Anyone had this experience with a tunnel?

[wan2doit 6]

Corpkid - U mean a Contact Sport - Right? :)

[BigBUG 0]

stayhigh

The "only progression" by ifly. It is that way or highway.

http://tunnelflight.com/skills/

Skilled belly flyer will just have to be signed off on belly skill and you'll get to back flying within 2-3 min.

Back flying is the hardest to learn. Once you get back flying down everything is down hill from there, besides one or two road block. Everyone is different. I've seen one getting back flying figured out enough to get signed off within 40-60 min. That's quick learner, kid was like 12 or 14.

I am so happy we are not in IFly system.
From my point of view Dynamic (European) approach is much faster, better and more fun.
60 mins of back flying? I would probably die of boredom.
I prefer to teach people to fly, to move, instead of teaching them to hold static position. You learning proper back/belly transitions, back carving and layouts almost from the start and it greately improves your back flying.

Also I do not see a problem to allow student demonstrate his sit fly abilities. If he screw up - I will spot him, discussion closed, we are going back to basics. If not - great, let's just run through effective bailout positions on varrious speeds and move from there.

[BigBUG 0]

wicodefly

What would you say are the biggest real risks?

For student? Stupid instructor :)

Seriously, let's define where student zone ends. If you are flying solo headdown with cartweels and take part in huckjams, are you still a student? If I am your coach, answer is yes. But I do not have 100% ability to spot you all the time, you should be flying, not panically holding my hand.

If you are flying dynamic 4-way in a team training for world cup, are you a student? Probably not. So ok, here is my team and a 5 month of training - broken leg (foot), cracked ribs, broken fingers (mine :( ), couple of serious head hits. And we had at least 3 teams cancelling their White Night cup training because of injuries (for ex Inka mentioned above), and we are talking about World' best flyers.

Could this happen to you while you are still a studet? Very unlikely.
But bruises and 'net marks' at some points are guranteed.

[wicodefly 0]

BigBUG

***The "only progression" by ifly. It is that way or highway.

http://tunnelflight.com/skills/

Skilled belly flyer will just have to be signed off on belly skill and you'll get to back flying within 2-3 min.

Back flying is the hardest to learn. Once you get back flying down everything is down hill from there, besides one or two road block. Everyone is different. I've seen one getting back flying figured out enough to get signed off within 40-60 min. That's quick learner, kid was like 12 or 14.

I am so happy we are not in IFly system.
From my point of view Dynamic (European) approach is much faster, better and more fun.
60 mins of back flying? I would probably die of boredom.
I prefer to teach people to fly, to move, instead of teaching them to hold static position. You learning proper back/belly transitions, back carving and layouts almost from the start and it greately improves your back flying.

Also I do not see a problem to allow student demonstrate his sit fly abilities. If he screw up - I will spot him, discussion closed, we are going back to basics. If not - great, let's just run through effective bailout positions on varrious speeds and move from there.

You can certainly do the same thing at iFLY with a good dynamic coach. The progression on that website is not necessarily sequential. You can take different paths. I have been flying the way you describe for most of my tunnel time. It's awesome!

Chance favors the prepared mind.

[Joellercoaster 6]

piisfish

Yes you can die in a Wind tunnel. You can break your fucking neck. You can break your back. You can break your wrists (ask Olav)

I watched a much more recent, multiple world champion freeflyer with thousands of hours in the tunnel fully dislocate his elbow 'brushing' the wall last year.

Tunnel at freefly speeds is no joke. The instructors' caution seems entirely justified to me!

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[andym148 2]

If your using the tunnel at low wind speeds, and in the hands of an instructor then its a great ride. When you become an experienced body flier (second time in the tunnel onwards) then its stops being a ride and or experience and becomes a training tool, and a tool that can bite just as hard as jumping out of a plane.
As people have said, you can hurt yourself quite badly in the tunnel. And when that happens you go from loving the tunnel and having fun, to being a little frightened by it and then after a while respecting it for what it is, an excellent training tool. I'm hoping I'm not the only one that garfield'd myself in to the glass learning back layouts? And that shook me up, and even now i hate doing back layouts as i know what can go wrong and how fast it can happen.
A massive mistake i see is people rushing to progress to HD as its super cool, totally cutting out the middle bit (back flying and head up flying). And worse still coaches actually bow to their wishes and teach them, cool thanks for making new meat missiles for the sky without the skills to stop.
Try to think of it like this, every orientation you learn, the orientation below it becomes your get out of jail free card (except for belly flying). Belly flying is at the bottom as your default flying position, next up is back flying. The fall rate increases and so does the wind speed, if you need to bail you bail to your belly (and this should be the last time you ever bail to your belly). Next we learn head up, if we bail, we bail on to our backs to keep the speed on. If your back flying is weak you become a pin ball in the tunnel...not very cool and worse still you could flip to your belly...in the sky its even more uncool.
When we finally get to learning HD flying you should be solid enough in HU to be able to get back stable from bailing and get back down safely without corking and now you should never recover by going to your belly. Now imagine the above being a building, belly,back,HU and HD. If your weak at any of the 'foundations' then your building will crumble.
Take your time, learn to be a good solid flyer in all the orientations before moving onto the next one. You'll make yourself a more rounded flyer, and one people will want to jump and fly with.
Just my 2pence worth, have fun and so what if you have to back fly? Learn something new while doing it.

At long last the light at the end of the tunell isnt an on coming train!!!

[wicodefly 0]

Gr at advice. I spent hours playing n my back and learning transitions and dynamic. Still learning a ton and have a long way to go.

Bailing is a super important skill in the tunnel and the sky. You don't want to cork out in the sky with someone above you. That can get dangerous fast.

Get solid at the fundamentals and everything else will come faster and you'll be a much better flyer. Also if you go to the sky start slow and with experienced people.

Chance favors the prepared mind.