mdrejhon

Yep, safety. There is the danger that one can cork to the top of the tunnel and hit the cieling, if they just cranked the speed on just about anybody. And if someone struggles to fall fast and starts to drift up, the danger is that one may panic and tumble, tumble, fall hard, and then hit the walls/trampoline hard enough to break bones. You pretty much need to be corkproof while flying 'in the tube', before they crank at high speeds -- corking is potentially more dangerous in a tunnel than in the sky. People have broken bones in the tunnel before... There's a posting above that a 17,000 jump freeflier who presumably tried to skip a few training steps in the tunnel, broke bones. There's always a tunnel adaptation phase -- to be respected.... No fear -- it is pretty safe. Arguably safer than skydiving even, as long as the tunnel progression is properly followed. Patience for beginner freefliers! (Of which I'm one, being a bellyflyer guy myself) Occasionally, it can be rather annoying to some new tunnelflyers who really want to liftoff ASAP for their dollar, but stay with it -- eventually the tunnel operator will trust you and the coach too. It may take more than an hour or two of tunnel time before you get liftoff, varies on the person and how much sky freefly experience you have as well... With bellyfly you can get liftoff early on your first 2 minutes in the tunnel, but with freefly you may not be allowed to get liftoff for a long while (more than an hour of expensive tunnel time), but many say it pays dividends in the sky, even before you get liftoff. One argues learning freefly with one hour of tunnel time in one weekend, is probably more cost-effective than struggling doing 25 freefly solos (spread over 1 or 2 months because of weather and time) struggling trying to learn sitfly in skydives by yourself before someone finally trusts you to freefly 2-way with them, and you learn more -- even if you don't lift off the net. Then on your first coached freefly 2-way, you perform much better! So it's a matter of perspective. It's expensive, but think of the reduced time and number of skydives before you are invited to jump with freefly RW... Well worth it. Try to spend at least half an hour at a time to get the maximum learning in, if the money is available. An hour is even better, but if you're financially tight, half an hour is often more than twice as much better than 15 minutes -- since you can punch beyond simply just doing tunnel adaptation. This would typically occur as two separate 15 minute periods (with 15 minute periods subdivided into 1-to-2-minute rotations with miniature debriefs in between), with good, longer debriefs before, between, and after.

Ride/rideshare/pickup needed. Send me a PM. I need to go to Spaceland from Houston Intercontinential, I land Nov 4th @ 11pm. I'm headed to Texas Winter Big Way Camp. Will share gas, or even share the cost of car rental. Send me a PM -- thanks!

Easy answer...Students and novices should consider EP that they're taught for this situation. Complicated answer....I think it really depends on the size of canopy, your familiarity to its behaviour in linetwists, your experience level. - Non-spinning linetwists on a 1.0 or 1.1WL square canopy, is easy to kick out in just a couple seconds. (most of the time, anyway) - Spinning linetwists on highly loaded ellipticals often escalate to the point where they are impossible to kick out. - Lightly loaded canopies in non-spinning linetwists are typically landable with a good PLF (and people have landed under them before, such as under a low reserve deployment. Or BASE jumpers. It's possible to land linetwists without injury.) It's a slow-speed mal. - landing a highly loaded canopy under spinning linetwists is easily fatal. They ROCKET down with fast altitude loss, to the point that they're considered a high-speed mal. So thus, no easy answer. Although I don't BASE, I know that BASE jumpers are forced to land linetwists here and there, and often able to get away with it with no injury... (albiet still high potential for injury, especially with lack of control of canopy and landing in a bad spot) The easy catchall is students should just go to EP's and 'listen to instructor'. But once you have hundreds of jumps, you get familiar with your canopy's ease of recovery from linetwists and set your own comfort levels, if you immediately recognize the severity linetwists as something similiar to one you quickly recovered from many times in the past. Sometimes it's not avoidable. You're in a bigway outer, where your mandated pull altitude is "no higher than 2500 feet", starting deployment right on cue but that you end up with a longer-than-expected snivel that ends up under spinning linetwists under 1500 feet. Even the best packjobs can mal inexplicably... Or you got another packer to pack for you. Perhaps that packer forgot to skip rolling the nose on a Pilot 150, and it snivelled 1000+ feet... Once, I found myself at approx 1900 feet under 360 degree linetwists. (bigway event, asked to pull at 2500, pulled in track, and opening was a little weird on one jump) Vigorously kicked out by 1800 feet. I do fly a Sabre 170 at WL of 1.15 and always successfully kick out of linetwists successfully in the past on this canopy -- so if I see severity of my linetwists to be less than the worst linetwists I've ever had, then it's really nobrainer. That led to my instant no-brainer automatic decision to just kick it out (three quick scissor kicks while spreading risers, and I was all done). If I noticed no progress during 100-200 feet of altitude loss, I'd have begun to consider EP. Or if I had only 10 jumps with that severe-enough twists at such a low altitude never having been in linetwists before, or if I was flying a highly loaded elliptical that warrants a near-immediate EP to truly save my life. Disclaimer: Go with the easy answer: What you've already been taught at your dropzone. Don't listen to me.

