Gators1240

My first suggestion would be to get a coach and start doing some work with that and/or have them coach you in a tunnel. Information found on the internet may help but it more than likely will be detrimental to what you are trying to achieve. There are some videos that Niklas Daniel has on expert village but I think those are all more towards learning to freefly and not as much on belly stuff.

Ive always heard great things about them. I ordered a G3 about a week ago and was told it should ship in about 5 weeks. Counting down the days till it gets here...

I realllllly hope this goes through, It would be an awesome location for a tunnel. I emailed councilman uhrin about it showing my support.

I am somewhat of a tunnel rat myself and every tunnel I have been to has been more than willing to adjust the airspeed if needed. If I get in and need more air I just give a thumbs up to the instructor/driver and that usually does it. Like what was said before if they dont feel you can handle more air they wont give it to you. Although one of the greatest training tools I have had in the tunnel when I was first learning belly flying was I had an instructor who (once I showed sufficient stability and started working on things such as side slides etc...) made me use way more air then I needed for bellyflying so that I could learn to adjust my body position and make all the same movements (turns, side slides etc...) and stay at the same fall rate even when near my max fallrate

I had niki for pretty much all of my aff and had frazer as well both great guys, be carefull what you say around carl though, he is a thirsty old man

I would definitely recommend DeLand. I did my AFF and first 35 jumps there about a year ago. They also do a combined aff/tunnel program which I would highly recommend. Plus the restaurant/bar at the DZ is an awesome thing

I went through my AFF a little over a year ago and I did both front and backflips (level 6 I believe). But as it was explained to me it wasnt really to prove that I could do a backflip or front flip it was more to get you out of control and off of your belly to ensure that you can get back to your belly in the event that you accidentally end up on your back or out of control and flipping

Yes you are definitely overthinking things. Before I say anything else I would say to listen to your instructors and ask them all of these questions. They have the knowledge and experience and have seen tons of students with similar questions/experiences and should have a good grasp on how to handle these questions in a way that will make more sense to you than anyone on here probably will. As far as your first couple landings go I would suggest that you study and remember how to PLF. Sure there are many people (myself included) who were able to stand up their landings softly from the get go but that may instill a bit of false confidence in your landing ability where you may end up with broken ankles etc... due to thinking you dont need to PLF because you landed 2 or 3 beforehand without needing to. Pay attention while going through your FJC and really listen to the advice your instructors will give you, it may very well save your life. You should have a radio so that they can help you while landing but I would not rely on it at all. With every single jump you make the decisions are yours to make and you need to be able to make those with or without the input from your instructor. I saw a group of military guys from oman (about 150 of them) that came down to Skydive DeLand to do their AFF last year and on the first jump one of their radios accidentally got turned off in freefall. So instead of doing what he was taught and set up in his holding area and begin his landing pattern as hen should have, he just flew straight and waited for the radio to tell him what to do. Needless to say he landed at the edge of the airport, did not flare or PLF, and im pretty sure he broke an ankle or a leg(one of them did, not sure if it was this guy or another one out of the group). The moral of the story is, like I said before, listen and learn what you need to do and how to do it, and if the instructors can help while landing via the radio then great but it really is all up to you. As with everything skydiving related have fun, and be safe. Blue skies.

As many others have said so far I would not try to constrict it to a predefined single body position. I started learning mantis when I was around 20 jumps and 2 hours of tunnel time and even then had to break myself out of the boxman style and consciously think about using mantis. The biggest benefit I see is really learning to use your legs more to control your body position both by themself and in conjunction with your upper body. With any body position it is more about feeling the flying and training your muscles to do what you want them to do without thinking about HOW to do it. Think about the whole "Look left turn left" mentality that you are taught while going through AFF and apply that to any style of flying you want. Everyone is different and some things work for some people and some things work for others, you really just need to find out what works best for you and what you are more comfortable with.

i wont know for a while the exact dates but im planning on probably the last week of november / first week in december

awesome, with that being said anyone wanna share some time then?

I am thinking of planning a trip to SVC around november/december. is the tunnel a recirc or would I be freezing my ass off going then?

