt Blank: it is? Yeah. Yeah. If you have too hard of an opening and all of a sudden, like your canopy gets like split in half basically by, the force of you falling versus the force of the pilot chute acting on the top skin and can, like basically peel the top skin off of the, the ribs.

Matt Blank: Is that what we're talking about? Yeah. So I've heard of that. 

Will Mitchell: I've ever seen it, but that's just the way that all BASE canopies open, they only have a single point of attachment. The canopy is only lifted off by, that one point. So every single opening is basically like that, so I don't know if I quite understand it, but they just, they were doing the multi point attachments on top to like [00:27:00] help with that, back in the day, but it seems like they moved away. From that as well, but, also like line dump, I think people talk about this a lot and think it happens a lot, but I, haven't seen it, and I don't, I've spent a lot of time looking at these openings and thinking about it.

Will Mitchell: And, I'm having, I have a hard time like seeing exactly how it would happen. definitely if somebody had Velcro that was basically useless, like It didn't hold at all. It could happen, but I think in most cases it's not actually happening. Like maybe when people think it is, 

Laurent Frat: can we rewind for a second?

Laurent Frat: Because I think a lot of people may not pick up what you guys were talking about before then, how, what is causing the, center cell to be, 

Will Mitchell: inflated, I think in, Oh, the center. 

Laurent Frat: Okay. Let's, can we break that down a little bit more simply, 

Will Mitchell: please? Sure. [00:28:00] 

Matt Blank: Sure. so essentially the, problem, could be that if you, let's say that you use too huge of a pilot chute and way too deep of a delay, like you're doing a 48, with a five second, slider off delay, right?

Matt Blank: What has been proposed is that the force of, the pilot chute acting on the top skin, could peel it away from it's like, from its structure, basically making, just the open shoe type of thing, which like tearing your center of your center cell. And if I'm hearing Will correctly, he's basically saying yeah, it'll open faster, but that's what happens with every opening.

Matt Blank: it's not like the pilot shoe continues to anchor in the air. It pulls the canopy out and [00:29:00] then, the opening, goes through the next pieces of sequence. So it's not like it's fixed in place, right? 

Will Mitchell: my point with it is I, it's something that people say a lot and I don't quite understand exactly what people mean when they say it.

Will Mitchell: And I think. Everyone has a different definition of what it is. Like you mentioned that it would cause some damage to the canopy. Potentially. I don't think that's what most people mean when they say that, but it's just one of those things that. Yeah, I don't quite understand.

Will Mitchell: It gets no one's explained it to me without 

Laurent Frat: any data behind 

Will Mitchell: it. 

Laurent Frat: I'm curious now that you're sitting with that list. what are some of the, there's probably a couple on that list where you're most excited about to tackle. Like maybe you can tell us. 

Will Mitchell: Without divulging. Yeah, we [00:30:00] have some stuff on like methods of packing the pilot shoot and, for stowed or handheld jumps.

Will Mitchell: I'm just looking at it now. the, obviously the offset, anchor point for static line is a big one that we would want to test, stuff on. and like you mentioned, Matt, like having a, an oversized pilot shoot, how much of an effect does it actually have? Here's a question for you. If you have a really oversized pilot chute, is it going to cause a hard opening, and how?

Matt Blank: Yeah, as far as I'm aware, the speed and, the hardness of the opening is, Based on air coming into, the cells, not based on the pilot sheet. Like the pilot sheet has an effect of snatching out the canopy either, faster or slower, but [00:31:00] most of the, weight that you feel in the opening is based on how much like air is being, forced into the cells, which gets the canopy to actually inflate either faster or slower.

Matt Blank: So More of the effect of like how hard the opening is, like how deep the delay you took versus like what a size pilot shoot you have on 

Laurent Frat: is opening speed and strength of opening like hard versus soft 

Will Mitchell: synonymous. I think people, yeah, 

Matt Blank: people use those synonymously. Yeah, 

Will Mitchell: for sure. But it's what you said, Matt, just now is like.

Will Mitchell: I that's another thing I think people have a little bit of a misconception on, especially for slider down openings. When you said like the air is coming into the cells and like inflating the canopy in the opening. that's something else that's on the list too, is like what you do with a nose on slider down openings, how much of an effect it has.

Will Mitchell: Cause you know, as [00:32:00] you've seen, I guess it's like, people have a lot of different ways that they fold the nose, for slider down openings and what they think it does. Yeah. And I think it has Maybe not the effect that not as much of an effect as people think. And it doesn't quite, do what people think in the openings.

Will Mitchell: I think people imagine sometimes maybe that like the wind comes in the nose of the canopy and they're like, that's what opens it. It's no, the bottom skin expansion is like, what slows you down and what stops you? And the canopy is mostly not inflated at that point. especially if you don't have vents on the bottom of the canopy, it's like the inflation typically happens way after that, 

Matt Blank: yeah, so yeah, I totally agree with you.

Matt Blank: Yeah. Bottom skin inflation is it like, starts to, actually turn into a giant jag wall is much more of an effect than would be the drag that you're seeing off of a 48 [00:33:00] inch pilot shoot. that, and then, also, yeah, I, totally agree with you. Like the, the dressing of the nose seems to make a negligible effect.

Matt Blank: The only time that I've ever seen dressing of the nose really, add to a reduction of the, like the weight that I feel during the opening is when, I was shown this method in, crew jumping where like you, you literally S fold the, the nose, the outer nose pieces and then rubber band them to the, the center a lines so that Basically the two halves of the canopy can't expand until like it drags through the air for, a substantial amount of time.

Will Mitchell: I should add though that what, yeah, I meant for like slider down openings, it doesn't, for slider up openings, it can have quite an effect what you do with the nose. yeah, I was talking about slider down openings in that, case, but yeah. [00:34:00] So something else, a good one is that the tail first inflations, you guys know about that?

Will Mitchell: And yeah, I've 

Matt Blank: heard that leads to off headings, which is why a lot of people have gone to, like the tailberry method. what did you find 

Will Mitchell: on that? Can you explain that method? What do you mean? Yeah, 

Matt Blank: let's see, like this was back like, mid 2000s. I think the apex video that was, most prominently used to teach packing had a methodology where you wrapped everything in the center tail.

Matt Blank: So like the tail pocket was definitely on top of the pack job. And then aside from the nose, which was dressed on the other side of the pack job, everything was wrapped in that center tail. And, the theory was, Later that this could potentially cause [00:35:00] off headings because as the pack job lifted off, the tail pocket would be in free airspace and, it could like whip around in some weird way.

Matt Blank: And because the tail pocket had such an amount of weight in it, the tail pocket plus the lines, it could effectively change the heading of the entire pack job just by one little whip. And what people went to was, this tail bury method where, you would, flake it as you would normally, and then roll the outsides of the pack job into the middle and over the top of, the tail pocket in order to bury it within the pack job.

Matt Blank: That way, like if it came out, it would have to take the rest of the canopy with it. And hopefully symmetrically. [00:36:00] 

Will Mitchell: Yeah, I know what you mean. And I think, so lately people have been talking about, yeah, this tail first inflation versus the nose first inflation, and it's like what the, how the canopy expands, if you think about like an ideal opening, it's no nose first, it like folds out like a horseshoe versus the opposite as like the tail inflating first and the nose coming out last.

Will Mitchell: And I think it is mostly, I think people's thing, it's, tied to the tailgate. People think, oh, the tailgate. failed. So now I have a tail first inflation and I've seen that's not quite the case. It's, mostly tied to what you were just talking about, how you do the minimization folds and what you do with the tail.

Will Mitchell: And, I don't know if I have enough, like good evidence to say, like what's the best way to pack, but I'm leaning one way, not that it has leaning. [00:37:00] it's, let's think about this. what I've seen is if you, I think people call it the Tilly fold. Is that a thing that you guys, 

Matt Blank: yeah, 

Matt Blank: the Tilly fold was, one side over the top asymmetrically.

Will Mitchell: Yeah. Yeah. Any of that style where you take the folds and put them on top of the tail pocket. And the center cell I think is not as good, even though that's the way I've been packing for a long time. because what it does is as soon as the, pack job is coming out, what, as when it's unfolding, those folds immediately just flop out into the wind and a lot of times they'll come out.

