tunnel time vs jump numbers

[b52 0]

How would you rate jumps vs minutes in the tunnel?

I have seen people spend several hours in the tunnel, then doing AFF and freeflying with 25 jumps like people with hundreds or thousands of jumps.

Would you count a minute in the tunnel as a jump, half a jump, no jump...?

[JohnRich 4]

Tunnel time is not a "jump". A jump requires an aircraft exit, a parachute deployment, a parachute ride, a parachute landing, and a chance of malfunction and death. The only thing that a wind tunnel and a jump have in common is "freefall", and even that isn't really the same. In a tunnel you can't ride "the hill" on exit, you can't dive to get to a formation, you can't dock from 50-feet out, you can't go low, you can't float back up, you can't track, you can't build a 10-way, you can't steer a parachute, and you can't land a parachute.

So, in learning to skydive, a minute in a tunnel is worth about .01 jumps.

If your only goal is to learn 4-way point transitions, then I'd give it a .9.

[beowulf 1]

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you can't go low, you can't float back up

This is the only part of what you said that I disagree with. You can learn to fly slower and faster on your belly better then you can in the sky.

The tunnel will help your over all freefall skills and it is faster and easier to learn freeflying in the tunnel. The added plus is you generally won't learn any bad habits when it comes to freeflying especially.

[hparrish 0]

You sound like one of those skydivers that refuse to accept tunnels.

Tunnel Time will have you outperforming those who only jump from planes very quickly.

I'll leave it like this. The BEST Skydiving teams and competitors in the world, spend lots of time in tunnels. It's a fact that to be competitive you need both.

So why would you rate a minute of tunnel as equal to .01 jump? Is that ignorance or arrogance?

[airtwardo 6]

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You sound like one of those skydivers that refuse to accept tunnels.

Tunnel Time will have you outperforming those who only jump from planes very quickly.

I'll leave it like this. The BEST Skydiving teams and competitors in the world, spend lots of time in tunnels. It's a fact that to be competitive you need both.

So why would you rate a minute of tunnel as equal to .01 jump? Is that ignorance or arrogance?

I don't think it's ignorance OR arrogance, it sounds like an opinion that a minute of flying in a tunnel doesn't equal a PARACHUTE jump. Like he said, exit, tracking, canopy control, emergency procedures...all THOSE things a bit tough to practice in a wind tunnel.

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

[davelepka 4]

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Would you count a minute in the tunnel as a jump, half a jump, no jump...?

A tunnel only contributes to one specific part of the skydive, that being the freefall portion from just after exit to the break off. Everything before, and everythig after are 'skydiving' specific skills, and the tunnel is of no help.

The exit itself is different than a tunnel. The wind direction and speed are different, and making the transition from the door to freefall, and flying in the subterminal air on the hill are not things you can learn in the tunnel. You might be able to turn 20 points in 35 seconds in the tunnel, but that does not mean you can compete at nationals and expect to fly exits with the best of them.

The break off is a no-brainer, there is no tracking in the tunnel, and the end of any safe multi-person jump will involve tracking. You might be able to freefly like a champ from your tunnel skills, but what do you do at break off with 4 or 5 other jumpers with you in the sky?

Other areas of concern - aircraft safety, aircraft emergency procedures, and safe movement in and around an aricraft with a rig on. Deployment, emergency procedures, canopy control and traffic management. These are all skills that you develop over the course of many jumps, and skills you will use on every jump.

From once you hit terminal to break off, the tunnel is THE training tool. At that same time, let's remember that freefall is probably the least important part of the jump. You can make a jump, turn zero points, and actually tumble until pull time, and as long as you can get stable and pull, it's a 'good' freefall. Not colliding with any part of the aircraft on exit, and deploying and flying a parachute to a safe landing are the important parts of making a jump.

