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chuckakers

Wind Tunnel in Houston??????

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From what I understand it blows about 110mph, but can get faster on colder days. I think even though its not Skyventure, that it could still be used for a good training tool. But I'm saying that without even had been there yet.

Oh, its just outside of Conroe.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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Conroe? Yikes! Not eaxactly the center of the wind tunnel universe, eh?

Many years ago I crunched they numbers for a wind tunnel and we thought the best Houston location would be near (or at) Astroworld. Lots of potential customers that fit the demographic with money in their pockets budgeted for entertainment.

110 mph? Gee, I wonder if they're looking for instructors with balloon suit experience, heh, heh.;)

Chuck

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I had heard that ad too a while back...
And also had problems with the website.

A friend of mine whose brother had all kinds of
'carnival' stuff for home parties says he knows the guy running
the operation.
And thus far isn't doing real well with it.










~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

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I used to think the best place for a wind tunnel in Texas would be tourist mecca San Antonio -- whuffos could see the Alamo, visit SeaWorld, play in a SkyVenture tunnel. But now that I am moving I think it should be in the Dallas area. :)
Skydiving is for cool people only

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okay. I live about 8 miles from the Adrenlin wind tunnel and have gone there to check it out before. Basically, its a blower wind tunnel, its got a dc-3 prop powered by some kind of diesel truck motor. The guys told me that they had the speeds up to like 130-140. I dont know if thats true or not though. I THINK these guys are the same ones who had that wind tunnel going at Rantoul. not sure though. It seems like it would be fun, but i honestly dont know if it would actually benefit skydiving skills.

btw for further reference, the wind tunnel is actually part of an "extreme sports" park, they have a bunch of motocross tracks and trails for ATV's and a lake to race Jet skis on and stuff. also a BMX track. its a pretty cool complex, the motocross track is pretty well known in the area.

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This tunnel was formally at skydive Greensburg in Indiana. I flew it a great deal. The wind speed is true with no dead spots in the tube. IT was built by Roger Hadley of columbus Indiana and installed at Greensburg for use and adjustments since this was his first of hopefully many for Roger. I miss it being there to play. IF you want more info and pics and video of freefliers in the tunnell (The gentlemen in the video are Roger the builder and John Suiter one of the best tunnel fliers around) go to WWW.BODYFLIGHT.NET and its listed under ARDEN TX as the location. I strongly suggest flying this tunnel for two ways, students, freefliers or single funs. If you are looking for Skyventure you will be disappointed, but if you are looking for a great tunnel to fly at a less price than the big tunnels, check this out. I had many hours of fun without traveling to Fl, CA, TN or anyother of the big tunnels
Blue Skies!
D

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John is the one in the tye-dye suit going off in the tunnel! John worked with roger on this design, he was up every couple of weeks to Greensburg to "instruct". I learned alot from him and roger both. I think he had hand in moving this deal to TX. The website I gave you is his website bodyflight.net .... Like I said this is not Flyaway but it is great for 2 way or single work. I strongly encourage you to try it out. If you know any AFF students GET THEM INTO THIS!!!!! I saw a level 2 student who stated putting tunnel time in and it was unreal what she was doing after working with John. Somebody else fly it and give some feedback!
Blue Skies!
D

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I flew it today. I was pretty disappointed.

After trying to do it in my RW suit (that I can fly 115mph or less in) and having serious problems getting off the net AND having serious problems flying the cone of air, I put on one of the super-baggy balloon suits they had. Then I was able to actually get off the net, but if I would fly that body position on a real skydive...well, I think that my ratings would get torn up and I'd be put back on 5 sec staticline delays.

The biggest problem is that the air isn't constant. It has one fan blowing from the bottom, so you already start with a cone of air that very easy to slip off of, but it didn't seem to keep a good constant airspeed, it would be a bit faster or slower as the seconds ticked by.

Basically, IMHO the tunnel would be very very bad for a student jumper, since unless they're 5' tall and weigh 100lbs they'd have to fly in a very contorted body position. That WILL teach them bad positions and that WILL form bad muscle memory, so it will take more skydives to fix those problems.

I'm a very very big fan of tunnels (Skyventure) and have seen folks with low jump number with an extreme amount of freefall skill after a few hours in the Skyventure tunnel, but this tunnel...well, it was fun, don't get me wrong, I think you should go there and play, but don't expect to actually be able to do anything with it.