Will Mitchell: In front of the nose of the canopy. And so then you have the stabilizers catching wind and sometimes it blocks the nose as well. So that's what will affect like the way the canopy expands when you might see that tell first inflation as people. 

Matt Blank: Okay. So we got [00:38:00] versus like reverse tacoing happening where it's like squeezing the nose.

Will Mitchell: Exactly. It yep. And so you get like the stabilizers inflating funny too. And then combine that with no primary stow. And then you get like that, you start getting those out of sequence inflation type stuff versus having everything contained, like how you might pack a reserve with a tail.

Will Mitchell: no, the center cell, like around everything, keeping it all, it keeps it all, in place nicely until, line tension is what I've seen. 

Matt Blank: So have you seen the same 

Laurent Frat: thing? Wait, let's just, be, accurate, right? The Tilly fold doesn't necessarily mean that it's asymmetrical. It's that the reduction folds are on top of the, tail pocket or the tail.

Laurent Frat: So 

Will Mitchell: it doesn't have to be exactly the definition. Of it. I've seen it both ways, but I think in both cases, like those folds immediately flop out and a lot of times they'll come all the way up [00:39:00] in front of the nose of the canopy. as you hit line tension, 

Laurent Frat: super minor detail, I just wanted to make it clear 

Will Mitchell: that, yeah, I don't know exactly.

Will Mitchell: Yeah. It's not, 

Matt Blank: yeah, I'd be curious if you saw the same thing with. The, symmetrical version of that tailberry method, which, I started doing when I got, my first, DP TX or DP, double pin, through loop, DP TL, rig. And you had to do it that way in order to like, access the through channels for the through loops.

Matt Blank: Oh, And then I just kept doing it that way because it was like really neat, But, did you see the same thing with that, the roll in method, like two rolls on each side, that meet in the center versus like completely folding the canopy over the top of the tail pocket, tri fold book 

Will Mitchell: [00:40:00] style.

Will Mitchell: I think, I'd have to check and get back to you, but I want to say yes. It's maybe not to the same extent. I just thought of something. Let me add this just to, just because, 

Laurent Frat: I 

Will Mitchell: believe that in no wind conditions, if it's completely calm and you have A good pack job and good body position on a slider down, jump.

Will Mitchell: There's no reason you should ever have an off heading opening. Really? Yeah. What do you think about that?

Matt Blank: So the, chaos theory that, floats around, you don't believe in it. there's a certain amount of chaos that just is apparent, happens and, 

Will Mitchell: I believe in, physics, I think there's a lot of things in play for sure. And, most people. [00:41:00] So yeah, like definitely the way you like container, the container you have can play a factor, the way you fold the canopy into the container.

Will Mitchell: if you do it sloppy, if the container like holds. if it doesn't let the canopy come out cleanly, if some of it holds the canopy a little bit, it can cause a twist, but assuming you have a really good container, that's going to open and let the can let the canopy come out cleanly, and you have, a body position that's not affecting the canopy as it comes out and there's no wind.

Will Mitchell: yeah, pilots shoot oscillation is it's, It is a thing, but what I've seen is like, it doesn't affect heading that much. It, can sometimes maybe add to something that's already happening a little bit, but by itself, I don't think it causes many heading issues at all. If any, wouldn't that static line 

Laurent Frat: testing [00:42:00] that you're doing, the offset static line counterpoint be a counterpoint to what you're saying right now, because that's basically 

Will Mitchell: what it, yeah, but not an oscillation because typically what.

Will Mitchell: on like a stow jump, you, the pilot shoot will be on one side and then go to the opposite side with the PCA thing that you're like, that would be analogous to a strong crosswind, the pilot's just being pulled to one side the whole time. Usually oscillation is it's, it moves one side to the opposite of once or twice before they can't be.

Matt Blank: opens plus a, if you tested walking out like four or five feet to one side and jumping, that's basically the same as, you know, a pilot chute oscillating to one side that, it's never going to, go all the full length of bridal, like over to, one side or the other.

Matt Blank: and so you're [00:43:00] basically mimicking, the point, at which like the pilot chute has effect on the pack job there. And if you've seen. No, like real significant off headings four to five feet over to the left, then they would stand a reason that like four to five feet over to the left or right during a pilot chute oscillation would also have Minimal to no effect.

Will Mitchell: Yeah. if you think about it though, it's like the, again, it's attached just on a single point on the canopy in the middle, like just because it's oscillating to one side, it's not going to induce any like yaw, into the canopy body itself. it's just going to pull the canopy material a little bit to one side.

Will Mitchell: So that can be combined with like effects of, if you're. if you're like tracking or or if it's getting pulled out behind you and then off to the side as well, it can have an effect, but if it's pulling straight up off your back, And then it like goes to the side a little bit. [00:44:00] It's not going to do that much.

Will Mitchell: It can't like put a y'all motion into the canopy to spin it, So I don't know. that's a 

Matt Blank: serious question. Do you think that the multi line bridal attachment where it's like actually anchored to one side of the, the center cell, would it have more of an effect in an off heading than if you just had it directly in the center?

Matt Blank: cause then it has the opportunity to pull a little more fabric, like negligible, but a little more. 

Will Mitchell: I don't know. Potentially no one jumps those that are really at least the four ones. I think they still have the two, but they're both on the center. yeah. And yeah, I don't know if I believe much in like the science behind, or the idea behind those, I think it, I don't know.

Will Mitchell: Mike caught, you know how sometimes the pilots or the tail pocket gets entangled with a bridle. That's like another one that I want to look into a little bit, because what I have seen is like a lot of times the tail pocket [00:45:00] comes up and hit and touches the bridle. I would say it's like 15, 10 percent of slider down jumps as I would see that.

Will Mitchell: And it's like a significant interaction. And I think that's what's instilling the Velcro. Some of the times when people land and they're like, Oh, I had lined up. It's no, it probably. That's what happened. Your tail pocket whipped up on the opening and went all the way around the bridal and then got whipped back off of it, 

Matt Blank: low, where do you want to go from this point? we've, covered a couple of things, that, Will's working on, I know that we wanted to talk to him about, wing seating and, how he approaches objects. it also might be a good time to jump into why did he even do any of this?

Laurent Frat: that was my next question really is what's, where's the motivation coming from? And what is the 

Will Mitchell: why? [00:46:00] to jump or just for this, like just science stuff. Yeah, to 

Matt Blank: approach all of this scientifically, which not a whole lot of people do. what's the deal. And, you, do you think this is something that everyone is a jumper should get into?

Will Mitchell: yeah. So it's funny because that's like the most feedback I get is about these slow motion videos that I do. And a lot of them I post is just just for fun, because I see some interesting stuff happening, so I think, but a lot of people that actually watch them and message me.

Will Mitchell: They also see the same things that I'm seeing. They're like, Hey, you Have you noticed this? I think, is this what's happening? Does this cause, X, Y, and Z. I'm like, that's awesome. Because I think like BASE jumping isn't that old, we don't have that much and it's still developing.

Will Mitchell: So I think it's, there's a long way to go. And, [00:47:00] what initially got me into it was like, I was thinking like, Hey, does this it was at the time when like lightweight canopies, were just coming out in BASE jumping. And it felt like some people thought you get a hard openings with ultra light material.

Will Mitchell: And that's what I was hoping to test initially. And I was like, Oh, maybe I can see in slow motion, would they expand fast? And I couldn't quite tell. But luckily, yeah, it's been useful for other stuff as well. 

Laurent Frat: are you using a fancy camera or are you just using an iPhone curious? What, kind of camera are you using?

Will Mitchell: No, it's just a Sony. like a, it's like a 800 camera. It doesn't have interchangeable lenses at all. I can send out the link to anybody who wants it. People ask me sometimes and I always tell them, I'm hoping I'll see like people. buy one and start using it because you can find one for maybe 500 bucks now.

Will Mitchell: But now you need like a, [00:48:00] quite a good zoom lens to see this stuff. You can't do it with a phone. there's a new one out though. the wave I think is what it's called, but it's like a 10, 000 body, but it would be like the next level up because you can, because mine, it only does two second clips, which just happens to be okay for what I'm doing.

