Sit fly Coach Jumping or Sit Fly Tunnel Training?

[SuperKat 0]

Could you please give me your honest opinion if you only had money for Sit Fly coach jumping or for Sit Fly tunnel training, which would you choose? Which is more efficient?

What's the most you ever lost in a coin toss, Friendo?

[Blink 0]

I've never been in a tunnel, but my friends have. At the time tey had 700, 1000, 1500 jumps, most of them freeflying, and had to start out on their bellys to prove they were competent. They then spent time on their back, flying in tat orientation. After that, they were aloud the sitfly. You may spend some/lots of time on your belly/back depending on how well you fly.

I'm not saying belly and back lfying aren't important, I am just saying that to get to sit flying in the tunnel, that's what you need. If you've already got it done, then nevermind. :)

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Could you please give me your honest opinion if you only had money for Sit Fly coach jumping or for Sit Fly tunnel training, which would you choose? Which is more efficient?

No one my first four-way freefly round (two head up, two head down, built after exiting) had fewer than 500 jumps and I think three of us had 750+. IOW, $12,000 - $18,000 in jump tickets.

Tunnel flyers get there in a small number of hours although it could be a few before you get to actually sit flying.

[darrenspooner 0]

You should go and watch people in the tunnel. Its easy to do a lot of damage in a tunnel trying to learn stuff. You need to take is slow. I did half an hour in a tunnel with over 200 jumps and I bounced off the walls just doing flat. When you've only got 16 feet to play with you soon realise how much you move around in the sky. The first replier is right, at least as far as the tunnel I went to in the UK. You got to do a lot of work and proving your competence before they will let you try to sit fly. But I'd say do tunnel time any way. You learn an awful lot real quick. Just one thing - preparation = lots of press ups

[Ironmanjay 0]

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Could you please give me your honest opinion if you only had money for Sit Fly coach jumping or for Sit Fly tunnel training, which would you choose? Which is more efficient?

If I had the money I would do both so you can be as versatile as possible in the air and in the tunnel...go get coaching in the air during the day and go to the tunnel at night


I learned to sit fly in the air first as most of us do but now I can sitfly in the tunnel and it has expanded my sitflying in the air ten fold. The tunnel willl not allow any bad habits to form, like flying too heavily with your arms. I am a semi-quick learner and was sitflying in the tunnel with a little over 1 hour, but then again my coaches are gold medal tunnel team flyers so they know how to explain things while Im doing it right in front of their face and they push me to my limits so Im not just wasting my money in the tunnel.

Coaches in the air and in the tunnel will make or break all that money your spending!
If you think about a good skydiving coach with cost you your jump ticket, their jump ticket and sometimes 20-40$ on top of that so your looking at 40-80$ for a skydiving coach jump. A tunnel coach can cost you 13-18$ per min. You will have to decide which one works best for you.

[antonija 0]

I went into tunnel when I had 30-something jumps and I wanted to improve my belly flying and try some sitflying. While it is very convenient to have a coach right next to you correcting your every mistake, it's also very annoying to have walls so close to you and I spent most of my time trying not to hit the walls (or coaches).

So when I decide to go for headdown I will definitely go for coaching jumps first (I find it easier to keep track of altitude than walls all around me) and after I become stable (more or less :p) I'll go back to tunnel to get the details right.

I understand the need for conformity. Without a concise set of rules to follow we would probably all have to resort to common sense. -David Thorne

[Emmie 0]

So...I have to dissagree with the whole "walls are detrimental to learning" statement. New freeflyers are typically all over the sky, and don't even know it. The walls are actually a pretty invaluable learning tool to make sure you're falling down tube rather than backsliding all over the place. Sure, even if you learn to freefly in the tunnel, some backsliding is still inevitable once you get to the sky because you just lost the walls as a point of reference, but the walls will help in teaching you the right body position, which will make you a better flyer in the long run.

[LyraM45 0]

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So...I have to dissagree with the whole "walls are detrimental to learning" statement. New freeflyers are typically all over the sky, and don't even know it. The walls are actually a pretty invaluable learning tool to make sure you're falling down tube rather than backsliding all over the place. Sure, even if you learn to freefly in the tunnel, some backsliding is still inevitable once you get to the sky because you just lost the walls as a point of reference, but the walls will help in teaching you the right body position, which will make you a better flyer in the long run.

I too will throw in my two cents here and disagree that the walls are a detriment to learning. The walls are actually a PLUS. If you don't like the tunnel because you are bouncing off the walls and can't get the hang of it, then that is every reason to stay in there and work at it because if you're bouncing off of the walls in there it means that you look just as messy on your skydive and your back/fwd/side sliding all over the place and your fellow jumpers who are with you are the ones chasing you around.

For skydivers it is really tough to spend that first amount of money to get in there and get stable on your belly/back before you start freeflying, and it might seem like a "waste," but it really does pay off in the long run. I promise.

Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

[Kami-kaze 0]

Here is my experience ...
Tunnel helps. No doubt about that.
As for sit flying I can do it in air, take docks, etc, but I can't sit in the tunnel.
I enjoy flying on my back but just can make the sit. Makes me wonder if the rig makes it that easier to sit or what !?
I've had freefly coaching in air and was surprised/disappointed I couldn't sit in the tunnel.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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As for sit flying I can do it in air, take docks, etc, but I can't sit in the tunnel.
I enjoy flying on my back but just can make the sit. Makes me wonder if the rig makes it that easier to sit or what !?
I've had freefly coaching in air and was surprised/disappointed I couldn't sit in the tunnel.

When you're starting to sit fly in the tunnel they limit air speed for safety reasons and don't give you enough to get off the net without using your back to generate lift.

In the air you can rely almost entirely on your arms.

Obviously, getting drag from your back allows a lot more latitude in the grips you take, even allowing you to sit with both hands in front of you, so that's what you want to be doing but it's different and takes some practice.

[Kami-kaze 0]

Cheers, Drew.
I haven't entirely given up on the tunnel.
I do practice flying in air without my arms. I'd put my hand on my hip, then I put it on my chest. I can't imagine sticking both arms in front at the moment without backsliding.
Yes it does take a lot of jumps. Sometimes it gets too much it takes the fun out.

[Chrisky 0]

Using the same money, tunnel coaching will get you about 4 times as much coached flying time. However, as others have said, you will NOT start the tunnel in a sit. Once you show reliable 6 axis control (Rotation and Translation along all 3 axises) you will move on to back flying (recovery position from a sit), and from there to sit. I started tunnel flying regularly 2 yrs ago to finally get my headdown down and the difference in my sitflying is dramatic. I did around 750 jumps, 500 of which mostly sitflying, and actually had a pretty good sit (even by tunnel standard). But there were two or three minor old habits to break to advance beyond basic sit, and they were hard to iron out in the tunnel. However now, I can do many things in sit, but some are still missing (like a double front dock ie.).
They say it is easy to learn to sit, but hard to master, the other way around for headdown.
And to me that is true. Dont be scared of by ppl mentioning getting to a sit can take hours, I have seen people doing the sit walking exercises in the tunnel after 30 minutes total for belly/backflying.
One final advice though: Go to a tunnel that has lots of power.

The mind is like a parachute - it only works once it's open.
From the edge you just see more.
... Not every Swooper hooks & not every Hooker swoops ...

[MisterCrash 0]

Sitfly tunneltraining is more efficient timewise AND moneywise. You also have a good motivator to use the right techniques, a.K.a the Wall. The only thing about it that seems negative to me is that your money get's spent much faster than regular sitfly coaching and you don't really have the social aspect of skydiving outdoors.

It's all about priorities, but efficiency no doubt the tunnel.

All speeding past collide and crashing, I'm in paradise.

[SwampGod 0]

Back flying and sit flying are so closely related that I don't think we should separate the two as much as we do. As skydivers, we think that back-flying is remedial, or simply a "bail" position... when in fact it is just the slow airspeed version of sit. In both orientations you use (primarily) the back of your body to fly.

Get good at your slow fall, whatever the orientation, and your fast fall will benefit.

I agree with Chrisky that sit flying is easy to learn, and can be easy to hold stable in the sky, but learning movement can be tricky (and made easier with the immediate feedback in the tunnel).

-eli

[LyraM45 0]

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As for sit flying I can do it in air, take docks, etc, but I can't sit in the tunnel.
I enjoy flying on my back but just can make the sit. Makes me wonder if the rig makes it that easier to sit or what !?
I've had freefly coaching in air and was surprised/disappointed I couldn't sit in the tunnel.

When you're starting to sit fly in the tunnel they limit air speed for safety reasons and don't give you enough to get off the net without using your back to generate lift.

In the air you can rely almost entirely on your arms.

Obviously, getting drag from your back allows a lot more latitude in the grips you take, even allowing you to sit with both hands in front of you, so that's what you want to be doing but it's different and takes some practice.

You hit the nail right on the head. A lot of skydivers have so much trouble at first because of the slower speeds when you first start out. It's very hard to learn how to generate lift at slower speeds AND break all your bad habits and learn how to properly fly your body. Once you start flying topped out in the tunnel, it will begin to feel much like a regular skydive and by that time you'll know how you fly your body like it's second nature.

Another thing that pans out better in the tunnel theoretically speaking is the learning curve. I am going to learn faster in a constant five minute block where I can attempt something over and over again versus five skydives where I have to land, pack, and do all the other things in between before getting up to have my 50 second go at it again. I am probably a little biased because I learned most of my flying in a tunnel first and then applied all of that in my skydiving when I eventually got back into jumping again last year-- so much so that my problem was opposite to a lot of skydivers and I had to learn how to fly with the effects of a rig on.

Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

[Kami-kaze 0]

Interesting ...
so how did find skydiving coming from the tunnel ?
What was the effect about the rig ?
cheers