Also, another guy that was with us today has gone to Flyaway in Vegas as well as 2 Airspeed camps at Skyventure, so he has some experience in tunnels...basically, he was having a very hard time keeping off the net and completing turns and such. It wasn't until he put one of their huge suits on and flew a very messed up body position was he able to get up in the tunnel and do some turns. He even commented that its not even as good as Flyaway, which from my understand can't even hold a candle to SkyVenture.

Bottom line: Go there, have fun, the people are really cool, but don't expect to be able to actually practice anything useful and don't expect to be able to actually instruct students to do anything useful beside flying in a bad body position.


The people there said that they are in the process of building a fixed site in the Woodlands that will be a much better tunnel, with more constant wind and no "cone" of air, although its still going to be a blow tunnel (as opposed to a tunnel that sucks, like SkyVenture;)). I'll have to go try that one out when they finish it.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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Ummm...Chuck, sorry but I don't know if you were joking about flying "it" or if you're serious. So, I'll answer serious and if you're joking, then it'll be even funnier.

The tunnel is at the "extreme sports" park sort of near Conroe. Basically on the NW corner of I-45 and 1488.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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Dave,

somthing must have changed drastically from when it was here in Indiana. I am 6' 205 and had no problem getting off the net. I am sorry to hear that it has changed. HHHMMMMM??? I have had no problem at the top net holding for a few sec then coming back down. Sounds to me like somthing is not right as it was up here. If you look at the pics on bodyflight.net under tunnels for sale/ jus-fly you can see pics of Roger and Kip Loughmiller doing a two-way in it while it was here. Sorry I gave it such rave reviews i was going on what it did while it was here under Roger's control. I apologize, like i said somthing must have changed. It was a great toy here. If anyone is looking at wanting to put in a small or portable tunnel without paying the Skyventure price-tag, I would encourage you to get ahold of Roger Hadley of Jus-Fly. You can contact him throught the bodyflight.net website. Once again, I was going on what it did here sorry!
Blue Skies!
D

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No, like I was saying, once I put on one of their special suits and flew in a very big/odd body position, I got off of the net. It just wouldn't be good as a teaching tool, thats all. I did have fun, though.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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Anyone know the details of the "portable" wind tunnel being advertised on radio in the Houston market?



Hi Truman... er... Chuck!

Skydive Houston has flyers for this wind tunnel laying out on the counter. Maybe you could call Sandi in manifest there and have her mail you one of the flyers...

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No, like I was saying, once I put on one of their special suits and flew in a very big/odd body position, I got off of the net. It just wouldn't be good as a teaching tool, thats all. I did have fun, though.



Hi AggieDave, again!
Skywhuffo was right about ADREN-L-N. Unfortunately you seem to have visited during a re-structuring phase. It's super fast, and really, if you can't fly in your ffsuit or rwsuit, let us know, we will come all the way to Conroe to help you out with that. By we, I mean, my husband, John Suiter and I.

And, btw, skywhuffo, your right, we did sell it to the guys in Conroe!! Good to see you on the message boards here...

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Yeah, now they do.

When I first visited, it wasn't that great.

I took a student there from SD Aggieland that was having problems with her leg awareness, thus would end up getting a slow turn going in freefall. After a good handful of dives that were specifically designed to work on that, she wasn't really getting it fixed and was getting really frustrated.

So, two weeks ago, I took her down to the windtunnel, told the guys there what I wanted to do, got in the tunnel with her and worked on it.

In the total tunnel time of about 4 minutes, plus briefing, debriefing and reviewing with my student we were able to fix her leg problems and she's since moved on with her student progression. Actually, she's getting really close to getting her license now.

I put on one of their suits and played after that (since I had forgotten my suits and was in jeans and boots).

Definately MUCH better.

There still is a "cone" of air, but that's to be expected.

The air speed is faster and more consistant, even in one of their faster suits I was able to really fly around in it this time, popping up most the of the way up the tunnel and such.

I even got to spend some time showing the tunnel guys how to knee fly the tunnel and how to sitfly, which was definately a blast.B|

My review of the tunnel is now MUCH better.

Although, I still think that trying to do a true 2-way or better would be rough, due to the size of the tunnel and the "cone" of air, but this is something that can definately be used, as proven with my student.B|
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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hey,
i noticed this post is almost a year old but i'm curious... is this outdoor tunnel still around? i have not been by yet (b/c i live an hour from 45@bw).
dave, i took your advice into account but they are only giving a few minuites and i just want to make sure i can keep a good arch w/o being strapped to a tm.

edit: added stuff!
does anyone know when the zero g room plans to open? the website says "in 2005" but wasn't able to narrow it down from there...:S oh well... tunnel shmunnel:)

If the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off!

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