I think the important thing for an ace tunnel flyer to remember when starting to jump is that no matter how good they are in the tunnel, they only have the number of actual jumps in their logbook. When I learned to groundlaunch, I had 14 years of jumping experience, and 4500+ jumps on high performance canopies, but I was sure to remind myself that I had zero launches, and I was in somebody else's 'playground'. Much of it was simialr to skydiving (my playground) but I new a noob, and made sure to approach it accordingly. If tunnel flyers training to become skydivers can do the same, I'm sure they'll be fine.

[JohnRich 4]

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You sound like one of those skydivers that refuse to accept tunnels.

Tunnel Time will have you outperforming those who only jump from planes very quickly.

I'll leave it like this. The BEST Skydiving teams and competitors in the world, spend lots of time in tunnels. It's a fact that to be competitive you need both.

So why would you rate a minute of tunnel as equal to .01 jump?

I acknowledge what you say, but that wasn't the question. The question was if it was equal to a parachute jump, and it is not. As I said before (how could you have missed it?), if you want to learn 4-way point transitions, it's a fantastic tool. That's what those teams are doing in the tunnels. But that's only one part of a "jump", and only one specialized skill amongst the many types of jumps that could be done, and amongst the many skills that are employed during the course of a real jump. The things you can practice in a tunnel or only a small portion of the skills you need to make actual parachute jumps.

[likearock 1]

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you can't build a 10-way

Not true!

[dcfreefly 0]

>>The exit itself is different than a tunnel. The wind direction and speed are different, and making the transition from the door to freefall, and flying in the subterminal air on the hill are not things you can learn in the tunnel. <<

While I agree that you cant learn these 'specific' things in a tunnel, saying that tunnel flying won't help flying at sub terminal speeds is bs and the skills can definitely be applied here - who cares what direction the wind is coming from.

I'm not implying that the tunnel will make you bad ass at this - you definitely need to work on this in the air - but it helps nonetheless.

[hparrish 0]

I agree with most of what you said. But I read the original question more along the lines of Freefall skills only. He mentioned skill level specific to freefall.

And yes you can deploy a parachute in the Tunnel............Once.

[Remster 24]

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I agree with most of what you said. But I read the original question more along the lines of Freefall skills only. He mentioned skill level specific to freefall.

And yes you can deploy a parachute in the Tunnel............Once.

I would say that time spent in the tunnel is more effective than time spent in freefall doing relative work (either belly or freefly relative work). That being said, it's not every thing. It doesnt teach you tracking, overall awareness, exits, getting to and from long distances (swooping).

So yes, tunnel is very effective. But it's not jumping.

I know of a son-of-a-DZO who, after countless hours in tunnels through his teens, ended up doing his AFF in 1 jump when he turned 16 (after probably a dozen or so tandems in his teens). His next jump was a 4 way in which he turned something like 12 points. Awesome right? Sure, but he deployed in place since no one (him included) trusted his track, and flew a student canopy.

So it's great to learn how to fly, and to do it well, but it'snot a jump.

Me, personally, I see it as a tool. For my money, I'd rather be jumping, but I'll still invest time in the tube to focus on key improvements.

Remster

[beowulf 1]

I am sure his learning curve was probably much shorter then most when it came to learning a good track.

Tunnel time helps make you more comfortable in freefall which makes everything much easier.

[danornan 64]

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And yes you can deploy a parachute in the Tunnel............Once.

I watched a guy do this once and the tether broke about the time he got line streatch... Blew him out of the tunnel ( it was outside) and about killed him as he landed on an oil tank. Wasn't very pretty!

Dano

[stayhigh 2]

Thousands of hours and months in tunnel does not consider as a one single jump.

One static line out of Cessna counts as a one jump.

Bernie Sanders for President 2016

[rehmwa 2]

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How would you rate jumps vs minutes in the tunnel?

the ratio is "zero"

100 hours of tunnel time rates as zero jumps
however
1000 skydives rates as zero tunnel time

These conversations always digress to those that don't like tunnels rationalizing their positions vs those that love tunnels rationalizing their positions.

