RIGS RIGS

Right: Mirage Systems created a bespoke rig for BASE legend Jeb Corliss THE COOLEST RIG YOU’LL NEVER JUMP

have done the job. Over the years, he has been the subject of profiles published in The New York Times, Outside, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Air & Space, Men’s Journal and Rolling Stone. He has been featured on worldwide television, and was here’s only one of them. Just one. memorably cast as the original host of It may have its own ad campaign, The Discovery Channel’s Stunt Junkies. T peach placement in the “This rig has a very long story, footage from several internationally- because it starts at the beginning of broadcast wingsuit events and the my jumping... and I’ve been jumping near-inarguable status as “the most for a long time,” he laughs. Corliss advanced hybrid rig in existence” – but started skydiving at the age of 18, and it’s pretty lonely at the top. It is the began looking around for a W-Series- Mirage Systems W-Series, and isn’t a style rig before he was even 20. “My “series” at all; as of publication, it’s just original dream,” he remembers, “was one single rig, and it sits on the back of to find a rig I could put a BASE canopy the man who has been dreaming it into in, so I could get current on it in the existence for almost two decades. skydiving environment. If I do 500 The W-Series is not the first rig in skydives on something, and I take it into the world that puts a BASE canopy an environment when I’m landing in in a container scaled – and optimised boulders, around trees, or in generally – for wingsuit flight, but there’s a big bad conditions, I’m more likely to difference: it is legal to jump from an succeed in that landing. So when I airplane. That difference makes the started, I searched for a rig that fit those W-Series a big deal for all kinds of perimeters. But it wasn’t available.” reasons, including the potential to open Even five years ago, the W-Series up thousands of heretofore-unjumped would have been a pipe dream: the fabric lines in the world to wingsuit BASE technology simply didn’t support it. If you jumping. And, when it gets some wanted to put a student out to practice brothers and sisters, it could change the game in a big way. You can’t tell the story of the W-Series without telling the story of its PHOTOGRAPHY DOVILE SLAVINSKAITE & JEFF NEBELKOPF creator, Jeb Corliss. He hardly needs introduction – after all, even the most passing interest in BASE jumping will

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is significantly different. Unlike a MIRAGE SYSTEMS ‘I NEEDED A RIG THAT BASE container, the W-Series uses a W-SERIES: THE SPECIFICS WAS AS SAFE IN THE single-pin closing system. Like a BASE BASE ENVIRONMENT container, the main canopy is free- packed into the tray without a bag, AS A NATIVE BASE which opens much like a BASE system RIG – BUT ONE WITH (cornerless, with nothing to “grab” the fabric as it extracts). TSO APPROVAL. IT The most obvious difference: this DIDN’T EXIST’ rig ain’t for students. The only way to make the configuration work, even with the use of ultra-light fabric for based Parachute Labs in the 1990s. both canopies – is to drastically reduce The rig is still available – but it is the size of the reserve parachute. prohibitively awkward. The reserve Developed and designed for expert parachute is carried in a large belly- pilots, the W-Series uses a spring- mount container, which prevents loaded Performance Designs Optimum efficient wingsuit flight. The W-Series, 106, which is nobody’s idea of a however, takes advantage of the past student-appropriate canopy. years’ exponential leaps and bounds But that’s not why this rig was in materials technology. Ultra-light created. Jeb Corliss, after all, is a fabric facilitates a dual-parachute showman. He performs aerial stunts container system that is sized like a for a long list of television and film 149/150 skydiving combo – but fits a productions. “Over the past couple of much larger BASE canopy into the years, I started running into a really packing tray. The jumper still has a lot serious problem,” he says. “I was getting The container closes like a of material on their back – about 300 hired for a lot of big projects where normal Mirage, however the square feet – but the configuration we needed to leave aircraft in order to corners are dynamic; held together get the shot, but the deployment had using a magnet system. to be very low. For safety, I very much needed to use a BASE rig, but aircraft were involved, so I couldn’t. Those regulations – which were established by the FAA in order to save lives – became a serious mortal danger. “Getting permission [to use a BASE rig from an aircraft exit] is literally impossible,” skydiving their BASE canopy, you would are ever allowed to leave an aircraft Pictured: The Corliss shakes his head. “To do my job, W-Series can have to have them pack it into a student (intentionally). Some exceptions are accommodate a I needed a rig that was as safe in the rig. Unavoidably, it was a monstrosity made for foreign skydivers, but the FAA wingsuit, a FLiK BASE environment as a native BASE and felt like a bag of bricks: a 200sq ft is clear on the allowable construction: 266 and a reserve rig – but one with TSO approval. It The container includes built-in reserve leaning heavily on a pack tray “Only single-harness, dual parachute parachute didn’t exist. I had to make it.” riser ramps for consistent riser constructed for a 260 sq ft main canopy. systems” may see use in US skies. The other problem that Corliss deployment without sacrificing any But why the ridiculously clunky gear, As Corliss, and others, discovered over was looking to solve wasn’t as of the superior riser protection even for athletes sufficiently advanced the course of many years, there are no straightforward as a way around an found on all Mirage containers. to be starting their BASE jumping exceptions made – even for big movies, entry in a book of regulations. It was careers? It comes down to three letters: when the skydiver is deploying “in the safety-related: the elusive delight of a TSO. This, as all skydivers are keenly basement” to give the cameras a crazy reliable wingsuit deployment in a world aware, is the three-letter acronym shot nestled in the teeth of a city skyline. where wingsuits have suddenly swollen that governs a skydiver’s life in the The American organisation isn’t the only to twice their original size. Corliss has sky. The acronym stands for Technical aviation administration that hard-lines been flying wingsuits for 16 years – Standard Orders: a list of FAA rules the requirement: it is the worldwide since 1998 – and noticed a very sudden, that regulate everything approved to standard, with precious few exceptions. very big problem. fly over United States airspace, from Notably, the W-Series wasn’t the “I never had a problem with line twists airplanes to fabric airfoils (like ram-air first successful attempt to get a BASE and cutaways. Literally, in thousands parachutes). TSO regulations state rig in the American airspace. The of wingsuit flights, I had zero cutaways. that only FAA-approved skydiving rigs, first TSO’d BASE rig was designed But then wingsuits changed – they The BOC is closed with magnets, with reserves repacked and sealed by by the team efforts of Ulster County got much, much bigger. Deployments ensuring security while providing FAA-approved technicians (“riggers”), Containers and Canopies and Florida- started becoming much more crucial.” an easy, on heading deployment.

