How Much Tunnel Time?

[Johnkelley 3]

Hello,

If you had to estimate a number, how much COACHED tunnel time do you think it would take someone who just got their A license to be able to fly any type of jump (not wingsuit)? Not be a master at it, but enough to be able to comfortably fly their slot in RW, and FF (angled tracking, sit, head down, etc.). I realize that everyone learns at differently and some people may take longer than others, but I was just curious what the average is. More or less asking for fun and to see what people average for a number of hours.

[flyingwallop 5]

After 15 hours I'm doing 2/3 ways HU with some HD exits, 2/3 ways tracking (starting to work on steeper angles). Only twice a FF 4-way with HD flower exit. Mostly these jumps are with very experienced free fliers.

[kat00 11]

If you want to fly well in your slot for RW just get signed off on level one tunnel skills and then fly with 4 way people. Tunnel coaches can't really teach RW slot flying very well.

Once you get checked off on belly, then you can start to progress to backflying. Backflying is the foundation for sit and sit is the foundation for head. So you need to become proficient in each before moving on. When they teach back they do throw in some really basic sit drills but the progression takes time. Some of the dynamic stuff like carving is also good for fun in the sky.

One thing I would stress is don't put a time restriction on learning the tunnel. To be proficient just takes awhile and is different for everyone. I know some good sky sitflyers who can't do it in the tunnel. So if you are even semi proficient you probably can do ok in the sky.

Another tip for tunnel is try to find a tunnel camp or coach who can do multiple sessions in a day. if you can manage 4 15 min blocks in a day you will make some good progress compared to doing that over 4 weeks.

[Tinley 0]

A better question to ask would be how many skydives does it take.

Some people with 10, 100 or even a 1000 of tunnel hours have trouble exiting, diving/floating, approaching and even staying on level in a group/formation skydive.

The only thing to teach one to comfortably fly a slot, in any orientation, is a lot skydives. I would expect that number to increase as the complexity of the orientation increases.