Beginner 'casual swooper' here. I did not start landing with front riser approaches until Jump #299 except at high altitude. Finally, at #299, I landed in my first double-fronts-boosted planeout. No swoop turns yet. I'm told by the 'good coaches' that no modern canopy is too light to swoop. I fly a Sabre 170 with a wingload 1.15:1, and I think swooping with something big is just perfectly fine as long as it's a reasonably modern design. (Sabre is a slightly older design, but it's still modern enough to be a beginner swoop canopy if that happens to be what you already have.) Although I've demoed at 143 and 150 already, a swoop-accelerated 170 can planeout further than a non-swooped 150 or 135. The front risers are really intense though on Sabre's at light wingloadings. I got many good tips from multiple people to push a big boat in plain straight-in double-fronts approaches, so I can still easily more than double the usual planeout distance without too much effort nor risk. But I'd also recommend maxing out a lot of things first, about the canopy. Read Germain's famous book. Talk to a few mentors on dropzone. There are dangers. I've botched an approach once to tumble, but it was pretty tame (learned a valuable lesson about target fixation and releasing double fronts too late) -- thanks to the very light wingloading, and all I got was dirtstain on my jumpsuit legs, no ouch, no pain at all. Better to begin learning under 1.1 than begin learning under 1.5 I say! But still can get hurt... You won't get 500 feet planeouts, but you easily can turn a 75 feet planeout to a 150 feet planeout. Makes a canopy feel like a new one, eliminate canopy boredom for another hundred jumps (or more), be a safer swooper on your next downsize... Canopy coach strongly recommended, of course..

UPDATE.... If you're on Jen's mailing list, they just announced that the registration for the California State Record (160-way) for January 21-25 is now open for registration! The link is not yet on bigways.com but gemini probably will be updating it shortly.

AggieDave is correct. I highly recommend instructors who let you fly the canopy on the first tandem jump. True, my statement is oversimplified. Unfortunately, it seems my statement is also true at many other dropzones (at least for jump #1, anyway) -- some tandem instructors don't want to let you fly the canopy. Rightfully, a worthy debate in a topic thread somewhere else on dz.com (see, Jay Young -- the dzcommer way of life), but again, AggieDave is correct.

If you can somehow postpone things till late Jan, I am told California State Record will become open for registration shortly. Within your time period, ZHills has their Xmas boogie, they have many 20-ways too to keep your bigway skills fresh. (I may be making a side trip, as I'm going to be near Tampa) I'm going to the Texas Winter Bigway Camp in early November. (P.S. I fly in IAH @ 11pm Tues Nov 4. I'm looking to split costs of car rental or pay your gas. PM me.)

