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cpoxon

Portable wind tunnel - Central London - 26th/27th October

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There is an ad in today's Metro (London Underground's free daily newspaper) for Radox daily elements ( a new range of deodorant, shower and bath products) asking

"How would you fancy skydiving at 200mph in Europe's only portable Skydiving Simulator?"

It's going to be in Russell Square 8:30am - 5:00pm on the 26th and 9:30am - 7:0pm on the 27th. Hmm, that's the day of the London Skydiver's Piss-Up! Could make an interesting visit before hand.

It also says "Body Flight Shows daily" and the minimum age for the simulator is 18 years.

I'm guessing it's the Aerodium people?
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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Went to Russell Square just now. If you want to get booked on for Friday you'll have to turn up at about 8:30am. It gets full v.v.quickly. I'm guarenteed a place (eye lashes come in handy every now and then :). The guys from Latvia put on an impressive display at 12:30 today. It's sponsored by Radox but is the Aerodium mobile unit. This morning they were grabbing office workers and 'persuading them' to book in and have a go. Considering it's not been in the country before and won't be again for a while I think it would be nice to get some more seasoned flyers on there.
Oh and by the way, you get about 2/3 mins each and it's FREE!!! Many many people were being turned away today so I'd advise you to be there as early as poss. There's also a climbing wall and free radox deoderant samples to try if you like.
Fear is Temporary, Regret is Forever!

www.myspace.com/byasa

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I popped down today about 1ish and bumped into Rich

No need to repeat what the others said about booking.

However, I've only seen "proper" (Skyventure(s), Bedford) tunnels before and can't say I'm too impressed by the older style. The wind speed appears quite low and everyone is wearing very baggy suits. The whuffos appeared to have no problem standing up in the airflow.

The guys have an interesting technique for spotting the students; they stand up in front of them and hold onto their hands. Since the whuffos have little experience, they tend to have fairly flat body positions and when they rise up, the spotter below them by the nature of hanging on to them, causes their arms to drop and they dearch. Quite often, the whuffo then pivots over the top of the spotter! It seems to be a technique of the spotters to force the whuffo to tumble and drop rather than risk them getting away from them?

Due to the airflow and lack of any barriers, I guess it is difficult/dangerous to do an AFF style sidebody grip so I don't know what the solution would be, but is this all pretty standard for this style of tunnel?

The flying area is quite elevated and not open to the public so it is difficult to see how much dead space there is between the airflow and the cushioning (and beyond) but I could quite easily imagine someone getting out and over it. Is this unreasonable?
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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I don't know much about wind tunnels - but spent a fair bit of time (from 1-2:30pm) watching today....

the instructors managed to get some nice height and 'showed off' the differing body positions possible - head down not being one of them - some back flying a tiny bit of sit and a few rolls... to me, it looked like it would be quite easy to fly out of the designated area and on to the ground! Especially as students fly about a foot above the barrier - which is probably why the instructor holds on quite tight and from the front.

As its not aimed at people who have tunnel experience or skydive the instructors aren't really teaching anything which could also explain the different spotting position(?). I doubt any real flying would be okay - even for experienced tunnel flyers as radox would be worried about liability.

I just think the idea of a wind tunnel in the middle of Russell Square is cool :$:)

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I couldn't get on today and am toying with the idea of heading up tomorrow. It's only about 2 mins but i think the idea of flying up to 30+ ft or more off the ground in the middle of London is probably a once in a lifetime thing so i might head down, even if it will just be some simple belly work all the way.

i shot a pretty poor quality 30 secs off on my phone - will post the link to skydivingmovies when i get it uploaded.

Edited to add link to video

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=5055

Anyone heading up there tomorrow am then?

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

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Know what you mean about the body positions, I thought they might do some head down but seemed to struggle a bit with just the basics.
I thought the suits at the Airkix tunnel were baggy:)!

