New tunnel coming to Arizona (Phoenix/Scottsdale)

[grue 1]

chuckakers

***"Jason Peters, Andy Malchiodi, Gary Schmit and Max Reising are proud to announce the arrival of the first Indoor Skydiving Germany (ISG) tunnel to the U.S. FliteShop will be located in Scottsdale Arizona less then an hour from Skydive Arizona. We are beyond excited to have partnered up with ISG to make this dream a reality by summer of 2015!! "


https://www.facebook.com/fliteshop

No more iFly monopoly. Could this be the beginning reduced prices?

YOU PEOPLE ( ) have no idea how good you have it when it comes to tunnel prices in the US. I'm so excited to move back and be able to actually even joke about tunnel time.

cavete terrae.

[wan2doit 6]

Now that's a real image to behold.

[chuckakers 409]

Remster

******Healthy competition is one thing but I would hope never to see some kind of a price war on tunnel time because I think that could cause cost cutting (maintenance etc.) by operators that could endanger tunnel flyers.
I remember way back when the airline business got very cutthroat with cheap below cost fares and there was a surge of crashes accidents etc.
Healthy competition yes - Cutthroat No.
PS - No I don't know exactly where to draw the line on competition.

Tunnel crashes?

Exactly what could go wrong at a tunnel that would endanger flyers? Honest question.

Chuck: a motor did fall into the chamber in Orlando a couple years back. No one was hurt but it was a close call I believe.

Similarly, poorly maintained fans on more modern design could vibrate themselves into destruction, sending shards of metal through the recirculating chamber.

Regarding competition and price cutting: look into the European market and what's happening: I don't see any unethical price cutting.

Besides, having one competitor in the market may just be what the market needs in the US.


I think the tunnel industry as it stands is pretty far from businesses having to cut quality or safety to reduce prices. I don't know much about that industry but a basic understanding of business would dictate that with so little competition current prices aren't based on the minimum necessary to maintain the gear and put food on the table.

Smart business people don't leave money on the table. Currently there is virtually no competition in the US. My guess is the current pricing structure is based on what the market will bear rather than a competition-based strategy.

There has been some competitive pricing going on between Skyventure operations but nothing major. An outside player might be the start.

Or maybe not.

The conversation makes me wonder, though. If there is a risk of a catastrophic failure that would injure or kill, why is there not a design in use that would keep any shrapnel out of the chamber. It's obviously possible. Too costly relative to the risk????

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[Amazon 7]

Andy9o8

******Healthy competition is one thing but I would hope never to see some kind of a price war on tunnel time because I think that could cause cost cutting (maintenance etc.) by operators that could endanger tunnel flyers.
I remember way back when the airline business got very cutthroat with cheap below cost fares and there was a surge of crashes accidents etc.
Healthy competition yes - Cutthroat No.
PS - No I don't know exactly where to draw the line on competition.

Tunnel crashes?

Exactly what could go wrong at a tunnel that would endanger flyers? Honest question.

What's red and green and goes round and round and round and round?

Does it involve Canadians and strange comedy routines with duct tape???

[cbjetboy 0]

The turbines in these tunnels are very strong and well balanced. They are 15-20 feet from the opening to the vertical tube. There are vibration sensors to shut one down in the case of a thrown blade. I doubt very seriously if anyone is in danger of shrapnel in the chamber. You would have to throw a crowbar or something into it to cause a catastrophic failure and even then the damage would most likely be contained within the turbine assembly. We have had gas turbines run continuously for years before shutting them down for maintenance. These are electric and run very cool making them even more reliable. Just hoping to put the full metal jacket idea to rest.

Chad B Hall
Woo hoo!
My goal is to make every jump a fun and safe one. Blue skies!
Some of my videos...

[cpoxon 0]

piisfish

so you didn't hear about the Sirius crash this winter ? It is now fixed, but was pretty scary.

Video, or it didn't happen Seriously, tell us more?

Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

[piisfish 136]

they announced they had problems and were out of order for a couple of months on their Facebook page (post of 19 january)
AFAIK no video was published

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[chuckakers 409]

cbjetboy

The turbines in these tunnels are very strong and well balanced. They are 15-20 feet from the opening to the vertical tube. There are vibration sensors to shut one down in the case of a thrown blade. I doubt very seriously if anyone is in danger of shrapnel in the chamber. You would have to throw a crowbar or something into it to cause a catastrophic failure and even then the damage would most likely be contained within the turbine assembly. We have had gas turbines run continuously for years before shutting them down for maintenance. These are electric and run very cool making them even more reliable. Just hoping to put the full metal jacket idea to rest.

Well there ya go. I learn something new every day!

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[piisfish 136]

in case anything brakes, I am pretty sure that stuff will be flying around.
For example the screen of the iPhone5 comes back after 4 seconds in our tunnel . The rest of the iPhone stays at the bottom

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[cpoxon 0]

piisfish

AFAIK no video was published

I don't doubt that. Doesn't mean there wasn't any!

Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

[Andy9o8 0]

Quote

The conversation makes me wonder, though. If there is a risk of a catastrophic failure that would injure or kill, why is there not a design in use that would keep any shrapnel out of the chamber. It's obviously possible. Too costly relative to the risk????

FWIW - What I've learned from practicing (on both sides) and reading a lot of industrial product liability cases in the US is: in the US, or with companies that operate in the US (thus exposing themselves to US-law liability), some industrial/product safety measures are developed and implemented purely proactively, but a LARGE number of them never are developed and/or hit the marketplace until somebody gets badly hurt or killed and some company or its insurers have to pay-out a few multi-zillion dollar verdicts. Numerous examples of this in the automobile, factory machinery and farm machinery industries, to cite just a couple examples.

ETA: I'm not suggesting whether this might or might not apply to current wind tunnel technology; I'm just speaking generally.

[GrahamClarke 0]

Another potential safety issue is power cuts. If you are high up in a tunnel and the power goes you have very little time to make it back down to the net.

Worst still if you are right at the top of the tunnel and make the mistake of grabbing hold of the turning vanes. I heard an (unsubstantiated) rumour that this had happened in a US tunnel.

I do know that several tunnels have experienced power cuts so it isn't that unlikely, unfortunately.

[Nathan_123 0]

That would be awesome!

I go to Arizona quite often but don't like getting sand blasted or shocked in the tunnel at the drop zone.

Anyone know what size it will be?

[diablopilot 2]

chuckakers

***Healthy competition is one thing but I would hope never to see some kind of a price war on tunnel time because I think that could cause cost cutting (maintenance etc.) by operators that could endanger tunnel flyers.
I remember way back when the airline business got very cutthroat with cheap below cost fares and there was a surge of crashes accidents etc.
Healthy competition yes - Cutthroat No.
PS - No I don't know exactly where to draw the line on competition.

Tunnel crashes?

Exactly what could go wrong at a tunnel that would endanger flyers? Honest question.

I've seen multiple broken/dislocated arms/legs, know of several serious neck injuries, and have heard of one fatality in Europe.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[chuckakers 409]

diablopilot

******Healthy competition is one thing but I would hope never to see some kind of a price war on tunnel time because I think that could cause cost cutting (maintenance etc.) by operators that could endanger tunnel flyers.
I remember way back when the airline business got very cutthroat with cheap below cost fares and there was a surge of crashes accidents etc.
Healthy competition yes - Cutthroat No.
PS - No I don't know exactly where to draw the line on competition.

Tunnel crashes?

Exactly what could go wrong at a tunnel that would endanger flyers? Honest question.

I've seen multiple broken/dislocated arms/legs, know of several serious neck injuries, and have heard of one fatality in Europe.

I never doubted that and know of many injuries. I was referring to tunnel mals that injure jumpers. As I understand it modern tunnels are designed to greatly minimize the possibility of a flyer being adversely affected by things like catastrophic equipment failures.

But of course anything is possible.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[diablopilot 2]

chuckakers

*********Healthy competition is one thing but I would hope never to see some kind of a price war on tunnel time because I think that could cause cost cutting (maintenance etc.) by operators that could endanger tunnel flyers.
I remember way back when the airline business got very cutthroat with cheap below cost fares and there was a surge of crashes accidents etc.
Healthy competition yes - Cutthroat No.
PS - No I don't know exactly where to draw the line on competition.

Tunnel crashes?

Exactly what could go wrong at a tunnel that would endanger flyers? Honest question.