Will Mitchell: But this one, it's like 4k as long as you want. That's what the next step would be.

Matt Blank: I'm curious of all the things that we think we know in BASE jumping, in your opinion, like what percentage of those are probably based in like solid fact, and how many of them are we just like taking, taking at face value, but eventually. Probably going to find that they're not true.

Will Mitchell: Oh, I have no idea. That's 

Matt Blank: or give me an estimation on how much you would feel comfortable saying that, [00:49:00] about BASE jumping.

Will Mitchell: like I say, I'm not, I don't know. I'm just, I think you made a good point earlier. It's it's important to listen to people who have a lot of experience. And to learn from them, but then beyond that, you need to think for yourself is like the most important thing, that's like the way I come at things just because he's been jumping for 20 years and tells you that this is why it is, it's yeah, I take that in, but then as you get experience, think back on that and be like, Hey, actually, does that make any sense?

Will Mitchell: just because he's been doing this a long time, doesn't always mean That he's infallible or just, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. 

Matt Blank: Yeah. I've found a lot of that. it's hard to, it's hard to differentiate, between what [00:50:00] has happened to that person and why that thing has happened, they go Oh, I've been jumping for 20 years and this is, this is the thing that happens, every time I opened in this way, and.

Matt Blank: then they, usually go farther into it's a question of like, why am I doing it this way? Or you should do it that way. And so there's a causal thing attached to, the, what they've observed and it's been a difficult for me in my career, like separating that, maybe that is true.

Matt Blank: Like the person has observed, That effect over that 20 year period, but they could be wrong on the Y. And as we, continue to update our techniques and the equipment updates and like the techniques and stuff that we're using change based on like us trying to get more radical, the wise become much more important because people try and transfer them.

Matt Blank: oh, why does that, why did that happen because of this? All right. So now in the future, as [00:51:00] we're trying to learn how to do this new thing, we should, do it this way because of this causal relationship that we've observed. And so that's, one piece that I totally agree with you.

Matt Blank: I think we should intake all of the information from the past, but, maybe not go so far as to say that. Like they know why that thing happened more like, all right, that guy's got 20 years of experience. And in that 20 years, he's observed this thing happening. Let's figure out maybe if that's still the case and why.

Will Mitchell: One thing 

Laurent Frat: that I'm really interested in talking to you about, Will, is, this is totally, moving on to a different topic. But, how you assess wingsuit exits. 

Will Mitchell: Oh, this is a good one. Yeah. How do I do it? What we 

Laurent Frat: can do. Yeah. Sorry. maybe I can make it a little bit easier for you on how to answer that is [00:52:00] let's say you're out hiking, doing some recon, or maybe you're a paraglider pilot and you're like, Oh man, that cliff looks pretty steep.

Laurent Frat: Like something that would go, are you, because where you are in the world and how the data collection begins, it can be much different. And then what tools you're using and, what's from a to Z, Z being jumping off the cliff. 

Will Mitchell: Okay. yeah, a lot goes into it. sometimes it's like people sending me stuff.

Will Mitchell: They're like, Hey, this might be a jump. A lot of times I see a cliff. or like in the U S West, there's only so many places you could jump, it's, you can quickly narrow it down to Hey, these have big mountains and they have cliffs on them, so then you focus in. And in that case, now we have a lot of good tools.

Will Mitchell: And one that I like a lot is [00:53:00] it's New is the baseline, map. Have you guys looked at that much? The 3d map that's built into baseline. 

Matt Blank: Not much, but I haven't been wingseating very much. Yeah, I have, but please 

Will Mitchell: explain. Yeah. Yeah. Explain. Okay. So it really depends on the location because it's taking data from I feel like a lot of different places.

Will Mitchell: So sometimes you'll have super high resolution, like 3d images of mountains. let's take an example of, so Moab, you could, pull up the map on it. And man, thanks to Kenny who, who's done all this, man. Cause baseline completely changed the game for wingsuiting, at least to me.

Will Mitchell: and this, he put a, he like built a way to shade the cliffs, you can, shade it so that you only see like vertical cliffs that you [00:54:00] could like maybe BASE jump off of, but then you can, Do the shading so that it like, like a flyable slope and a wingsuit is yellow, and if it's too flat, it's red and so then you can quickly zoom in on a thing, like a place and they'll have and be like, Hey, there's a whole bunch of cliffs and you could fly down them.

Will Mitchell: and then you zoom in on that and beyond that, you can use like the old school method of a topo map, those. Are really good for other places as well. When the, when that map wouldn't work, I've built a skill of being able to look at that 3d map and know if the cliff's big enough and almost immediately if it's going to be a wingsuit jump or not, that's just based on using it a lot.

Will Mitchell: with like even an old school map, you can look at like the lines and see the out the elevations at the top of the cliff at the bottom. You can know how tall is. You can know the slope of the, flight, and then based on this type of data, you can do a quick calculation of [00:55:00] the glide slope that you need to make it to an LZ, and that's like the basics of it.

Laurent Frat: Can 

Laurent Frat: I, ask a few more detailed questions about that? Because I know there's a lot of people interested in this, that formula that you use. 

Will Mitchell: so you're 

Laurent Frat: taking the exit altitude and you're taking your landing altitude. What do you do with those two numbers? 

Will Mitchell: okay, that's going to give you the, Y value.

Will Mitchell: You need the X value. So you need the horizontal distance from the exit to the landing. And then you just do a basic division to find the glide slope, Okay. How many feet, down is it to how many feet across? And that's like giving you the exit to landing. So you have to take into account, you can't be like, Oh, it's two to one to make it, So the LZ, you have to take into account [00:56:00] the start and the, and how high you have to open the parachute.

Will Mitchell: You can't just be like, Oh, I can fly my wingsuit at two to one. So it's good to go. And so the higher the jump is the less of an effect that has, but let's say like in Moab, if the total height of the jump is 400 meters, you can't really use that formula too much. Are you subtracting? 

Laurent Frat: Sorry, do you have a, a general number that you subtract for your start arc and then your opening altitude?

Will Mitchell: I'd have to think, you could say 150 meters at the beginning and then however high you feel comfortable opening up at the end, 150 meters again. What you could do though is look at a bunch of fly site Data and see Hey, when am I usually like actually [00:57:00] flying? When am I, beginning to glide at the slope that I need to match, and then go above that, take out that altitude and then just give yourself however much you want at the end, some people like to open it a thousand feet 

Matt Blank: when you're doing that calculation of.

Matt Blank: you're, let's say that the flight is two to one, and then you look at like previous flights and say like, all right, after how much altitude, after my start, am I flying at two to one? when you do that, are you, taking information from the same area at the same time of year? Or is it, fair to grab information from like your European starts and then go like, all right, like I look good for Moab.

Matt Blank: Let me just, cut, copy there and we're good to go. 

Will Mitchell: No, you should, ideally, yeah, it would be the exact same, variables for everything. That's not always the case. So [00:58:00] then you take a bunch of different jumps with maybe one's a higher elevation, one's low and then in different settings and then get a good idea of what you can do.

Will Mitchell: You need a lot of. Data to make these decisions. the thing is this is an advanced question, like beginner BASE jumpers or wingsuit pilots, wouldn't need this that much my advice to these people, because this is like the questions I get a lot is from like beginner to intermediate, like wingsuit jumpers.

Will Mitchell: They're not like going out and opening new exits. They just want to know, like. How do I use a fly site? Because how do I use a laser? Because that's what people say. That's what people tell you to do. But where are they supposed to go to find that out? 

Matt Blank: give us some knowledge, man. Where should you go to find that out?

Matt Blank: And yeah, find out right here, 

Will Mitchell: motherfuckers. Okay. What are the 

Matt Blank: recommendations on how to [00:59:00] use those two tools? Because yeah, like a lot of people track a bunch of data on their phone. Fly site, but then they don't know what to do with it. They don't know how to compile it. And a lot of people have a laser, but they don't know what to point it at.

Matt Blank: And yeah, send it, dude. what 

Will Mitchell: do you think? yeah, we just had to figure it out for ourselves and like back in the day. But now I think you have the tools and the people out there and the knowledge to top gun BASE is like a good place to start. There's a lot of good knowledge there.