As an outsider watching from aboard, and frequently travel to the U.S. for skydiving, I have heard many opinions from both sides. I have nothing but deep respect for the pluses and minuses of both, but one thing I was surprised to find out was that I read an article that mapped experience levels (number of years to politics) and there was surprisingly no co-relation between experience versus greatness, it appears seemingly random. http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Info/experience.html Chart: "How Good Are Experienced Presidents?" Unfortunately, for many of my scared friends, it looks like only time will tell whether the winner (whomever it is) is Great or Terrible.

Outdoor Aerodium tunnels tend to be old technology. The first wind tunnel open to the public was an Aerodium, up here in Canada sometime in 1979 (or 1980?). A friend of mine flew that one almost 30 years ago, said it cost only $25 an hour -- now those were the good old days!

The skeleton is up! Photo attached below from the Skyventure Montreal Facebook page.

You probably already know by now by reading dz.com and private messages, but here's a "QuickStart Cheat Sheet": You should also choose your FJC. Are you in a hurry because of deadlines? Or are you financially strapped? Or do you think you might progress later on? Or very scared of heights? Choices might be simplified roughly as: Tandem If you prefer to try it more in a potato sack fashion, (as some say). Strapped to the front of an instructor. Little training needed. Some FJC's are slightly more advanced tandems that allows you to demo altitude awareness, simple canopy control, etc. ...Difficulty: Easier ...Time: Shorter visit to DZ ...Freefall: Yes ...Fly the Parachute: Handled by instructor ...Availability: Wide. Almost every DZ. Available as single jump. AFF1 The first jump of an Accelerated FreeFall program. More challenging than a tandem, more ground instruction. Ground school. Maximum learning experience in one jump, for those who aren't easily overloaded. ...Difficulty: Harder ...Time: Longer visit to DZ ...Freefall: Yes ...Fly the Parachute: Handled by you! ...Availability: Wide, but might require package purchase at some DZ's (multiple-jump AFF, or tandem prerequsites) IAD/Static Line The first jump of an older style student program. Open parachute right away at exit. While often cheaper than AFF1, takes more jumps to become certified. Ground school. ...Difficulty: Medium ...Time: Longer visit to DZ ...Freefall: No ...Fly the Parachute: Handled by you! ...Availability: Declining, however usually available as a single jump. ________ Based on your personalty I gather, I recommend AFF1, or possibly a same-day tandem followed by AFF1 as some dropzones requires a tandem first before AFF1. Multiple jump 'get-licensed' package recommended. But it's your decision.

Airspeed. At least I think I've heard Arizona Airspeed are familiar with these teaching techniques, also good for 4-ways and RW overall in general. But really, ask around (Jim Alkek, etc) before you go -- Skyventure AZ is one of the few wind tunnels right on/next to a dropzone.

In that case, they're good tunnel instructors, not ordinary ones, then.

You're likely right -- there are also those (very experienced!) skydivers that get frustrated no matter how good the tunnel coach is, regardless of whether the coach is a skydiver or not. One thing I am really curious: That 17,000 jump freeflyer that was mentioned who broke his arms in the tunnel (I think by trying to freefly without relearning it for the tunnel first) -- did he/she give the tunnel a 'second chance' eventually? Anyway, I CANNOT WAIT for Skyventure Montreal to finish construction. Got delayed till March 2009 but the construction is going well, humming right along, with the usual minor setbacks here and there. I'd like to get a monthly 4-way team up and running, doing 10 hours next year if possible... Good way to cut tunnel costs of a large portion of tunnel time. (Anyone near Montreal, PM me. I have one interested already, need two more willing to commit an hour a month and can fly 4-way at $200 for one hour. Where else can you do sixty skydives worth of freefall in one day for that price. And if you can't fly tunnel 4-way yet, I can get you in touch with Team Evolution who can coach you to that level).

