tunnel-cracks organizing ff-biggerways - wtf?

[katearnold 0]

I must admit that this has been high on my list of worries. My son Jamie had a LOT of tunnel time. All he wanted to do was jump out of a plane but he couldn't do that until he was 16 and in the meantime he needed to do something. He ended up competing quite a bit before he got to 16. In the meantime I got him doing tandems so people could talk him through canopy piloting. When he got to AFF I got Scotty Milne to coach him along with a group of other tunnel rats as I knew it would have its own set of problems. I let him jump at 16 so I could ground him if he ****ed about at all - I've only done it once. I got him to do a couple of canopy courses straight off and I've managed to find people to mentor him. He's now 18 and just got a bronze in freefly at Nationals. There is NO WAY ON EARTH that I would let him begin to think about LO or coaching yet. He has 840 something jumps but I still think he has a huge amount to learn. He's flying a 129 main now, but I've only let him downsize really, really slowly. The thing is after hanging around the wind tunnels for the past 11 years of my life I've seen a lot of people who are shit hot in the tunnel take to the sky and frankly seriously scare me and I'm a whuffo but I've still seen videos that have made me cringe. So, please don't think all tunnel rats are going to take to the sky and behave like dicks. Jamie is always learning and maybe one day he'll start thinking about coaching, but I honestly don't know - he just loves to fly but he respects the sky and the other flyers in it.

[peedeepalmer 0]

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so you would need to have you head up your arse to start second guessing the likes of Mikey Capenter or Kristian Moxness or Matt Hill.. OR Amy and Domi for that matter SlyLaughLaughLaughLaugh

No, I actually look at this as an opportunity. Guys like Devin/Ben Roane, Matt Hill or Mikey are great examples of those we want. I also think that the "tunnel rats" moving into the skydiving arena is great for the sport. My point is that as iFly is currently expanding at an exponential rate, we need to be proactive as a community on how we are going to embrace those that have exceptional flying skills but limited skills not learned in the tunnel (efficient climb out/spotting/separation and canopy skills, ect). We need to be proactive in thinking through this instead of complaining on a forum.