Will Mitchell: I've it's been a minute since I looked at it. I don't know how deeply he goes into using lasers and, but like, When it comes to flying a wingsuit and BASE, that's a good, tons of good knowledge. The book of BASE is another good, place to go just for the basics. Yeah, like on the podcast with, with Jeff, people talking about micro met for like wingsuit, BASE jumping, a good place to begin is the book of BASE.

Will Mitchell: And you need to know like some of that stuff to be flying [01:00:00] wingsuits and mountains. It like, it simplifies it down for BASE jumping. And then like with experience, you'll get more and more knowledge. But when it comes down to like, how do I use a fly site to BASE jump? Initially, you just jump with it, like a lot when you, so at the beginning you should be jumping off of cliffs that you don't need it, you don't need a laser, you don't need a fly site, you should be at a huge cliff.

Will Mitchell: but jumping the fly site on that and just getting data, what I tell people to do is be like, Get 50 fly site files before you can actually start to use that data and make sense of what's actually happening when you get it, you also need to note like the conditions that day and the location so that in a year or two years, when you actually want to use it and make sense of it, you.

Will Mitchell: You can, because that's important. Like the [01:01:00] biggest effect on a wingsuit start, it was like a lot of people think, Oh, I need to be jumping X, Y, and Z suit, because of whatever the biggest effect on like how fast you can fly, if you're talking about the feather challenge, it's like it's conditions, it doesn't, 

Laurent Frat: so the feather challenge, just to, to add some reference to that, it's, the farthest flown 200 meters down, 

Will Mitchell: 200 meters out, I believe, is that right?

Will Mitchell: it's just how much distance, how much horizontal distance you can do in the first 200 vertical. That's right. Okay, cool. that's not something I, I do. I, think it's silly because it's not a challenge of skill at all. It's who can jump in the best conditions is all it's telling you.

Laurent Frat: I think Julian Mio, has the title and it's like one of the [01:02:00] nuking thermal day where no one would want to jump because it's just, you're just bouncing all over the place. But for the start, you're like, exactly. 

Will Mitchell: So for people, I'm just like, Oh, I'm, the best at starting my wingsuit fast.

Will Mitchell: And it's no, it's no, that's just what I think. 

Matt Blank: going back to like advice for the, beginners we've got, grab a fly site, do at least 50, which gets you a nice solid BASE rate for understanding something, and then note the conditions and locations so that, what possibly the altitude, the air density was that day, if it was thermic or not, and then you can start to go into, building a little bit of margin over the next, more risky or dangerous, 

Will Mitchell: exactly.

Will Mitchell: Yeah. So the baseline is a good tool for this because you can pull up all 50 flights and see them all side by side. Yeah. Ideally with each one, you would [01:03:00] put also how it felt to you you're like, Hey, I felt it was like a really good starter. I was diving a lot this jump. Sometimes that's good to know because if you're intentionally diving a lot, you'll see a totally different, like arc.

Will Mitchell: Then you would typically, it'd be similar to having a strong tailwind. So it's good to know all this stuff in the future, but then yes, you put it in a baseline and then you can load up a profile of different cliffs. let's say you've been jumping half dome and you can load up half dome and then put all the flights beside it and see Oh, I had.

Will Mitchell: I was never closer than 200 meters to the ground on even my like steepest flight, my best flight was like miles above everything. So then you can start putting in. Yeah. Are there jumps that you might want to do? Up next to it and just see how they all compare. And ideally you would have a bunch of flights and even your worst flight is going to be high above [01:04:00] the thing you want to jump next.

Will Mitchell: And then you slowly just go down. Are you writing the, your 

Laurent Frat: observations on micro met in a TXT file that you're associating with that fly site data? Or how are you taking notes in a journal? 

Will Mitchell: How's this working for you? You could do that. I just do it in baseline, in baseline. that's, that, that thing is amazing.

Will Mitchell: So you can upload the track and you can add notes to it. You can put the suit, the conditions, what you thought you can do it any kind of way that you want. But that, to me, that's the easiest because it saves everything for you. And then when you pull it up, it'll have all of it. you can, like when you save it to your computer, just the file, you could add it to the file name if you want, one of the reasons 

Laurent Frat: why I asked you to break down from A to Z, your flow, [01:05:00] was not because it's just an advanced question, but it also demonstrates how much Goes into jumping a new cliff.

Laurent Frat: And I think that when people are asking questions about Hey, am I ready to do this? I'm ready to do that. They can listen to someone like you talking about all that they do to put into that. And they can just realize I'm not ready for that. I don't have that workflow down. I don't even know what the fuck he's talking about.

Laurent Frat: yeah. So yeah, like calculating your, your start arc and your pull altitude and all that stuff. that's something fairly simple that people should be able to, or begin to wrap their heads around, but the next step would be like hiking up to the exit point and measuring it with a laser, right?

Will Mitchell: And exactly. Yeah, that was my next thing is, I believe that even at the beginning, you should begin to do this, even if it's on a big cliff, you're jumping in the [01:06:00] valley, you take the laser up and begin to use it. and start to build, because in baseline, you can just, it takes one minute to it links to your phone.

Will Mitchell: If you, and you can have it saved into your phone in one minute. So you should do that for every single jump. That's, this is what I do every single exit I do, even if it's like a known exit. Why would you laser? Because why, wouldn't because it's, then it's going to help you compare to like what other people told you the exit should be.

Will Mitchell: And then in the future, like if you go to a new exit, it's going to help you make sense of that, and you'll know how to do it. Easily. And then if you get numbers that don't make sense, you'll immediately know, the first time you use a laser, shouldn't be to open an exit. You should have used it like a hundred times before that.

Laurent Frat: there's also some other things that go into it as well, too, right? Like the kind of surface area that you're bouncing a laser off of. Is there a lot of humidity in the air? is there a lot of light available? [01:07:00] Things like that, that if you're using your laser regularly, you're going to start to build an understanding of how it works, you're saying there is if you just go and it's a do or die situation and you like peek over the edge and get some measurements for the first time ever.

Matt Blank: Yeah. Here. Yeah. So give us some experience on using the laser. what are you shooting? How are you using it? 

Will Mitchell: As yeah, with the laser stuff, like it's been a lot of people use the uni eye. That's what I call it. The one that a lot of people use. It's that's what I've always used. It does good for me, but it has a few things you have to watch out for.

Will Mitchell: if you hold down the button, it can reset the angle of the, angle setting on it. So you have to, like I used to take the battery out, but now I just stick a little piece of plastic in between the contacts of the battery when I'm not using it that way that can't happen. So anyone who has that [01:08:00] laser, who has that issue, just do that, take out the battery or stick a little thing in between the contacts.

Will Mitchell: So then when you get to the cliff, take it out. And the first thing I do is to check that the angle. It's close. So which, how can you do that on a cliff? some people have the app on the phone that will tell you the angle and you can lay that, you can set the laser on top of the phone and then shoot it, shoot and see if it's close to what the phone says.

Will Mitchell: That's one way something I'd like to do. If I don't have that set up, it's like just shoot like at the horizon. Typically it's going to be within one or two degrees of where you're actually at. And that will quickly tell you if it's off and even if it's off by one, it's still going to be safe to use.

Will Mitchell: Hartman did a really good analysis of that. He, you can find it on squirrels page. On the laser section, but it shows you exactly how much the profile would be different with your lasers [01:09:00] off by one or by two. And it's not that much, it shouldn't make a difference of whether like you could jump it.

Will Mitchell: besides that. So yeah, once I know that it's close, then yeah, I just take some measurements and I can load it into my phone and compare it to like other jumps, but something like, Okay. I have a question for you guys. Like I've got some numbers here, so it's typically like how you would build a profile.

Will Mitchell: It's like the X measurement and the Y with the X being like the horizontal distance away and the Y being the vertical. So if you saw like a 20 by minus 65, what would you think about that number or would 

Laurent Frat: are we talking in 

Will Mitchell: meters or feet meters? Yeah, that's what I use.

Will Mitchell: Thank you. and I'm terrible with meters. Yeah, thank 

Laurent Frat: you. I'm terrible with numbers. what I do is I have [01:10:00] a file that just has all the jumps that I've done. and then I compare it to that. so I, I know my, my dyslexia and the extent of it. So that rather than actually visualizing the number itself, I'm going, okay, I'm going to just.