Bigway radial skills definitely is one of the things that cannot be easily learned in the tunnels. Witnessing an unstable 60-way building on the first jump of the first or second day, a formation that's wavy and distorting itself back-and-forth, not very flat in fallrate, and witnessing two or three red zone collisions elsewhere in the formation, you can be very distracted and freaked by that weed whacker threatening to whack you as you try to focus on some imaginary radial when nobody else seems to be on their radial; having a hard time staying on your radial. No tunnel training can prepare you for that... For small ways, like practicing 4-ways in the tunnel, a small portion of radial skills can be obtained in the form of "look across the center". It does not quite scale up to such a complex big way "radial in the stadium" scenario, but this can help develop a portion of the "habit" of looking across the center (which would be the inner base of a bigway)... Nontheless, tunnel training can help you recover faster from that red zone collision initiated by somebody else who wasn't on their radial. Or for those times when you're making radial mistakes on the first day and trying not to be cut ... Quick evasive manovers, quick recovery... "Good recovery, but don't do that again -- be on your radial next jump!"

I've had this conundrum quite a few times, but ultimately I've always decided to let them toss it into the hold. That is, the planeside carryon checkin-checkout in the jetway. At some airports, sometimes the plane is on the tarmac with no jetway (where I can walk on the tarmac right up to it), and I can actually walk over to the cargo door and hand the bag to him, only to be lifted two or three feet into the low-lying cargo door and slid to the rear from where he's standing. Didn't seem that particularly scary... I've seen many rigs been abused and thrown about at enough dropzones, that one single one-time handling by a single low-to-the-ground regional jet baggage handler doesn't matter that much -- since it was packed away in a gear backpack, sometimes with a reasonable amount of cushioning (wrapped in a jumpsuit ). I just remind them, PLEASE be careful, this one is fragile. The regional plane is low to the ground and regional plane carryons seem to be handled with more care than the conveyer belt tossing for big planes with cargo holds high above the ground... I've seen people forced to put their laptop gear "down below" -- and obviously, a gear bag (rig/jumpsuit only, no electronics or altimeter) is less fragile than a massively oversized laptop/camera bag. That said, I'd like to hear if anyone has had unlucky experience with regional planes regarding skydiving rigs (Air Canada, Northwest, etc) My biggest worry is theft, especially if I am at the back of the plane and don't disembark before anyone else, but the bag is tagged and boring nondescript (whuffo's can't tell it's skydiving gear from looking at the bag), it definitely doesn't look like a laptop/electronics bag, and as an extra level of precaution for a honest error, the rig itself labelled with a LOST-REWARD label.

Sure - for some new tunnel flyers, 60 minutes can be overload, but buy it all at once and spread it over a time period, it's no problem!

