AFF and prior wind tunnel experience

[Skyper 0]

Following the latest incident whereby an AFF student suffered femur bone fractures due to unstable opening position, I made a statement that a minimum wind tunnel time should be mandatory for AFF students.

AFK didn't really agree with me, saying that ppl will need to make long distances to reach the tunnel and tunnel time is not cheap either.

In the future I foresee more and more wind tunnels and this will hopefully bring the price a bit lower. When it comes to safety, I honestly think that the guy mentioned in the incident would make more chance for healthy legs if he had only 15 minutes of the tunnel time prior his AFF course.

[theonlyski 3]

I don't agree with that statement either. Tunnel time would probably help anyone... flying in the tunnel is great practice for flying in the air, and flying in the air is horrible practice for flying in the tunnel!

There are literally THOUSANDS of students that rock out AFF every year. Requiring them to fly/drive to a tunnel would end up probably costing more than a re-jump or two.

I love going to the tunnel, but I only live an hour away from one. Around 4 hours in it now... but I have the means and the desire to pay for it and get new tips/techniques for flying.

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[bqmassey 0]

What do you mean by 'require'?

[theonlyski 3]

Skyper said

Quote

Following the latest incident whereby an AFF student suffered femur bone fractures due to unstable opening position, I made a statement that a minimum wind tunnel time should be mandatory for AFF students.

Hence my reply to him saying that it should be mandatory.

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[bqmassey 0]

Sorry, that was to the OP. Looking back now he didn't say 'require' he said 'should be mandatory'.

Sorry for the confusion.

I'm curious what he means by 'mandatory'. Specifically, who would mandate this?

DZ mandated?
USPA mandated?
Federally mandated?

[diablopilot 2]

So because thousands of us can make it through a freefall progression every year safely without the use of a wind tunnel, and you have a statistical set of 1 who wasn't able to you want to change the program.

Tunnel time is great, but it is absolutely not required to participate in this sport.

If you're like to change the program to increase the safety of students, and future skydivers add more detailed canopy instruction and require instructors to teach and enforce it.

Pretty rare that people die or are injured in freefall, but under the parachute is a whole different ball of wax.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[FanOfFalling 0]

Are you suggesting that skydive training be banned in places without access to a wind tunnel? If you want to make skydiving completely safe I guess it makes sense to try to stop people from jumping out of airplanes at all. That guy you mentioned, in the incident would have had better chances at keeping his healthy legs if he'd never jumped out of an aircraft in flight.

Skydiving can hurt or kill you. Did anyone not have that drilled into their heads during their FJC?

[billvon 2,434]

Tunnel training would probably help a few students. So would a few static lines or a tandem before AFF, and so would a week-long FJC as one might find in a military freefall program.

The question is - which are vital? I don't think any of them are. Which are a good idea? Probably all of them, depending on what's available/doable.

[PiLFy 0]

My nearest tunnel is over four hours away. Other parts of the country would have to drive even farther. I would have benefited from some tunnel time during training. So would several of the students that went through w/me. It would be nice. It isn't practicable, though. Usually, a percentage of students will need to repeat a level or two due to stability problems. Sadly, that one student did shatter a femur. As someone already said. If you're going to increase mandatory training? Canopy skills are far more urgent a need.

[Skyper 0]

This last case is indeed "only 1", but please don't forget that most similar cases are probably never reported.

Bill, I think your wording is better than mine. It should not be mandatory, but instructors should be able to advice AFF studends to do tunnel/SL or whatever other trainings prior AFF to prevent this things from happening.

I have a feeling that "a real' jump is favorized by DZs which from the short therm financial gain perspecive is easy to understand. But from the perspective of safety and long term value for DZ it's shortsited standpoint. Students must be triggerd to use all means to improve their flying abilities.

p.s. I'm not affiliated with any wind tunnel or anything related to it.

[faulknerwn 37]

But you probably live near a tunnel.. Here in Texas, we'd have to fly to Arizona, Orlando, Denver, North Carolina, or California. There's isn't a tunnel within 12 hours driving distance... If I was teaching at Perris or Eloy, heck yeah I would recommend students hit a tunnel. I recommend it if people are traveling near one. I'd be hard pressed to recommend a student fly across country before they could do a level 1..

[Skyper 0]

Quote

But you probably live near a tunnel.. Here in Texas, we'd have to fly to Arizona, Orlando, Denver, North Carolina, or California. There's isn't a tunnel within 12 hours driving distance... If I was teaching at Perris or Eloy, heck yeah I would recommend students hit a tunnel. I recommend it if people are traveling near one. I'd be hard pressed to recommend a student fly across country before they could do a level 1..

It's true. I have two tunnels within 2 hours drive from my home. Maybe is that the reason that I thought that it's "widely available" thing. I thought that this kind of tunnels are all over US, but I was not aware of the large distances you have to make to reach one. I hope for the good of everyone involved in this sport the tunnels will be more and more availabe in the future...