Laurent Frat: Look at my list, and, associate it to the likeness of another jump that I've done in the past. 

Will Mitchell: Yeah, that's a good way. 

Matt Blank: And, to me, those numbers are almost meaningless since the last jump I did in a wingsuit was, wingsuit BASE jump was 2015. And that sounds. Sounds terrifying to me.

Laurent Frat: what numbers did you say 

Will Mitchell: again? You said 20. I'll just give you a couple 20 and then minus 65, 50 minus one 20, one 20 minus [01:11:00] 75 or no, sorry, flip that around. Anyway, my point is it's difficult to know just based on one number, like a lot of times. So when you're taking a profile, you need to shoot as many as you possibly can.

Will Mitchell: In a straight line out. And I sometimes take multiple ones based on the jump that I'm doing. I'll take one of the best possible case, the worst case, or if I'm going to have to maybe go this way, I'll take a profile for each one. So like when I'm opening an exit, I'll end up with multiple profiles, possibilities, and then build like a 3d picture in my head of what the actual shape of the jump looks like, but a place where fly site isn't going to be useful.

Will Mitchell: Just so people know is like these ledges, like in the beginning, if you, let's say you have a, how about this one? 10 by minus 50. Okay. [01:12:00] that's like basically a ledge that you're going to jump over. It's it's an athletic feet, it's not Flying thing. all these ledges at the beginning is just something you're going to push past or jump over.

Will Mitchell: So you need like a good push. And then as you get down closer to, 80, 90, a hundred meters down, that's when the flying aspect comes in. So you shouldn't be using these fly site files to say, Oh, I can clear these ledges. No, that's something you should build based on experience and throwing rocks.

Will Mitchell: like Chris mentioned in his episode, you can toss some stuff over the edge to get an idea of what you're doing. Of the path you'll take on these like beginning ledges. Now throwing rocks is not useful at all for to see the height of the cliffs, especially in like technical wingsuit jumping, you shouldn't be using it to be like, Oh, five seconds.

Will Mitchell: It's good to go. No, you should use a laser, but it can be useful to see if you can clear like ledges in the beginning. [01:13:00] 

Matt Blank: Okay. packaging up some of this stuff, first and foremost, calibrating your laser and making sure that you don't miscalibrate it, by leaving the battery in or, doing something else.

Matt Blank: and I assume, that many of these lasers are like the one that I have there's user manual to, calibrate them. And, if you don't have, the ability to use your phone on the exit point, then, the horse, horizon method isn't too bad. beyond that, you're using the laser to map out, the, expected trajectory that you're going to take, different locations, different numbers, not just one rise over run, but like multiple rises over runs, to see what kind of impact zones you're going to be facing in the first, How many seconds of the flight and how long?

Matt Blank: Yeah, give me some of that. [01:14:00] 

Will Mitchell: something I'll add is it's, you can use some of this knowledge, like in a bad way, people use this stuff to justify making bad decisions sometimes. So that's important to know. And it's also like you can have sometimes a little bit of information is more dangerous than not having any at all.

Will Mitchell: So I think when you're first getting into doing this type of stuff, you should know it's probably more dangerous for you. Then just not using one at all until you get a lot of experience. I'll give you a good example. I was on an exit point with some people and the wind condition was not what we thought.

Will Mitchell: We had a pretty good tailwind, like five, sometimes 10 knots tailwind. And it's like a technical jump. And. This guy was on the exit. Me like, no, this, I have this number out like 400 by 400. It's Hey, that's the same as this jump that I do that I've done. But that [01:15:00] number has. Is not even what he should be looking at.

Will Mitchell: He should be looking at the one below the cliff at like a hundred meters, because that's where it's going to make a difference. Like your start arc gets pushed way down when you have a tailwind. Tailwind and headwind, like lift, like air coming up the wall, you're Makes a huge difference in a wingsuit based jump on technical jumps.

Will Mitchell: You should never be jumping in tailwinds. Like just, ideally you would always have some lift just. but in this case, he, he would have jumped just based on that one number because he was like, that's the same as this other jump, but it's You know what I'm saying? Does that make sense?

Will Mitchell: Yeah, totally. 

Matt Blank: Totally. Yeah. Using the scientific tool to just justify your behavior is probably not the way to go. More I think what you're, telling us is that initially we should be using it to just understand what the exits that are, that have incredible amounts of margin [01:16:00] look like. and getting some, experience using the scientific tool in that environment so that eventually, we have some numbers to, conceptualize how much risk we're assuming as we get to more dangerous and dangerous exits.

Matt Blank: Is 

Will Mitchell: that, yeah, the question, of like, how dangerous is it? how much risk are you taking? It's it depends completely on the individual as like Jeff mentioned in his last podcast, like he, he was saying like, First, like maybe for him, like a jump is totally fine and safe ish, whereas someone with less experience is totally dangerous.

Will Mitchell: So you have to take that into account because if you look at a, an average, like civilian, they look at skydiving, Oh, that's insane. It's just because they don't really understand what's actually happening. They don't understand the danger [01:17:00] and like that. So it's the same in like BASE jumping, a lot of slider down people.

Will Mitchell: We'll be like, Oh, that wingsuit stuff is totally dangerous. And I feel like they, sometimes they just don't totally get it. And it's even the same in wingsuiting. Like a lot of times people come to me and they're like, Oh, that stuff you do is insane. And I'm like, it's not to me because I'm doing stuff.

Will Mitchell: That's like within, My capabilities and,

Will Mitchell: and basically all the jumps I do are like within a window. people say Oh, what's the line. I have like maybe 15 jumps that have hiked down off of, because the numbers and stuff didn't look good. Like I could have jumped it, but it was just too close. so that's the line for me. You should never feel like you're having to pull up if you're wingsuit, wingsuiting a technical exit.

Will Mitchell: this is a thing that people can use. I think you shouldn't have to feel like you're pulling up to, to not hit, you should always feel like you're [01:18:00] diving down to get to the terrain, so 

Laurent Frat: there's, I've got a question because, since we're talking about numbers and we're talking about measuring, and now you're starting to bring up like, Your hard deck, for example, just a way of saying it.

Will Mitchell: like for me, mine has 

Laurent Frat: fluctuated, now being a dad and being less current, it's changed a little bit, but I'm looking at my list right now and I'm thinking of this one here. That's a down 40 meters out, eight meters down, one 13 out 20. Down one 24 out 26 meters. And this is like really like at the limit of what I think is possible for me.

Laurent Frat: Not possible, but where the amount of stress that I want to endure to have fun. and, do you have a set number of something that is like what you Think is doable for you or [01:19:00] within your limits or how do you come about the judgment that it takes to go? Okay. Wait, this is a once and one and done or do you do one and dones and now i'm starting to ramble A little bit, but please expand 

Will Mitchell: on this.

Will Mitchell: that's a good question. I'm glad you asked and I think the way you do it is good and it's always better to be conservative, So if you have just like a list and you're like, I'll never do anything that's beyond this, that's awesome. I don't have something like that. Like I mentioned earlier, I have Maybe like 10 to 15 actual profiles with a bunch of numbers on them that I could send you that each one of those was beyond my limit, and that's something I do on a case by case basis. And it only comes with a lot of experience, I think, and a lot of fly site data. And because like when I build these profiles, I'm taking like sometimes 20, 30 different points.

Will Mitchell: And maybe [01:20:00] it's just like one or two of those points that stand out to me. And it's never going to always be in the same place. sometimes it's a ledge at 50 meters, you, mentioned one that like 40 by 10 or eight or something along those lines, 10 by 50 is like something you can jump past with not much difficulty.

Will Mitchell: Something I'll add is Some things I follow is I never want to be trying to push at 100 percent to try to get past the ledge. I'm almost never pushing like that hard. It's better to have a consistent exit than like the most powerful exit. And in my opinion, something else is I'll never jump something one and a one and done type exit.

