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It's good to see John Mitchell be recognized in the Profile section of this month's Parachutist magazine. And, good to know a little more of his background. I've never met him (except possibly at the T-Mobile demo in SF.?) but have always been impressed by his presence here on DZ.com. He always seems to be measured, supportive, kind and helpful, and quite knowledgeable. Plus, as an Air Traffic Controller - a pilot's best friend! Way to go John Mitchell!

Flip side to the above reply is that doing the tunnel first may help avoid failing levels on the AFF and having to pay to repeat them. If you do the general "tick the box on the bucket list" tunnel flying thing that people do, then it isn't as likely that it'll be suited as well for AFF, but if you make a point of letting the tunnel know that you are going to be doing your AFF soon, and are looking to get a good body position for that, they may be able to tweak things for you in your experience to suit the progression to AFF. Maybe get the first level or two out the way, then get some tunnel time for the later levels where your instructor will let go of you... I wish I did, as that would have saved me 3 or 4 repeat levels.

I'm going to disagree with this. I think that most jumpers understand & accept the risk. They take steps to mitigate it, but understand that it will never be 'safe'. They try to learn from other's mistakes, yet understand that they are not immune to making them. As an example, look at the ratio of "It's not dangerous" to the "Yes it is" posts in this very thread. It's just that the 'I'll be fine' folks seem to be more apparent than the 'it's risky but I can make decisions that make it less so' crowd.