I really don't get why people even care about this.

simple enough:

If you don't like tunnels - don't go. But don't be upset when tunnel flyers learn a lot faster and get to do cooler stuff on their skydives.

If you like tunnels, enjoy the skills boost - but don't think it gets you any more street cred except for the freefall portion - you still have learn all the other stuff - including the culture - at a normal learning curve. Enjoy the huge rig - tunnel flying does NOT give you credit to do anything (such as fly tiny rigs earlier than anyone else, or jumping a camera, or instructing, etc etc etc).

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[Deyan 31]

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I'll leave it like this. The BEST Skydiving teams and competitors in the world, spend lots of time in tunnels. It's a fact that to be competitive you need both.

You can become a tandem master with 500 jumps and 0 minutes in the tunnel, but you can't do it with 300 jumps and 100 hours tunnel time.

As for the BEST teams training in the tunnels......only the ones in free fall disciplines (excluding the wingsuiters)

"My belief is that once the doctor whacks you on the butt, all guarantees are off" Jerry Baumchen

[Austintxflight 0]

The tunnel is great for anyone that wants to work on free-fall positions. If you want to work on RW or free flying you can learn it all in there before trying it in the sky.

But you can't get overly cocky and think that because you can sitfly in the tunnel but only have 40 jumps that you know how to land anything and are anything more than a 40 jumper who has some decent freefly skills.

[nigel99 143]

I am not entirely sure if this is relevant to the OP's question. Personally tunnel time made me a safer and more confident skydiver.

I learn't through static line progression. I found freefall stability extremely difficult and as a result I was always mentally overloaded. The lack of awareness and mental overload reduced my capacity to jump safely.

When I got back into jumping, I had a reasonable amount of tunnel time and I KNEW that I could get stable within 1/2 a second or so. The result was that I was much more relaxed and therefore more aware of my surroundings.

But as so many people have said in this thread, the two are completely different.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[Ron 7]

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You sound like one of those skydivers that refuse to accept tunnels.

No, he sounds like a guy that answered the question asked.

The tunnel is great... but it is not a jump and never will be a jump.

It can make you perform better in RW or VRW, but it will never help you with malfunctions or landing a canopy.

And before you think I am "one of those guys".... I am willing to bet I have more tunnel time than most jumpers and maybe most of the posters on this site.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[hparrish 0]

Well I guess that's why folks with a couple hundred jumps, no ratings, and 1000's of tunnel hours were on the last HD World Record. Because they lacked the skydiving skills.

I dont consider anyone with 500 jumps and a Tandem Rating a Tandem Master. Nor would they take any of my friends or family up.

I think it's an obvious "No SHIT", that you can't practice canopy flight, aircraft exits, Tracking (Like thats even difficult), and Canopy Control in a Tunnel, and whatever other long list of typical responses are that protect ego's.

I regularyly see tunnel flyers passing by traditional skydivers with little difficulty. They have the body flying skills and confidence, to where they are not worrying about the freefall portion of flying. This frees them up to concentrate on and quickly learn the other skills, minus canopy flight - which takes thousands of jumps to master.

And No I'm not just a tunnel rat (150 Hrs), I also have just under 2000 jumps. For anyone who's wondering.

[Ron 7]

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Well I guess that's why folks with a couple hundred jumps, no ratings, and 1000's of tunnel hours were on the last HD World Record. Because they lacked the skydiving skills......I think it's an obvious "No SHIT", that you can't practice canopy flight, aircraft exits, Tracking (Like thats even difficult), and Canopy Control in a Tunnel, and whatever other long list of typical responses are that protect ego's.

You just refuse to accept the answers you have been given to the question asked and you claim others have the ego issue? Really?

How does tunnel time relate to JUMPS and it just simply does not.