Will Mitchell: Like you asked, I would always jump anything. I jump, I would go back and do it again. And then something else is I never jumped something that needs good conditions. To be successful, like you wouldn't have to have lift for it to go because a lot of those ones I was talking about, yeah, I could have jumped [01:21:00] them, I'm like, oh, if I had good conditions, it's like it goes, but no, I don't do that.

Will Mitchell: So 

Matt Blank: I've got a question on margin. we've circled around this a little bit and, I think, one of the things that's commonly done after someone like you opens an exit is for people to look at margin in like a binary sense. Like it has margin versus something that didn't go yet doesn't have margin.

Matt Blank: And, from our discussion, it sounds like you have a lot of data and knowledge to actually understand how much like margin. You're working with and then, make a decision on whether it's worth it to you or not. So my question is, can you take us through, understanding exactly how much margin you have and what like pieces do you actually quantify, [01:22:00] when you're, making that judgment?

Will Mitchell: That's a good question. And I, it's, tough because it's up to the individual. so I don't think you can say. This jump has this level of margin because it just depends on who's jumping it. And this is like a, this is something I've thought about a lot because like about posting videos, because I know some of the jumps I do, people might want to go do them again.

Will Mitchell: And a lot of times, like I, I have a, a battle with myself. I'm like, Hey, should I post this video? Because I know someone might go do it and they might not be. They might not have the level of margin that I had to do it, And in some cases, a lot of times I don't post those videos, I, I might post like one out of every 20 jumps that I make, if that, [01:23:00] that's and that's always just, that's yeah.

Will Mitchell: Anyway, but I can give maybe some tips to people like on an exit. if they, feel like they're on like a technical exit for me, I can tell you what I feel, You guys talk a lot about fear, do you feel it on the exit? Should how do you deal with it and all this type of stuff.

Will Mitchell: And for me, I don't feel any fear, like on a wingsuit based jump. And I don't think that you should, because like that, kind of implies that, you don't quite know the outcome, or you think that there's something that, that will happen that you don't really have control of.

Will Mitchell: And for me, it's. It's tough to say because a lot of people die wingsuit BASE jumping, and there's the human element, there's always [01:24:00] that, side of it. And you can't take that out of it. but you like, for me, I visualize a lot, especially if it's on the new jump, like most of the jumps I do.

Will Mitchell: But lately, like in the last two years, it's almost always like to open a new exit. So a lot of it's unknown. So I spend a lot of time like on the computer and like on the top of the exit and hiking up to the exit, like visualizing and knowing as much as I can about the jump so that when I'm actually on the exit and, and doing the jump, it, so it's weird because like when I go until when I land, it's, it's already happened.

Will Mitchell: it feels like it's it's just coming back together. and I can't quite explain it, but so yeah, you shouldn't be like scared on the exit because that means you like. You're not ready or you don't quite know all the things in play. [01:25:00] I hear you. Yeah. 

Matt Blank: You're basically saying that like the jump itself for you is a meeting of your own destiny that you've created by doing all of the homework.

Matt Blank: So like you've basically projected yourself. In a survival, like surviving the jump. And now you're just making good on that. And that shouldn't be a scary proposition because you've done all of the lead up though, like I've got a couple of follow ups for you. first, I, know that we talk about risk in a subjective way.

Matt Blank: Everyone has, different motivations. Some people are willing to accept, more negative consequences than others. And so the risk profile. Changes and is very subjective versus like margin. I think we've talked about in more of a, like objective quantifiable way. And while like you might have different margin than somebody else on a jump, [01:26:00] I'm still curious to dive into like how you construct margin for yourself.

Matt Blank: you've done all of this numbers. You've done all this research. Like, how do you know? How close to your peak performance you are actually, trying to come and what are you actually measuring there? what are the things that, you can say, are crunched in your head when it comes to, Building that margin.

Will Mitchell: That's a good question. And that's something I'd like to talk about. I think so like wingsuit BASE jumping, someone could be like, Oh, I never want to, I w the limit of the cliff style jump is like three to 300 meters. And then I never want to be closer to a hundred meters to the ground at any point, even with my worst, fly side tracks or whatever.

Will Mitchell: And that's like a way that you can do [01:27:00] it. Something that a big thing is like for like technical wingsuit jumps, you need to know. In which, on what kind of exit. okay. Some exits. Let's, think about this. You could, you slip and fall off of the exit while you're zipped up in your wingsuit and survive?

Will Mitchell: Okay. And then the next level is okay, if I push off and have a bad exit, am I going to survive? And then beyond that is okay. I need like a controlled exit to have a successful flight. Those are like the kind of three levels that I think about it. and if you want to put numbers on it, like maybe two over 200 meters, like vertical cliff face is like the first one to where you could trip and fall off the exit, zipped up in the wingsuit and pitch and be okay.

Will Mitchell: and then the next level down, maybe closer to 150 meters is Oh, I could maybe have a bad exit. Scorpion. Or go head high, head low, and then still [01:28:00] fly out of it. And then next level down, like a hundred meters and below, you need to have a good consistent push and a fly out.

Will Mitchell: That's how I think about them. And you need to know which kind of exit that you're on. That way, my biggest thing, is like falling off of an exit. because I'm. Almost always on a new exit and they don't always have like good edges and, and it's a, it's one thing when someone's Oh, that's the exit a million people have jumped it before.

Will Mitchell: And you just walk and do it when no one's done it. Like you have to be really careful of that. So that's like where I actually maybe have some fear sometimes, like anxiety, just like being on the edge of. Just looking at exits. So I'll bring like gear with me to keep me safe in that, aspect.

Will Mitchell: But once I know it's a good jump for me, a lot of the jumps I do, yes, you have to have a consistent push, You can't be [01:29:00] doing like an accidental front flip off of the exit. But for me, that's not like that big of a deal. If you can stand on a diving board, a five meter diving board at the pool and say, I'm going to dive off and go in headfirst and the dive and do that consistently, it's the, it's just like the same thing, and I have like hundreds of, jumps doing that.

Will Mitchell: So it's something you build up to. And then. In flight, it just comes down to flying skills and making good choices and knowing the conditions, I think there's one element 

Laurent Frat: there. let me just jump in. Cause there's one extra detail there's, and you guys brushed over it earlier too, about, from one location to another and how the numbers will affect that too, is that as terrain comes closer up into your face, your emotional reaction and, your.[01:30:00] 

Laurent Frat: Your natural urge to flinch and pull away from that, is also within that margin. So if you're someone, and I'm turning this into a question, is that as. You said a hundred meters. You never want to be closer to than a hundred meters off of the terrain. I'm not, I have to push back on that a little bit because I'm looking at your videos and there's definitely some moments in some of your videos there where you're under a hundred meters away from the ground.

Laurent Frat: so I'm not quite following what you're saying there. 

Will Mitchell: Oh, when I was saying that I'm not, I was saying like someone could use that as an example, like someone could say, I never want to do this and have a limit. But when I was talking about that, like a hundred meters, one 50, 200, I'm talking about just like the vertical face of the cliff of the exit.

Will Mitchell: You're jumping as a way as like a guide to know what kind of situation you're in, how much danger. if it's 200 meters tall, I'm saying you [01:31:00] could fall off of an emergency pitch and be okay. You could flip off. Someone pushed you off the exit and you could survive. And then the a hundred meters is like the cliff face.

Will Mitchell: Like a lot of the jumps in the U S they're a hundred meters and less. And then like whatever slope after that. Yeah. Okay. Does that answer your question? Yeah, absolutely. 

Matt Blank: So I'm still, I got one more dig on this particular avenue and then I've got, another question that's tangent, but what I really want to know here, Will, is do you actually calculate how slow or how bad you can be on a particular exit?

Matt Blank: like you've broken it down now into not a binary sense of margin, a trinary sense of margin. you've got, the, I can slip off. I can, I, React poorly, or I need to be on my shit. but is there also like in [01:32:00] the back of your head or on paper or somewhere, calculation of, how much you have to be on your shit?

Matt Blank: what, how far from peak performance. You can be and still make it out of it. Do you have a specific calculation for that? Or, is it just the more trinary thing that you've, just 

Will Mitchell: described? I don't know if I have a specific calculation that I do, but obviously when I'm like going to those jumps that I've hiked down off of, that's like a calculation that I've made and I'm like, no, this is too close to like my limit and that's like something you could do with fly site files.