Just read this just now. (I read the PM before this reply.) See my large article, endorsed by multiple tunnel coaches: Why Wind Tunnels Benefits Big Ways If one is criticizing my endorsement of skydiving-specific tunnel instructor, I'll add this: In a followup to that thread, I also posted an explanation about why I recommended newbies to get an HOUR of tunnel time instead of 15 minutes of tunnel time. The satisfaction ratings of an experienced skydiver first-time tunnel for a 1 hour purchase is massively higher than a 15 minute purchase, because of the initial clumsy 15-minute "familiarization period" (if one has never been in a tunnel). If you only buy 15 minutes, a first timer sometimes feels like it is a waste of time, because of this 'effect'. So thusly, I recommend lots of tunnel time. Again, observe I used the word "may" in the post that I made. It's not supposed to be interpreted as all skyventure tunnel instructors are bad. There are those actually much better than tunnel instructors who are skydivers. But as it is often typical, the experienced-skydiver-but-tunnel-newbie who only purchased 15 minutes of first-time-ever tunnel time, and find that they spend the whole 15 minutes with unexpectedly-lowered-expectations of only adapting to the tunnel (when they had hoped to sudden know how to sitfly in just 15 minutes, or to score complex points in belly RW), especially if coached by a randomly selected coach, may decide they don't want to spend for an hour of tunnel time on a future visit (or even end up avoiding tunnels altogether). For a first-timer, sometimes the odds are sometimes stacked against their expectations, so might as well throw somebody who understands their needs, and figures out how to give their money's worth, getting past the 'initial tunnel adaptation' period, into the 'wow-i'm-learning-lots' period. Once a skydiver is familiar with the tunnel, then they are in a better position to explain to the instructor what they want to be coached on, or fly only with door supervision learning by self or with another friend (as in 2-way, 3-way or 4-way) -- and it's far easier to set expectations, not to be dissapointed... And they can easily watch other instructors and learn about other good instructors too, even non-skydiving instructors. Yes, many people get addicted to the tunnel on the first try. Yes, many AFF students easily find it useful even with just 15 minutes purchase. But often, a 500 jump guy who has never flown in the tunnel, who purchases only 10 or 15 minutes, unexpectedly find themselves back at square 1, trying to adapt to the tunnel. Especially skydivers who know nothing about mantis flying -- you tunnel instructors might be familiar with skydivers getting frustrated having to relearn a new bodyflying position they never had to use, rather than learning how to slowfall. It may not fit their discipline (i.e. mantis benefits 4-way flying, but not necessarily 100-ways -- Kate Cooper ordered all of us to do boxman, for example.) I love mantis now, but you can get the idea of the tunnel learning curve, that relates to a lot of aspects in freefly, bellyfly, etc... Too many skydivers set too high expectations for their first-ever 15 minutes. One example of difficulty I had when I purchased only 15 minutes of tunnel time, was that mantis slowfall feels very different from boxman slowfall -- then in the sky, I was totally confused which to go. Tunnel temporarily made me worse at slowfall because of mantis-boxman confusion. But after one hour -- BAM -- PRESTO -- I could do it either way, and do it much better than before. Now I have almost 5 hours, and plan to maybe do 10 hours next year (especially with the reduction of cost that comes with sharing the costs of the chamber, by flying belly 4-ways in the tunnel, which I already do.) Regardless of this, moral of the story: For a first timer, give the TUNNEL a 'honest' try.

Just wanted to clarify. Some tunnelflyer private messaged me criticizing me for even merely mentioning that tunnel time can be a waste of time. The private message may have been targeted to the wrong person because of my clearly pro-tunnel message, but: Maybe somebody mis-read it from my phrase "can feel like a waste of tunnel minutes at first, but this pays dividends later." So let me clarify that fact: The sad fact remains is that many tunnel newbies give up the wind tunnel after their first-ever 10 minutes. Although for many people it is "love at first sight", it is not true for every tunnel newbie. There are many cases where a person cannot learn enough from $200 of wind tunnel time, to feel it "worth it", and might feel reluctant to invest in it further. So that why I strongly encourage first-time tunnel flyers that they need to SPEND for an HOUR of tunnel time to give the wind tunnel a HONEST try. So, if a newbie is reading this, worried about spending hundreds of tunnel, spend for a full hour -- you won't regret it! It's amazing how one has less regret for an hour of respected-skygod-instructor-coached tunnel time in your preferred discipline, than 10 minutes of a less-good non-skydiver-instructor-coached tunnel time in an unfamiliar discipline. It happens all too often, unfortunately. Yes, there are bad skydiver tunnel instructors, and good non-skydiver tunnel instructors, but if you're a newbie and you're confused of what coach to get -- it's generally a guideline to get a good skydiver who happens to be a tunnel instructor -- i.e. I've been coached by Perris Fury as well as Team Evolution (Canada's #1 4-way team, who runs tunnel camps). Such people are, probably, the preferred choice for a first-time tunnel flyer that's jittery about parting with about $800 of money for an hour of tunnel time, unless many pro freeflyer friends recommend, say, a specific stunning non-skydiving tunnel instructor who's very good at coaching freefly. Or a particular discipline of choice. Regardless, what matters is you want to make sure you get very good referrals to get the right good tunnel instructor. Another way to picture this, is that your first-ever 15 minutes in the tunnel, after being a long-time skydiver, may feel like you're learning all over again because it's a chamber rather than the sky. Don't be discouraged! Stay it through, and after the first 15 minutes, you're learning well beyond -- and become really a noticeably better skydiver in the sky. Hereby lies my explanation of why, in certain cases, tunnel time "may" feel like a waste of time at first for an experienced skydiver who is new tunnel flyer, especially when the wrong coach is used. The message here is that, you gotta give the wind tunnel a honest try -- spend at least an hour, perhaps spread over two days to let your body rest. If you can't afford it, then half an hour is more likely to have high satisfaction ratings, especially with a good instructor/coach.

