danielcroft

The ISG design makes for extremely smooth airflow. The town of Voss is very nice, beautiful and picturesque. There are reasonable restaurants and places to stay, although I camped. The dropzone is nearby and while this isn't a review of the dropzone, let me just say that the people are incredible and the dropzone is great. My favorite boogie ever was the Voss Freefly Festival. That included tunnel time and coaching at VossVind. Depending on where you're coming from, Norway can be very expensive so there's that to consider but do yourself a favor and visit one of the best dropzones and tunnel combinations in the world. Incredible instructors make it the full experience. Despite getting marked down a little on accessibility and facilities, this tunnel would be rated a 11 out of 5 for me.

Skyventure Montreal is another great 14' tunnel in Montreal (Putin anyone?) with some excellent instructors. The tunnel itself is close to food and accommodation although, it's a little way form the airport. I found the instructors to be very good and the facilities for reviewing footage to be also very good quality. The instructors were a little wary of random people showing up in terms of skill level but otherwise, really nice peeps. This tunnel is the same design as iFly Seattle and there'll probably be fights for years over which tunnel is faster but either way, you can't go wrong with these tunnel when you want to start working in movement in a 14' or if you're a local. Going through town for GoBig and hitting the tunnel was also really nice but from some places in the US (yeah, I know people live elsewhere in the world), it can be difficult. For peeps in the NE, this is another option with a fancy feel to SVNH and Paraclete.

Josh and Mike are, let's face it, pretty amazing flyers and being able to get coaching from them or people at their level is a luxury. Mike, Colby and Nate are also great peeps and have a lot to teach people. The big difference between this tunnel and iFly Utah and Skyventure NH is that Skyventure Colorado has blocked off one of their doors. The tunnel is relatively quick but, given the altitude it's at, closing the door off is probably required when the air density is already pretty low. It can be a bit slow (wind speed) in summer due to even lower air density. The fact is that there's a large community of skydivers in CO who make this tunnel a really good option if you're looking for people to fly with. There are restaurants nearby and it's right off the freeway so it's easy to get to but since Denver saw fit to have their airport in the middle of nowhere, it's going to take a while to get there if you're flying in.

Having spent a fair amount of my early tunnel hours at NH, I can say that I enjoyed the experience there, especially when working with Joe Winters who's a really good instructor. He's able to break down his instruction to a more detailed level than many other instructors and that can really be extremely valuable. Doing camps there with Scarecrow or others was really helpful as well since the instructors aren't allowed to fly with people. That's really the main limitation to the tunnel, it's hard to progress on your own and coaching should either come with a smile from Joe Winters or some other person who knows what they're doing. The location for someone in NYC is the best there is but that isn't great. If you're in Boston or somewhere else in the NE, it's good but shares limitations with the other 12' (and smaller) tunnels if you're trying to work on movement. It's pretty comfy there and food is close by.

Having a tunnel on your dropzone can be good, having a 14' tunnel at an amazing dropzone is even better! The non-recirculating tunnel has a lot of drawbacks - it's hot inside when it's hot outside, you get sand in your face, etc - but one of the big advantages is that the air behaves a lot more like the sky, it's not as crisp as recirculating tunnels. There's something super, super nice about landing your canopy from a sunset jump and wandering over to the tunnel and flying with a great instructor like Vince. Petter also coaches there a lot and he's an awesome instructor. The potential for combination camps at Skyventure Arizona, flying with the world class skydivers and then wandering to the tunnel for coaching cannot be minimized as a huge advantage to this tunnel. The DZ itself is awesome, that's well known. The main drawback to this tunnel is that it's in Eloy which isn't the best place for food or non-dropzone stuff. If you're staying on the DZ it's pretty great, however.

The older style 14' at iFly Seattle is very powerful and while it doesn't have the new, fancy all glass (plastic, whatevs) construction like at iFly Austin/Dallas, the joins in the walls are great for spotting your location when you're trying to be on heading. In D4W (for example) you want to know where you are in the tunnel, having points of reference is helpful. The staff there are super nice and helpful, the airport is within walking distance (if you're nuts like me) but close enough for a short cab ride. There are restaurants and places to eat right there as well as plenty of hotels.

When you're ready to move onto the next level with your D4W, this is the place to do it. The instructors are incredibly good and also great people. The staff at the tunnel are fun and encouraging. It's like the mecca of tunnel in the US for team training whether that's FS or VFS, you can actually work yourselves without pointing at the walls. Great place, great peeps.

Whether you're going for AFF, trying to get up to speed in VFS or want to learn flip twists, these guys are the greatest. Wonderful, accommodating and caring coaching from world class instructors. Always ready to help you progress in a positive and friendly manner. Devin, Dusty and Reese are not only great people but also world class, they can teach you anything you want to learn at a very, very low price. I'm learning D4W which is about the only thing that's difficult to learn in a tunnel smaller than 14' but for everything else, these guys are awesome. There's cheap accommodation nearby, lots of restaurants and the rest of the staff at iFly Utah are also great people. If you're unhappy flying at iFly Utah with these guys, you may want to check the mirror. ;-)