Will Mitchell: Yeah. Initially, for at least like the beginning of the jump, and for me, like I could lay out 200 of my jumps and they, every single one of them would be above 

Matt Blank: the. That's exactly what I'm saying. So if you've done that calculation, then [01:33:00] what is your margin? What's the Will Mitchell margin?

Matt Blank: when you say I'm too close to, pre performance, what does that look like for you? What margins are you playing with? 

Will Mitchell: What are those numbers when you say performance? What do you mean in terms of 

Matt Blank: or, performance or, or profile either one, you look at a jump and you go, that's too close to my limit.

Matt Blank: Right 

Will Mitchell: now, typically that would mean that would mean like I'm diving off and feeling am I having to pull up to, to, not hit the ground? So on almost all these jumps, I do what people think. Our technical jumps, I could, for me, I could have not a perfect push, not the strongest push. It doesn't even have to be like on an angle, within a window of what I know I can do consistently.

Will Mitchell: And then once I'm flying, I'm pushing down, [01:34:00] so I don't know if that answers the question, but 

Matt Blank: almost, I'm still looking for a, a. If the exit requires me to be, let's say, or the flight requires me to be at a two to one, then my margin for error, I add in two tenths of a person, like two tenths of the glyc, I can be at 2.

Matt Blank: 2 or something like this, or, if, I'm required to be, flying, if I can fly, after. A hundred meters of, of vertical, then I'm going to build in X amount, on top of that to what is the, Will Mitchell margin is really what I'm getting at. Yeah. I know that you do this, but I'm just curious what the, what those numbers look 

Will Mitchell: like.

Will Mitchell: I think one of the things you mentioned is like trying to make a specific glide, and that's not something that I, [01:35:00] Do is this is just not the kind of jumps that we have in the U S or not something that I've come to. I think that's something in Europe a lot on the big jumps. And that's what I'll get people.

Will Mitchell: Sometimes they try to make a specific glide. and a lot of times it's just across like a point that they've done a lot of times before, and then the conditions change and that, that's happened a lot and lately it's a lot of like inexperienced people going out with a mindset of I want to do this line.

Will Mitchell: And. And cross this point because that's what they've seen. And then they could try like first jump, go out and attempt it. And they just don't have any idea that they're flying too slow and they can't make it for me. Like I have a good sense of how I'm flying in the air to know my speed, my glide, what, where I can go, but I, and but there's never jumps where I like exit have to fly like a mile to, to go over something.

Will Mitchell: That's just not, yeah. [01:36:00] Something that I've done. So in my case, it's typically in the beginning of the jump and, specifically there could be like ledges. Let's say like that number I gave you earlier, there's a 20 by 60. And to me, that's that's just too close because that's meaning you have to have a really good push.

Will Mitchell: And even then you're just like, not going to, you're going to be close to it, but then in flight I'm, like pretty, I like, I'm intuitive. Like I use these tools, but I feel like you shouldn't like what Chris was saying in his episode. You should use these tools to, develop an intuitive sense of.

Will Mitchell: Of how, what you're doing when, while you're doing it that way in a flight, you should immediate, you should always know Oh, I'm flying too slow. Or like I'm flying super fast. I have tons of speed and whatever, Yeah. 

Laurent Frat: When you said the, when you said you were. Never wanting to pull up. What I heard was that [01:37:00] you're constantly building speed on these small jumps.

Laurent Frat: is that what it feels like to you is that you're constantly accelerating, like after you jump, you're accelerating, 

Will Mitchell: flare, pull up to a point. it depends on the slope that you're flying down to. I'm talking about like in the first, let's say eight seconds.

Will Mitchell: Of the flight, you should never get the feeling like, Oh, I need to be pulling up because the ground is coming up to me right past that, at some point, yes, you hit like whatever speed is determined by the slope of what you're flying on. So you're not always building speed, maybe, not on the jumps that I do, but you should always.

Will Mitchell: So that's the thing too, is like in Chris's episode, he was talking about the trajectory. Of the flight versus like your body position. and for me, that makes a lot of sense if you're doing like performance flying and if you have a lot of [01:38:00] altitude, but when you get to technical like wingsuit jumping, you need to be able to fly that wingsuit at a hundred percent or close to it.

Will Mitchell: Efficiency. That's huge. I want to say that. And what I see a lot is like a lot of people can fly at 85 or 90%. that's easy to get to. Those last 10 percent is like, it's the hardest, to get, but you need to be able to, access it. That's the 

Laurent Frat: skill gap. That's bridged with training. 

Will Mitchell: Yeah.

Will Mitchell: Training effectively. Yeah. Yeah. And I 

Matt Blank: do an entire episode on training effectively, to get that last 10%. And maybe we need to bring him back on to, to do that. 

Will Mitchell: yeah, I've got a lot of, go 

Matt Blank: ahead. Yeah. I've got another question based on something that you just said. It's, it's been a hot button topic for us, fear on the podcast, and, [01:39:00] you, are in stark contrast with somebody that I've heard that's notable in our community.

Matt Blank: And we'll bring it up and, ask you what you think about it. You earlier just said that, you don't think that fear is appropriate on the exit point. You should not feel it now. Yeah. Go ahead. No, yeah, go 

Will Mitchell: ahead with your question. 

Matt Blank: now, I've also heard on outside podcast, Jeb Corliss, one of the people that has, inspired many people to enter the sport, that he is afraid on every single exit point.

Matt Blank: Now those two opinions are in stark contrast, man. What do you make of that? 

Will Mitchell: What do I make of that? maybe we have different definitions of the word, Okay. So let's start there. What do you define fear to be? it's funny. [01:40:00] I looked it up when you guys kept talking about it.

Will Mitchell: I'm not, a lot of the episodes. and it's yeah, it's an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or it's a threat. we know that BASE jumping is dangerous. All of us accept that when we. When we do it, so that's but the interesting point is it's likely to cause pain.

Will Mitchell: and that to me is like the thing. I don't think when I jumped that I'm likely to be inflicted with a lot of pain or even die, anything like that. I don't think any negative outcome is going to happen. and I don't think it's a threat to me. Like nothing, like a tree is not going to jump up and hit me, I'm the pilot, and now there's conditions with the wind and stuff that can have an effect, but that's something you need to take into [01:41:00] account, like that's the thing about BASE jumping that I like is like, when you're the only one.

Will Mitchell: That's making decisions and it's all, it's only up to you now. Sometimes there's some things that you maybe didn't think about, didn't know about, but you have to take that into account as well and leave yourself like a little bit of that. Now, when he's talking about, he feels it. I don't know, man.

Will Mitchell: he's, he sells that. I think like part of it is about publicity. maybe he does actually feel that, and I'm not taking away from. Anybody like you should feel what you feel, and, I think that's only for me, that's just to me when I said, you shouldn't feel it. I think new jumpers, definitely.

Will Mitchell: They're just going to feel it because they haven't done it, and they don't have the experience. Or the knowledge to know the out, like the outcome, once you've done 300 BASE jumps at the bridge, you're going to be like, Oh, this is chill. That's your first jump. You're like, Oh man, what if it doesn't open then you, yeah, you'll feel fear and that's part of it.

Matt Blank: I'm [01:42:00] certainly not saying that or I'm certainly not proposing that we'd be resistant to our emotions. It's certainly not. And I think if you listen to the Brett Kistler episode, we talk about that, like being honest with what we're feeling on the exit point, though. the step. That Jeb takes to say is to say that I feel afraid before every jump, meaning that like he feels that emotion and then decides to jump, which is contrary to something that I've said to people in the past, like when I become became an experienced jumper, like they asked, Hey, do you feel, afraid before you jump?

Matt Blank: And I said, No, I feel afraid before I walk down. And so I guess my next question to you is let's say that you meet a jumper, you're opening an exit point. Maybe you jump in another wingsuit exit point. That's, somewhat risky, and you're feeling no fear at all.

Matt Blank: And this person next to you is noticeably afraid. [01:43:00] do you question that at all? Do you take any action at all? Do you, what is, what does that interaction look like at the exit point? Have 

Will Mitchell: you been in that spot? I have. Yeah. not too long ago, actually. 

