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vincearnone

Safety Lines Marking Maximum Flyer Heights at Madrid Fly

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http://www.indoorskydivingsource.com/articles/introducing-flyer-safety-lines-at-madrid-fly/

Seeing bigger, taller tunnels being constructed constantly, being conscious of flyer height in the wind is a topic I don't believe should be overlooked.

Wondering what everyones thoughts are on this?
Indoor Skydiving Source - The Leading Indoor Skydiving Resource

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Not disagreeing with this safety concept especially for beginners like me with only 3.5 hours in the tube but with a policy such as this (no exemptions for above the red line - Why build a tunnel higher than 8 m or 26 ft if nobody is supposed to use all of it?

Heck one of my goals is to ascend very rapidly to the top on my back transitioning to head down during that process and dive vertically like a hawk and stop at the mat.

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NWPoul

The Idea of outosending of 100Eur fine to my home adress - if it's not a joke - more than weird bullshit



You saw the ";-)" at the end, right?

What I don't like is the term "taxi-fly" :-(
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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cpoxon

You saw the ";-)" at the end, right?


Yep)
cpoxon

What I don't like is the term "taxi-fly" :-(

H-mm Why? It's how we call it)
But, Once the group of firstimers heard about "Taxi-fly at the end of flying" and asked our manifiest whether that taxi is going from WT to the city))
Why drink and drive, if you can smoke and fly?

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NWPoul


***What I don't like is the term "taxi-fly" :-(

H-mm Why? It's how we call it)
But, Once the group of firstimers heard about "Taxi-fly at the end of flying" and asked our manifiest whether that taxi is going from WT to the city))

I feel it is disparaging. Just like some instructors dislike being called rats. It may be how we talk to each other, but first-timers should be treated with respect.
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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cpoxon

I feel it is disparaging. Just like some instructors dislike being called rats. It may be how we talk to each other, but first-timers should be treated with respect.

Well, as english isn't my native language may be that's why I can't feel negative connotation in this term... so as a magority of first timers here))
May be a term "high flight" in USA will be better)
Why drink and drive, if you can smoke and fly?

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Taxi fly seems a somewhat reasonable term to me (English 1st language) even though I never heard the term until this thread began.

Think about it "a person wants a ride somewhere" they call for a taxi to take them there.

To me new flyers agree to pay for a ride on high and instructors are their taxi to that part of the tunnel - otherwise they'd never get up there in the 1st - 2 minutes.

Never heard the term yet at iFLY Orlando where iFLY. Newbies probably would never know to use it unless tunnels used it in advertising - so IMO if it hasn't started to be used somewhere it won't be unless an effort is exerted to cause it's use.

I don't particularly love the term tunnel rat although I thought it was cute when I first heard it but with reflection I feel differently but will use it proudly anyway since it is part of the tunnel culture which I want to be a part of. Heck it has recently become a brand used to market many items.

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Well we here usually don't announce this term to firsttimers
and even the actual taxi-fly usually don't announced - we just provide it to them (without additional asking or pricing) at the last session if the person looking ok and don't mind it (almost all of them) :)
Why drink and drive, if you can smoke and fly?

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Seeing bigger, taller tunnels being constructed constantly, being conscious of flyer height in the wind is a topic I don't believe should be overlooked.

Wondering what everyones thoughts are on this?

**************

I'm not as experienced as many of the guys at ISS.
My own experience is telling me that altitude alone is a rare reason of injures.

when we usually have bruises and (rarely) broken bones?

1. layouts.
2. bad recovery from high-speed static flying fail (headdown or headup)
3. 2- or more way collision and funnel.
4. ?

All broken bones I ever seen in my home tunnel belonged to professional flyers or instructors. And I am talking about world-level flyers - Inka Tiito or Ramsy for example. My own worst was broken little finger so I need to pump up my skill :) Obviously, altitude restrictions were not part of the problem here.

So, I am up to anything that improves safety. But I honestly think that these restrictions are excessive and, even worse, could substitute complex evaluation of safety of flyer (or coach!) with simple-and-yet-wrong rule 'respect the lines!'. Just like they prohibit 270-degree turns on some DZs just because.

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From the ISS article it seems that power failure concerns could have been a large part the impetus for this safety policy.

Are there any statistics out there as to power failure related injuries to bodyflyers over the years or the frequency of power failures in general at tunnels?

I know it happens.

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It depends of design of the tunnel.
Our tunnel (flystation), like other ISG tunnels (Voss, Flyspot etc) does not stop momentarily even with a complete power loss. Actually one oof the drills on the instructor's course was engaging an emergency stop while candidate is flying above the glass. I believe modern iFly/Skyventure tunnels acts the same way.

Bedford tunnel shuts off instantly, on the other hand. And do not know how Hurricane Factory / Aerodium behave. There was a video of stall (big-way headdown) and emergency shut-off in HF tunnel, but stall is a different story - power already dropping down significally before the shut-off itself.

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about injures - heard a story long ago about guy in some US tunnel who was doing some tricks on the ceiling, caused stall and emergency stop, but instead of going down while he still could, hang on the ceiling rails and tunnel went to complete stop. Eventually gave up and fell, broke legs.

I suspect this is not a true story though.

4-way VRW experienced blackout in UK, minor neck/shoulder traumas.

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Our teammate Mick dislocated his shoulder hitting the glass about a month ago rushing for a dock then stalled and didn't recover enough before hitting the glass. This was head down with the tunnel topped out in a 14 footer about 3 ft off the net. The height had no bearing at all.

As pointed out above layouts with the speed up can turn out nasty as can transitioning inface to outface across the tunnel. It's the horizontal speed that gets you splatted not the vertical one imho. :PB|

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Agreed with horizontal speed accelleration can cause pain - Heard a big BANG in my helmet between 25-27 and 25-41 on this video of my newb training on bak2bellyroll https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv82u4HZ_ek&feature=youtu.be Kink in my neck for about a month from the wall bump.

Also got a big surprise when shot up near the top last week during another mistake at around 18-30 to 18-55 on this vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm_YIVndL6Y&feature=youtu.be Coaches in and out of the tunnel seemed happy I survived the unexpected ride up. HaHa The vertical rise shock caused some fear but luckily no pain - now if the power quit on me - who knows what would have happened to a newb like me with only 3 1/2 hours under the belt.

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A tunnel that has a constant/increasing wind speed throughout a tall flight chamber vs a tunnel with a decreasing wind speed as you gain altitude in the flight chamber are very different.

Consistent or stronger wind speeds above the head of a standing instructor have a big impact on the potential horizontal speed and amount of control an instructor has over a flyer. Plus if there is an issue with the flyer is above an instructor there is no opportunity for control of the horizontal situation except for making a catch when a flyer descends.

FlyStation has a wind profile where shortly after a flyer goes above head height of an instructor, the naturally come back down. Some new, tall tunnels this is just the opposite.

Agreed that horizontal speeds can be dangerous, but have to add that new tall tunnels add to the possible dangers. Being height conscious is only a good thing IMO
Indoor Skydiving Source - The Leading Indoor Skydiving Resource

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Maybe another thing tunnels could do is supply a flyer or publicly post a description of each tunnel's wind profile so that newer flyers better understand the tunnel they are in just in case they have not been educated about the idiosyncrasies of the tunnel they are going into which could be very different from their home tunnel.

Due to this thread I went to the ISS site and at least learned something about "wind profiles".

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