A better question (that would have given you the answer you seem to want and would accept) is "How does tunnel time relate to FREEFALL time?"

And that would be very close to one-one, maybe even BETTER since people use the tunnel to work on very small basics more often than they would in freefall. Not many jumpers will go up and do solos to work on turns, but they will hire a coach and spin 360's all day in the tunnel.

And the honest answer is that a person will take a certain level of performance from the tunnel into the air.... That ratio depends on the experience level of the person, but it seems 60-80% of what a person does in the tunnel translates to freefall once all the other distractions are added in.... The less exp you have, the less you carry over. The more exp, you will carry over more. I have seen as much as 85-90% and as low as zero.

But the VERY simple fact is that tunnel does not and never will equal jumps.

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I regularyly see tunnel flyers passing by traditional skydivers with little difficulty. They have the body flying skills and confidence, to where they are not worrying about the freefall portion of flying. This frees them up to concentrate on and quickly learn the other skills, minus canopy flight - which takes thousands of jumps to master.

Well, I had a teammate that was a tunnel rat, an AMAZING flyer. He didn't know what the cells of the canopy were called, didn't know how to hook up a three ring, and when faced with a simple malfunction, died.

Another guy I know was a tunnel rat..... Maybe one of the first. He almost killed himself twice under canopy before quitting the sport.

Another guy who was a MANAGER of the first windtunnel broke his back under canopy. Another wind tunnel manager broke his leg during AFF.

All of these folks had hundreds to thousands of hours of tunnel....

Ask the USPA how to log tunnel time for license's and ratings.

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And No I'm not just a tunnel rat (150 Hrs), I also have just under 2000 jumps. For anyone who's wondering.

OK, I have easily twice as much tunnel and twice as many jumps. And I still think that tunnel does not equal jumps.

It seems pretty clear that the ONLY answer you will accept is one that lets you count tunnel time as a jump at some ratio that YOU approve of......

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[LyraM45 0]

Agreed!

And also wanted to add a little tid bit to the whole being awesome at flying your body from the tunnel time. That's great and all, but it will never replace the situational awareness that you get from the actual jumps. One of the reasons I wasn't out freeflying with larger groups after I got a bunch of tunnel time. But then again, I'm just a conservative weenie sometimes.

Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

[Trafficdiver 8]

The tunnel is the tunnel and skydiving is skydiving.

I'm glad to learn both of them at an equal rate.

I will say it helped me out immensely during AFF.

[hparrish 0]

Not sure where you are getting that at all. I think I have clearly stated that Tunnel Time relates equally to Freefall Time and not the other stuff.

And that is what I believe the OP's original question was.

Not sure why people feel the need to add all the extra obvious things that make skydiving different to tunnel flying.

[Ron 7]

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Not sure where you are getting that at all. I think I have clearly stated that Tunnel Time relates equally to Freefall Time and not the other stuff.

We get that idea, because that is what you said:

"Well I guess that's why folks with a couple hundred jumps, no ratings, and 1000's of tunnel hours were on the last HD World Record. Because they lacked the skydiving skills."

Skydiving skills includes things like canopy control, spotting, malfunctions... etc.

"Tunnel Time will have you outperforming those who only jump from planes very quickly. "

Not at spotting, flying a canopy, swooping to a formation, malfunctions... etc.

So when they guy asked "Would you count a minute in the tunnel as a jump, half a jump, no jump...?"

And John answered that it is not a jump and even mentioned "The only thing that a wind tunnel and a jump have in common is "freefall", and even that isn't really the same."

And you even screwed up his math....

"If your only goal is to learn 4-way point transitions, then I'd give it a .9"

.9, that is .1 from *equal*... But you jumped on him with: "You sound like one of those skydivers that refuse to accept tunnels.... So why would you rate a minute of tunnel as equal to .01 jump? Is that ignorance or arrogance? "

So you seem to have an agenda to support tunnels and that has blinded you to what was actually said.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334