15 minutes is good if you choose a good coach 15 minutes with a regular Skyventure tunnel instructor (non-skydiver) may feel like a waste of time for some skydivers just trying the tunnel for the first time. Not always, but it happens sometimes. One needs to be flexible in both boxman and mantis. For a while, I was throughly confused on how to slowfall because the mantis method of slowfall is somewhat different from the boxman method of slowfall. But once you get practice in both and know how both work, you're more flexible. Sometimes it just requires buying a couple more hours of tunnel time.

Thanks for the update! Keep the big yellow machines moving, we want the tunnel up soon.

Based on the scare stories about Raven Micro 150 and the fact I kept it for 3 years anyway, I had the quick canopy control check memorized every time I thought of almost potentially needing to use my reserve. (spinning linetwists I quickly recovered over a period of a few seconds, as well as jammed toggle). Although reserve fear shouldn't exist, it did come back when my friend hurt myself, I've eliminated that completely with the PD143R. In all likelihood, I could potentially have just been fine -- the canopy check would probably reveal I need a good abbreviated flare over a few inches range rather than a full stroke. That said, I agree that "on average" (risk per jump basis), Nova at 1.3WL sounds much safer than a Raven Micro at 1.3WL, based on what billvon said. Just distorted because Nova is a main and a Raven Micro is a reserve. That said, bidding is now up to fifty-two currency units (I choose mint condition 1878 Morgan Dollars, please.), to someone 130lbs living in 1989. At which point, this now off-topic forum topic gets time-moved to the correct forsale usenet newsgroup (the web doesn't exist yet.) Ooops, the reserve serial number hasn't been made yet in its run -- it's a 1993.

Interesting info to keep in mind-- For Canadian winter layovers, if you're just getting the reserve repacked after a 4 to 6 month winter storage, most of us Canadians don't bother opening the reserve. However, the Canadian reserve repack cycle is 6 months, and I guess if we weren't going to use the rig for 1 year, pulling the reserve is probably a good idea to prevent it from becoming next Christmas' fruitcake. Many of us dare to jump a main that's been packed 6 months, but it will generally snivel longer, so don't go doing a bigway outer slot with a 2000-2500 foot pull, on a rig that's not been jumped or repacked for 4 months.... Although hanging has its benefits, I think I understand why some riggers don't recommend hanging long-term (months of non-use): I think it has the potential to distort the hard housings for the cutaway cord, potentially pinching it, especially if the housings are plastic and would slowly distort under the weight of a harness hanging for many months. This is probably not a risk to most hard housings or tubings that go over the hanging part, but this appears a nonzero risk... I agree about the bag idea (the cotton suggestion sounds a good idea) to protect it from light and dust, as well as the occasional shufflng that it might have (especially in a closet that's used frequently), and lying it flat on its backpad probably minimizes sharp pressure/stresspoints on the rig. (That said, if it's in a basement, hanging probably is safer than a basement floor due to flood risk -- so your environmental risk might force a specific storage method)

Although others will reply with excellent suggestions, location of storage is just as important, or maybe even moreso than storage orientation. i.e. Don't use the car trunk (high temperatures degrades nylon faster) or unheated winter storage (potentially damages AAD/battery), bottom shelf in a damp flood-prone basement, etc.

I wanted to demo it as a main once, until I found out it didn't have a main bridle attachment -- some PD reserves have them and some don't. Then I could get incredibly unlucky and have to cut it away, only to permanently lose it. Would be a shame. I heard PD encourages going ahead and demoing once as a main before a reserve repack if it has a main bridle attachment... But no worries, I demoed a different PD143R already and land it with a nice quick 7-cell optimized flare, with a stand up... *rolls dice again*