Tunnel Wages

[jayrech 0]

I know this might be a weird question, but what the hell any how. What's a tunnel instructor looking at for a wage?

D.S 174.2

Be careful what you say. Some one might take it the right way.

[VTmotoMike08 0]

Should be an interesting thread. My guess is about as much as a decent waiter/ waitress. Keep in mind that there's a line out the door of people who would do it for less, as every unemployed skydiver would love to do it for a couple months. I also heard, second hand, that you don't get hired just for being a badass flyer. They hire someone who they think will be good at teaching and interacting, then teach them how to fly. Much easier to take a "people person" and teach them to fly than to try to teach a skygod to be a people person. Then they have a contract that requires them to work at the tunnel that just invested a ton of money in their training for X amount of time. Or the guy telling me that could have lied.

[jayrech 0]

This is very true, When you are looking at the skyventure application they are all about how much experience you have in the "liesure" industry as well as they want you on there team for a minimum of 2 years. And cmon, how many skydivers do you know that would pass up two years of tunnel time and if there is a dz near by the op for heading out for a few jumps on your days off or lunch break!

D.S 174.2

Be careful what you say. Some one might take it the right way.

[skymurphee 0]

tunnel wages are usually less than what it should be considering you're doing 2 jobs: customer service-sales and instructing.

[hparrish 0]

I think they make about $1 per hour and table scraps.

[davelepka 4]

You know that there is a difference between an instructor and a coach, right?

An employee of the tunnel will spend most of their time working with non-skydivers, teach the class and trying to stop them from hitting their heads on anything in the tunnel. It's not like you spend all day in the tunnel just flying around, most of the time you'll be standing on the net trying not to get kicked in the face.

A coach is another story. These are the people who bring expereinced jumpers to the tunnel to help them become better skydivers. Freely coaches will spend time in the tunnel with their studetns, and RW will coaches will too in some cases. If it's a 4-way team, and all four guys are there, the coach just watches from the outside.

Also, keep in mind that tunnel employees probably don't make a whole lot of cash. My best guess would be $10 or $12 an hour. So if you want to consider the draw of nearby DZs, keep in mind you need money to be able to jump at those DZs.

You're almost better off as a packer. You can make an easy $25 an hour, maybe under the table, and you're directly on the DZ, so jumps on your lunch break are a reality. Also, if you're thinking about getting a rating or shooting video, a season or two of packing gets you 'on staff' and you'll have a better chance of getting a slot being paid to jump.