I'm booked in for 10:30am tomorrow(was naughty and badgered an official:)), was there from about 11am till 1:30 today. Think this is the only time I'll get to use a wind tunnel in central london, gonna keep it simple though, knowing me I'll be too busy looking about to concentrate and fly straight over the edge:P lol
Fear is Temporary, Regret is Forever!

www.myspace.com/byasa

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Craig, i'm here with Bernd (Bodyflight Instructor, worked on open air facilities for 10 years), just asked him if that was normal, it is usual that on those facilities they lose the lift my turning the student round

Nigel
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Sponored by NZ Aerosports, CYPRES 2, Tonfly & L&B

Team Dirty Sanchez #232

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Quote

Craig, i'm here with Bernd (Bodyflight Instructor, worked on open air facilities for 10 years), just asked him if that was normal, it is usual that on those facilities they lose the lift my turning the student round

Nigel



Nigel you about today (friday)? I'm going to try it out at 11.30 and might check out the instructor demo after to get a little ground footage.

If anyone is thinking about coming up later, i would probably say it's going to be booked out. I got there at 8am and there was already a line. I got on for 11.30 (i think they are running about 12-15 people/hour) and it's only running until 7pm.

It's only approx a 2 min flight but i'm just curious to know what an outdoor tunnel feels like.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

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Popped down again this lunchtime. Didn't see any whuffos but did see the rats doing their show, which resembled the one the put on at the Winter Olympics closing ceremony. There was flying with tubes (white ones with the Radox sponsor's logo on it) and the guy was on his snowboard again (impressive, although he was a bit wobbly when trying to grab an edge), sit-flying, and something new was flying amongst four coloured anchored tubes (must be good for reference but quite distracting!).
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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Flew today at 10:30am. Can't believe the difference. It was very cold for a start and after getting off I felt like I'd done 10 rounds with a boxer. It was extremely bumpy and the helmet was too big and kept banging my head.
It felt like my first time in a tunnel, infact it was worse than my first time, I could hardly get stable and only managed to get some good height 3 times before being knocked out of the flow by crosswinds.

The guys who instructed sounded like they'd never been in an indoor tunnel before, which again I found a bit strange. They were asking lots of questions about the differences between their mobile unit and the airkix tunnel such as wind speed. They said they were headed back to Latvia to do some shows in their hometown.

Contact Details they gave out are:

Guntis Sefers,
Email - [email protected]
Web - www.aerodium.Iv

All that said it was a good experience and got a photo (£5 each!) which I'm gonna post on my myspace page. www.myspace.com/byasa if you're interested.

There was a guy checking it out to possibly hire for an event of his own. Apparently there has been a huge interest in hiring it for more events in this country and they've been inundated with calls and emails already, great news for tunnel flyers and skydiving in general I think:)
Fear is Temporary, Regret is Forever!

www.myspace.com/byasa

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Hi!
I wish I would read this forum, when we were in London! I'm one of those Aerodium instructors, who were working and perfoming there! Answering some of thoughts and questions in this forum I can tell:
that it is impossible to fell outside of our wind tunnel safety area. The only way that could be done, is making perfect tracking position at 10 or more meters hight. But we havn't tried that, of course! :S
About the show - yes it was similar to the closing ceremonie of olympics at Torino and performers were the same..
The crosswinds doesn't impact flight hardly up to first two meters above the net. But at higher altitudes it should be treated seriously.
The speed of airstreem at Russel square was below 200 km/h, so there is a need for baggy suits. But it is enough to have fun for inexperienced people or lightweight skydivers. We know about differences between closed wind tunnels and ours.
I can remark that quite often skydivers are disappointed about their first flight in open wind tunnel, because they are not used to fly within 4 m airstream without visible walls. Baggy suits also makes flight different, so it is not so easy even for experienced skydivers.
If any questions l'll be glad to answer you..

Blue Skies!
Reinis

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Hey mate, i was the guy who tried to fly with my helmet camera but wasn't too successful :P

I thought it was a very interesting experience flying (or trying to fly) in the tunnel. It was INCREDIBLY difficult. As soon as i got done with my time, the amount of respect i had for you guys flying in it went off the scales - to fly in that thing, without walls, in the big suits, and with a (relatively) slow air flow is very VERY difficult! You guys really got my respect for what you were able to do in it.

I just wanted to say thanks again - all of the guys at Aerodium were the coolest bunch of people i've come across at any tunnel. Really laid back and totally wanting people to have fun and experience the tunnel. I even got a second go in a baggier suit because the first effort was so bad B|

Thanks again Reinis, and say what's up to all the others. Hopefully see you guys in Kolomna at some stage to make some jumps together!

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

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