Matt Blank: Tell us about it, man. I'm, 

Will Mitchell: curious. the place I'm at now, I think it's important to set a good example.

Will Mitchell: And in that case, I would like. These days, like I'll hike down with someone if they're not feeling it, even though I would have jumped and then that, and in some cases, like if it's like questionable, the conditions, or if I, any kind of case like that, I'll hike down first, or I'll make the point, I'm not going to jump just to, just because I know that if I go first, people are just going to follow me.

Will Mitchell: Or anyone, not just me, that all the time in BASE jumping. Like once the first person goes, it's just, that's it. So now I make a point to be like, I'm not feeling it. I'm going to, I'm going to hike down. Or [01:44:00] if anybody wants to come, that's cool. Now, if everyone's no, we're good. I'll jump. And then if they all go, then yeah, I'll jump too.

Will Mitchell: And that's, I wouldn't have always been like that. But I think a lot of times what people fear is maybe like anxiety on the exit, maybe they're just like nervous. I don't know if it's exactly fear all the time. And some anxiety is yeah, not, bad. but yeah, as you say, you should listen to what you feel and that's Up to the individual. 

Matt Blank: So I guess what I'm hearing from you is that you don't just let it go. You don't just look at somebody that's apprehensive and shaking over there, like terrified with fear and go like, all right, here we go. 

Will Mitchell: it's unlikely that I would be jumping with him, because not because just because most of the jumping I do, like I said, is opening new exits and it's almost always by myself, like 98 percent of the [01:45:00] jumps I've done lately, mostly because I don't want to be in that situation, Because I would feel like a little bit of, I would feel like it's, I have to do something, And I know if I go up solo that I'm likely to have a successful and good jump, bringing other people with me. A lot of times it's like a less likelihood that we'll have a jump, so I just go solo.

Will Mitchell: I like jumping solo. Brett, anyway, 

Laurent Frat: defined that pretty well. 

Will Mitchell: we were talking about 

Laurent Frat: that and, he said that I liked a low signal. To, to, information ratio. And, I think that's what you're saying as well is that you don't want the extra signal of somebody who's apprehensive while you're, you're doing your thing.

Matt Blank: yeah, low noise was how he put it to just, I 

Will Mitchell: just don't want to put someone in the, I don't want to put someone in a [01:46:00] situation where they're like in above their head and then. We get to an exit and I'm like, I know it's good, but they don't feel it. And then we both have to hike down or I jump and then feel like an asshole that they have to hike down solo or I jump.

Will Mitchell: And then they end up jumping in the end just because I jumped. So I don't want to be put in the, in that position to begin with, that's also 

Laurent Frat: something really important for a lot of people to hear too. I think is that we're going to the exit together and. We're going back to the car one way or the other together that we're, when we go to do these things together, it's we got to be doing it together.

Laurent Frat: And, yeah, I really respect that. cause someone messaged me the other day, in talking about one of our episodes and he mentioned that he had to walk down and, his mentor said it was fine for him to jump. So he jumped and then the dude walked down and it was like, I wasn't there and I can't really judge a hundred percent, but I was like, man, that mentor could have.[01:47:00] 

Laurent Frat: Been a lot better if he's Hey, okay. We got this like quartering tailwind and this is clearly not good for somebody who's never jumped here before. Like, why don't we just be bros and handled this mission together again. I wasn't there. I can't judge a hundred percent, but like just from the details I received, like your approach right there is, it is definitely one that I respect.

Matt Blank: Yeah. is BASE jumping a team sport? 

Will Mitchell: Oh, I don't think it's a sport to begin with. 

Matt Blank: Team activity? 

Will Mitchell: No, I'm kidding, but most, most of the time it's not a sport, I would say it's an activity, maybe like a hobby. 

Matt Blank: when you go out with people, do you consider it like a team activity or do you still, okay.

Will Mitchell: yeah, up to a point. once you get to the edge. And you jump off, then it's just [01:48:00] And I think that's where I draw the line maybe. And then obviously if there's other people in the air with you, it's a, it's a team thing as well, but if we're all hiking up to an exit together, for sure, yeah, it's a team thing, but once, like if I'm doing a solo, once I go, that's just me.

Matt Blank: You, 

Laurent Frat: you said that you're not feeling a lot of fear and that it may be anxiety. what, 

Will Mitchell: do you 

Laurent Frat: fear?

Will Mitchell: falling, like falling off of a, an exit without not jumping, like accidentally falling, yeah, it's, I've thought about it some, what, would my BFL thing be? And I hope it wouldn't be one like, Oh, he was trying to fly this thing and just didn't flew into a tree or whatever it's, [01:49:00] I would say it's likely going to be like, Oh yeah, he fell off some exit he was looking at doing, or got caught in bad conditions and died in the mountain or something.

Will Mitchell: I don't know. Maybe attention not. And then pounding in who knows, but yeah, but that's just something too, that was like, I don't think it's really, at least for me, I don't have a fear of death because I don't know. it's just I think, so I had an experience where I had a one 80 cliff strike, was knocked out.

Will Mitchell: And then I woke up at the bottom of the cliff and was like in and out. And then I woke up a few days later in the hospital, and I was, I had a and they say, I could have died in that case. And if I did, then that, that experience is what made me feel like, Oh, it's actually not a big deal.[01:50:00] 

Will Mitchell: it's really easy to die. And for me, it wasn't painful at all. And I think that's the case for a lot of people that die BASE jumping, it's pretty quick and painless. And then it's just nothing, it's like going, it's like, why should you be, why should you be afraid of death? it's, probably a lot like it was before you were born, do you remember that?

Will Mitchell: No, I do not. Yeah. that was a long time and it's probably the same after. It's just, you can't fear like a non experience, it's just like you just go to sleep forever. it's definitely a lot harder for the people that you're with, the friends and family and the people on the scene.

Will Mitchell: That's who it's going to affect. And I don't want that to happen. that would, suck. That's 

Laurent Frat: interesting because what you said is almost identical to the fears that I have. Slipping on an exit and then just some [01:51:00] gross error, like maybe some like mis rigging or, and then a tension knot of some sort that like has me spiraling into a, and splatters into the rocks.

Laurent Frat: That's my primary fear. And then what I leave behind. And, so that's really interesting. Cause I think that. I was a bit at odds with some of the other conversations that we've had around fear because it was laid in, in a way that made me feel like, okay, or we've presented it in a way that was

Laurent Frat: had to do with, your currency, and being complacent. And, that's not how I feel personally. And, it's nice to hear that, other people adding to the conversation, because I know that's not, that's the case for a lot of people. 

Matt Blank: will, we're getting pretty close to time and, as we wrap up, you've [01:52:00] given us a lot to think about both in your scientific approach and also, in your approach to wing suiting.

Matt Blank: And I'm curious to, close out on any, advice, any, words of wisdom that you have to share to anyone that's, trying to, attack the sport with the same curiosity, that you do.

Will Mitchell: yeah, I think we've touched on a lot of good points, but I would say, yeah, if anyone has any questions. Just, yes. And then my way, I'm always happy to help. I like when people do that, or any experienced jumper, send them out to people that, that have been doing this a while and beyond that, like at the beginning, just know that there's a lot of stuff that you don't know yet.

Will Mitchell: So try to be conservative and just survive like the first three or four years of your BASE jumping [01:53:00] career. That should be like your main goal. Because at that point you'll look back and be like, Oh, wow. I'm, I didn't know this and this Now I do. So yeah. 

Matt Blank: All right. So it's you don't know what you don't know and take it easy, take it slow.

Laurent Frat: you're definitely helping and all that we talked about at the beginning of the episode with the gathering all this research, we really appreciate your work and we're really hoping that you'll come back when you've got more of this to present. And, thanks so much for sitting down and having 

Will Mitchell: this chat with us.

Will Mitchell: Yeah. Thank you guys. I really enjoy the podcast and I get a lot out of it too. So thank you.

Laurent Frat: Thanks for joining us for this episode. If you have any comments on what you've heard in this show or any topic suggestions for future episodes, we'd love to hear from you. Big shout out to Mark Stockwell, our sound engineer and co producer for helping us with this project. Catch you next time [01:54:00] and see you on the exit point.