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for a rig that is meant to be deployed with forward movement – specifically, subterminal-to-terminal wingsuiting and tracking. The rig needed to be comfortable, designed to accommodate a wingsuit, capacious enough to fit his FLiK 266 and inclusive of the all-important reserve parachute, however small. The meeting went well. “She built me a dream rig. She literally did everything I asked for, and put it in a beautiful package. The magic is that it can fit an ultralight Apex FLiK 266 in a container that is the size of a Spectre 170,” he continues. “It’s the easiest rig I’ve ever packed in my life. I can travel with a single rig and do everything I want to do.” The rig is not without its faults. BASE jumpers point out that it is inappropriate for traditional BASE jumping, as it is Line twists aside, the pivotal moment skydiving country and founded by Above: The potential prohibitively heavy and cumbersome to jump from aircraft came when Corliss was hired for a Dawn English (the first woman to win opens a new world of for long hikes. The spring-loaded project shot in Japan. The sequence a 4-way medal at the USPA Nationals). proximity flights reserve is essentially useless in the involved a wingsuit flight over Mt Fuji. “I’ve been flying a Mirage forever,” he BASE environment. The deployment It seemed straightforward from the says. “It’s a comfortable rig – a beautiful style is impractical for non-tracking, preliminary briefing; however, when rig. It was a big ask, but I was crossing non-wingsuit jumps. Also: it is very, very Corliss arrived to the set, there was a my fingers that they could help.” After expensive. Corliss shrugs it off. nasty surprise waiting for him. a promising initial call, English invited “[Dawn] is more about the concept “I didn’t realise how tall Mt Fuji him to fly out to Florida to discuss his – about being innovative – than about actually is,” he remembers. “The needs face-to-face. selling a bunch of stuff,” he smiles, “She helicopter I had to exit from could only “Dawn is one of the smartest people I sees the future. She’s proactive.” Which get to 14,000 feet, but Fuji is 12,000 know,” Corliss says. “This was obviously begs the question, of course: what feet tall. So the second I exit, I’m at a specialty rig, for a very specific future is she looking into? According to Corliss, it’s certainly not the future with which most BASE THE MARKET IS SMALL: TOP-LEVEL BASE careers will converge. It is a bespoke JUMPERS PERFORMING DEMANDING FLIGHTS, future for the top handful of jumpers in the sport. A superlative future for the WHO CAN SAFELY LAND A VERY SMALL RESERVE hyper-elite. “The potential to jump from aircraft pull altitude for the skydiving rig I’m person doing a very specific thing. The opens a new world of proximity flights required to use. Obviously, I knew that market is unbelievably small: top-level that simply can’t be accessed from I needed a BASE rig, but they wouldn’t BASE jumpers performing extremely the land,” he muses. “It opens up the let me use it. I ended up doing the flight, demanding flights, who can safely land United States. Wide. Wingsuit racing is but it shook me up,” he grimaces. “I a very small reserve. The thing is, it’s growing, and with this rig, we can host swore I wouldn’t be doing that again. technically not for BASE jumping. competitions here. That’s huge. So I started looking around at gear What it’s for is proxy flying wingsuits “You’re going to have to be a known manufacturers to help create a solution.” from aircraft.” person to purchase it,” he continues. Unsurprisingly, Corliss went to his Corliss’s wish list didn’t include “But it’s a work of art, as far as I’m sponsor first: Mirage Systems. Located acrobatic BASE jumps or low exit concerned.” He smiles. “I’ve never felt in the heart of DeLand, Florida’s points. His needs specifically called that about a rig, ever.”

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