Ive thought about that but I know myself and if I dont buy the new one that I want while I have the money when I get back then I will end up blowing the money on jumping / tunnel / my bike etc... I will more than likely just go over to perris and jump into the demo program they have. that way the money is already accounted for, I get free demo gear to jump in the meantime and then once im ready to go with the rig/main that I really want I can without wasting a bunch of money / time looking for a used rig that I want and then trying to sell it

well before I left I became somewhat of a tunnel rat (which im sure I will head back to before the dz to freshen up) so im not terribly worried about my freefall skills lacking as I am my canopy skills. maybe I will find a canopy course before I go buy it

Due to the military and deployments etc... I havent been able to jump since november. I will be able to start jumping again around october/november this year and dont own a rig yet. Well one of the benefits of doing a long deployment like this is saving a years worth of money in the process. I plan on buying a rig when I get back. How long / how many jumps do you think would be appropriate to get me back in the swing of things before I throw down that kind of money on a new rig?

Deland is a great place (I did my AFF/A license there) but if you live closer to zhills I would totally recommend going there instead. Both are great DZ's and you really cant go wrong. Plus as you progress the instructors/other jumpers there see it and like it was said before bonds are formed and tons of beer is shared :)

Where are you at? ZHill is a pretty great DZ, Ive never been to the farm though so I cant say anything about there but ive heard good things. Deland is pretty good too

Not sure if anyone posted this yet but aparently the military is considered "non-essential" since they are talking about only paying them half of their pay and then paying them the rest later after the budget is approved.

Like others have said it is very doable. You probably wont progress as fast (more jumps in shorter time = better proficiency/learning curve) but im not sure where in NC you are but I believe paraclete (wind tunnel) is up there somewhere. I would check that out as it will help you improve/maintain your skills if you cant jump as often

Yeah I havent seen this thread in a while. I havent really had time to work on anything regarding this because of work. BUT since im in the military and they may stop paying us next week I may have more time to look into it

Well from that standpoint I am a little behind the curve but like I said before I tend to go over things again and again before moving on. I dont really care about getting there in a certain amount of time. I have been getting coaching BUT its just been from the tunnel instructors which is usually different everytime I am at the tunnel. It has helped quite a bit but bouncing around from instructor to instructor and going through different teaching methods can make it somewhat frustrating at times.

Here is some perspective. To learn how to freefly, I have flown over 3 hours in the tunnel. It took me close to 2.5 to learn to sitfly [which included a lot of backfly], to just hold it barely off the net. Several coaches have told me their ideal way of teaching sitfly is to coach 3 hours of tunnel before the student even tries to make a jump in the sky. That's how hard it is. You may think everyone can do it in the sky easily, but translating it into the tunnel is a different ballgame. And the more time you spend in the tunnel, the more you will realize that you are building confidence and strength in your mechanics. Overcoming the boundaries of the tunnel and comfort with flying up and off the ground/net are something you don't have to deal with the sky; the rig on your back does helps with balance too in the sky and that's something you have to learn to fly without in the tunnel. So I wouldn't be hard on yourself if you can't get the sitfly after 45 minutes. About 90% of my jumps are RW, so I had a lot of difficulty transitioning from my belly flying to freefly positioning; if I can do it I'm sure you can too. I think we all just hope that it doesn't take us hundreds of dollars and hours to just learn how to sit, I completely understand that feeling. But to learn properly means to build good habits, good body mechanics and to practice the basics. Developing a strong backfly will help IMMENSELY towards learning the sitfly; as useless as you may think it is in the sky, it is essentially the sitfly position but oriented in a different axis. Other than that, keep at it and you'll get it :) I know exactly what you mean about the tunnel. I should clarify that I meant that I have about 45 minutes strictly working on sit. I have around 4 1/2 hours in the tunnel now, 2 of that being back and sit

I have. I'm working on sitflying now and it's completely kicking my ass. Everything else is pretty good (belly, back, transitions) but I can't really think of anything else to work on until I can get my sit down somewhat. Ive done about 45 minutes total just working on my siftly and haven't been able to stay steady off of the net. So that's what I'm doing until I can get it

All the advice seems to make a lot of sense. It is hard to work with multiple different coaches because of the different teaching styles and I have noticed that they often have different ways to do the same things.

As far as training is concerned I somewhat like a smaller tunnel, it forces you to really learn to precisely control your movements. For someone who has never done it before, maybe a little bigger is better. As far as marketability (not sure if that is a word or not) the best tunnel design I have see is hands down iFly Hollywood. The flight chamber is a plexiglass cone shape that is right at street level as soon as you walk out of the parking garage and into universal citywalk. So everyone walking by sees it and sees exactly what it is, on top of that they have huge monitors playing promo videos that can be seen from pretty far away.