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Napalm_C

Solo Wind Tunnel - Advice

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Hey all, I have a business trip coming up soon and have arranged for 1 free day which will be dedicated to the wind tunnel (Bodyflight Bedford, UK).

I have a bit less than 200 jumps, all belly flying. I would like some advice on how to make this trip as cost-effective as possible. I have a couple of options available to me.

Option 1: 1 hr but has to be on the same day.
Option 2: 30min block in 1hr.
Option 3: 3 or 4 10min blocks taken over 4-5 hours.

I've read through various threads that anything more than 30-40 minutes in a day for a first time flyer will be tiring and you start getting into diminishing returns which isn't worth it.

For this reason I am tempted to toss Option 1 out the window - comments more than appreciated.

Option 2: 30 minutes in a 1 hour block. This seems a bit like overkill to me with almost no time to debrief and reflect on what went wrong how to improve - however I have no experience in tunnel flying so some feedback on this would also be helpful.

For this reason I am tempted to go option 3 - picking up 10 minute blocks at a more relaxed pace in order to (I think) get the most out of the experience.

This is where things start getting costly - coach time is charged per hour regardless of flying time so if I spread out my sessions over 3-4 hours then £££££.

I was considering taking an un-coached first 10 minutes in order to get comfortable alone in the tunnel with just hovering in place and working on simple FS1 drills. My thinking was to get comfortable before spending money on the coach to work on more advanced belly flying. I say this because I've read a lot on how tunnel flying can be daunting at first to even very experienced skydivers (different visual cues, quality of air etc.)

So in short, there's no one specific question in here but any advice would be very much appreciated. :$

Thanks in advance,
Chris

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You will get good training from the guys at Bedford. But there may be an additional option. Have you investigated to see whether there are any tunnel camps running on the day you go there? Some excellent coaches organise camps there, and if you can get yourself booked into a tunnel camp there is likely to be more flexibility about how much time you use and how it's split up.

If you give them a call at Bedford, they should be able to tell you whether anyone is running a camp when you want to go there.
Anne

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Thanks for the input guys - I've spoken to Bodyflight and unfortunately there are no camps running on that specific day. It is looking likely that I will have another trip in the first week of October with 3 free days to choose from so hopefully there will be one then.

In terms of posting on UKS - Any recommendations on specific coaches to get in touch with?

Also on a more general note - there has been no feedback on the idea of spending a few minutes solo in there. I was thinking along the lines of drills such as:
Neutral hover, turns in place (accuracy and speed), tapping each 'end' of the wall in sequence...

Thanks again,
Chris

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With 200 jumps you could probably get in there and get stable etc solo.

That being said, I started in the tunnel with 17 jumps, I have done an hour in a day a couple times, at least one of those was all free fly.

Totally doable on your belly IMO, free fly is a lot more tiring than belly, you could stretch belly out for an hour across a day and be fine.

You didn't post the costs which could help people lend some thoughts as to best bang for the buck....but if the hour comes with coaching for the entire day and was comparable to the 40 minutes, I would spring for the hour coached.


Just ETA: Option 2 seems the least attractive. 30 min in an hour will be a bit tiring, and too much sensory input IMO to be constructive.....even all belly.

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