I've seen multiple broken/dislocated arms/legs, know of several serious neck injuries, and have heard of one fatality in Europe.

I never doubted that and know of many injuries. I was referring to tunnel mals that injure jumpers. As I understand it modern tunnels are designed to greatly minimize the possibility of a flyer being adversely affected by things like catastrophic equipment failures.

But of course anything is possible.

Agreed and agreed. I know of no major injuries related to a failure of tunnel equipment. A close call, but nothing else.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[bilt2ride 0]

Quote

No more iFly monopoly. Could this be the beginning reduced prices?

Dear 8 pound 6 ounce newborn infant Jesus please let this be true.

-E

If this is your first night, you have to fight.

[adamUK 3]

Tunnels in Europe are getting cheaper. Skydive Arena in Prague is now $725/hr and even less of you book multiple hours. Basically there are a lot of tunnels being built and perhaps a bit of overcapacity. Hopefully the same.will happen stateside

[stayhigh 2]

Once this thing gets built, SDAZ will have to lower their price significantly during summer and winter time.

I much rather wanna fly in temp controlled recirc tunnel vs freezing ass temperature in open air tunnel.

You can't compare the smoothness of the tunnel between open vs closed, it is like apple and orange almost.

Bernie Sanders for President 2016

[piisfish 136]

but one of the 2 tunnels will be at walking distance from a decentish dropzone... and maybe the newcomer will be more expensive already, so no need to lower the price

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[NWFlyer 2]

piisfish

but one of the 2 tunnels will be at walking distance from a decentish dropzone... and maybe the newcomer will be more expensive already, so no need to lower the price

Yep, not sure it's as cut and dried as some people think. Eloy's advantage is proximity; for the visiting skydiver who doesn't bother to get a car because they can live pretty well on the dropzone and bum rides for the occasional grocery run, they'll continue to use the tunnel to supplement their skydiving visit. For the coaches who are squeezing in tunnel coaching in with organizing skydiving loads, same thing.

This will surely have its own market of not only whuffos but also the PHX-area locals who want to do some tunnel on the weeknight after work or only do tunnel on the weekends and now don't have to go all the way to Eloy to do it.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[stayhigh 2]

Yeah, come July and January. I wanna see who will wanna fly in open tunnel when there is recirc available close distance.

It gets sooooooooo cold and sooooooo fucking hot. Nothing beats temp controlled tunnel. If the new tunnel offers same price and if it is bigger than 14ft. No one will be flying in SDAZ tunnel.

But I heard that SDAZ gets electricity at dirt cheap price from near by indian reservation or something???

Bernie Sanders for President 2016

[piisfish 136]

stayhigh

If the new tunnel offers same price and if it is bigger than 14ft.

I doubt for #1 and #2

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[Chris_K 0]

Remster

*********
No more iFly monopoly. Could this be the beginning reduced prices?

Pigeon Forge and Vegas are not iFly/Skyventure AFAIK
The most important is that Arizonians will discover the "no sandblast tunnel"

Pigeon Forge and Vegas aren't competition. I'm talking about hourly rates for team-worthy tunnels. A new player in the business might drive rates down as they try to capture market share.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen in the local market here. I bet the new tunnel will be pricing significantly higher that SkyventureAZ. The clean (airflow, not sand ) recirc air will be a big advantage.

But, we'll see!
Wont get to ran around and shock people anymore........

Downsizing is not the way to prove your manhood.

[JayhawkJumper 0]

NPower

***This is really good news, the ISG design is really, really smooth. I've flown VossVind and it's pretty awesome. The VossVind tunnel uses an airlock to allow people in and out without having dead air above the net.

Has anyone flown in both a re-circulating iFly/Sky Venture tunnel and an ISG tunnel like VossVind? I'd be curious to hear from folks who've flown in both on how they compare in terms clean air flow and anything else that makes you favour one over the other.

I've flown in an ISG tunnel as well as ifly utah, denver, hollywood, eloy, perris, and dallas. Each of the ifly tunnels feel different as they are all different generations. The ISG tunnel felt VERY similar to ifly Dallas. Both were very smooth, very fast air. The ISG might have been faster. It lifted me 8 feet off the net on my head and I had a lot of lift left in my arms and legs if I wanted to go higher. And that was at 85% and I weighed 220lbs…