Butterfly tunnel St. Petersburg feedback

[Airhugger 1]

I've found Aero Butterfly wind tunnel on the net after some googling for a cheap wind tunnel time. But I'm wondering if someone has tried it and have something to say about the tunnel, instructors and training quality in this tunnel?

Have you been there?
what do you think?

[BigBUG 0]

It's a small (2.5m) tunnel, located in Zelenogorsk, small town 60 km from the city.

Powerful enough to try all the position including headdown (but in the summer you'll need to wait quite a time until it cools off), wind is quite rough (as in any small tunnel) which could be both bad and good thing - harder to learn and way more tiredsome, but if you could fly in the small tunnel, you'll fly anywhere :)

Instructors are good, some speaks English.

[wan2doit 6]

Prices look to be very good.

Wish I lived close to it.

Not very big and fancy but for basic flight training and even advanced stuff it looks like it would serve the purpose minus the high operation costs of more sophisticated tunnel systems.

Of course Shaquille Oneill might not fit. ;)

[Airhugger 1]

BigBUG

It's a small (2.5m) tunnel, located in Zelenogorsk, small town 60 km from the city.

Powerful enough to try all the position including headdown (but in the summer you'll need to wait quite a time until it cools off), wind is quite rough (as in any small tunnel) which could be both bad and good thing - harder to learn and way more tiredsome, but if you could fly in the small tunnel, you'll fly anywhere :)

Instructors are good, some speaks English.

Is it a good idea to start there for me as a total beginner in freeflying ?

[wan2doit 6]

Might depend on where U live. If far away U need to add in transportation costs to decision process.

As far as training there I would combine basic flying there and once and a while maybe at a more sophisticated tunnel for comparison purposes.

Bottom line Russia has very good deals compared to USA.

[BigBUG 0]

well as a member of Flystation staff and someone who incorporates a modern way to teach, I'd reccomend to go in bigger tunnel.

I'd say that small tunnels like that could be really good bargain for money when you already pretty good and working on static drills -like static sit/headdown. For 2-way VFS/MxFS team it actually could be a great solution, because it will teach you to be efficient and fast. All our National 2way VFS medalists came from small tunnels.

For starters, it is essential to have the ability to move - hence we are teaching carving and layouts pretty early now, it makes students fly and learn a lot in the same time, instead of boring and tiredsome 'oldschool' static progression. You could not do this in a small tunnel.

Another (very personal) consideration is a temperature. Butterfly is insanely hot in the summer and I personally not functioning above 30-35 C. But should be Ok in the fall/wintertime.