Indoor Skydiving
- Thread starter Acura NsX Pilot
- Start date
Re: Wind tunnels in general
These things have come a long way in the last 20 years and are popping up all over the country. They are a tremendous training tool for real skydivers, both novice and experienced (having this one within 2 hours drive has breathed new life into my 40 year skydiving career).
Everyone should give it a try. About $50 for a 2 minute demo. I told my barber lady about it and she immediately planned to take her kids. In the long run, the general public, experiencing these as a novelty/thrill ride, will ultimately make or break them.
The safe prediction is that they will be a passing fad and mostly gone or at least old hat in 10 years time. As difficult as it can be, it lacks the fear and OMG novelty of a tandem jump. The tunnels that survive will then be the few training tunnels close to the major skydiving drop zones. Hope I'm wrong, but I say that because skydiving has lost its glitter with tandem jumps being common place and all the new extreme sports out.
The long shot possibility is that they will take on a life of their own and not identified with skydiving at all. The kids who like to do whacky shit with their skateboards now will grow up and spend money to do whacky team tricks in the tunnel; like a bowling league,
we might see Wednesday night competition???? could happen.....:wink:
These things have come a long way in the last 20 years and are popping up all over the country. They are a tremendous training tool for real skydivers, both novice and experienced (having this one within 2 hours drive has breathed new life into my 40 year skydiving career).
Everyone should give it a try. About $50 for a 2 minute demo. I told my barber lady about it and she immediately planned to take her kids. In the long run, the general public, experiencing these as a novelty/thrill ride, will ultimately make or break them.
The safe prediction is that they will be a passing fad and mostly gone or at least old hat in 10 years time. As difficult as it can be, it lacks the fear and OMG novelty of a tandem jump. The tunnels that survive will then be the few training tunnels close to the major skydiving drop zones. Hope I'm wrong, but I say that because skydiving has lost its glitter with tandem jumps being common place and all the new extreme sports out.
The long shot possibility is that they will take on a life of their own and not identified with skydiving at all. The kids who like to do whacky shit with their skateboards now will grow up and spend money to do whacky team tricks in the tunnel; like a bowling league,
we might see Wednesday night competition???? could happen.....:wink:
Re: Wind tunnels in general
If you were to list pluses and minus about this thing what would they be ?
These things have come a long way in the last 20 years and are popping up all over the country. They are a tremendous training tool for real skydivers, both novice and experienced (having this one within 2 hours drive has breathed new life into my 40 year skydiving career).
Everyone should give it a try. About $50 for a 2 minute demo. I told my barber lady about it and she immediately planned to take her kids. In the long run, the general public, experiencing these as a novelty/thrill ride, will ultimately make or break them.
The safe prediction is that they will be a passing fad and mostly gone or at least old hat in 10 years time. As difficult as it can be, it lacks the fear and OMG novelty of a tandem jump. The tunnels that survive will then be the few training tunnels close to the major skydiving drop zones. Hope I'm wrong, but I say that because skydiving has lost its glitter with tandem jumps being common place and all the new extreme sports out.
The long shot possibility is that they will take on a life of their own and not identified with skydiving at all. The kids who like to do whacky shit with their skateboards now will grow up and spend money to do whacky team tricks in the tunnel; like a bowling league,
If you were to list pluses and minus about this thing what would they be ?
$50 for 2 minutes? That's $1500/hour. Actual skydiving is a deal compared to that!
Not really when you consider that you're buying equivalent freefall time; most drop zones are charging over $20 for a ride to 13,500 feet (about a minute of free fall). Experienced tunnel flyers who don't need assistance can buy blocks of time (as little as 10 minutes) for $15/minute or less.
As a skydiver, I can't think of any minuses, really. For training purposes, it's a very useful tool since the air flow in the tunnels now is so smooth, it's like free fall. (Earlier tunnels had issues with decreased windspeed next to the walls and other unfreefall like tendancies.) In the tunnel, I have the full time to concentrate on moves, body control and muscle memory without the distraction of exiting the airplane, getting ready to deploy the parachute and all the safety procedures I have to go thru in the air.
For people who want to experience skydiving, the minus is that it's not a tandem jump, so they don't get the anticipation, the plane ride, the parachute ride and the
fear of death. Here's a tip guys: adrenaline makes girls hot and guys report a very high "score" rate that nite after their girlfriends make a tandem jump. :wink:
Re: Wind tunnels in general
1. + The feeling of flight without plunging thousands of feet toward the earth :biggrin:
1. + The feeling of flight without plunging thousands of feet toward the earth :biggrin:
Re: Wind tunnels in general
come on, thats a huge minus. without that, this is just either a novelty or a training tool. it's all about the adrenaline rush.
come on, thats a huge minus. without that, this is just either a novelty or a training tool. it's all about the adrenaline rush.
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- 22 September 2005
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If this is true maybe its something I should do with my next gf.
Skydiving is definitely worth doing at least once in your lifetime, if you do a tandem, stick her with an ugly jump master or your plan may backfire
. I have never felt anything come close to the adrenaline rush, I was literally high ALL DAY after my first jump.Raven, you're local to me, I went here for AFF classes as well as my first tandem:
http://www.skyjump.com/
which is in Pepperrel, MA
Yeah Syn, that would be the ticket for your muscle memory issues. You should really take your Christmas money, knock over a 7-11 store, swindle your GF, sell your body or something and drive on over to that new tunnel in South? Carolina and buy about 30 minutes. There's also an old one in Tennesee that might be closer. Call your drop zone and ask them which they'd recommend (on where to go, not how to get the money
). I was wondering if they will ever get around to putting together a dummy rig for guys like you to wear while training on basic body position and stability. The danger of a real rig of course is that if accidentally deployed, well.......it wouldn't be pretty as one can easily imagine. But wearing a harness and container is a factor at your experience level.
Yeah Syn, that would be the ticket for your muscle memory issues. You should really take your Christmas money, knock over a 7-11 store, swindle your GF, sell your body or something and drive on over to that new tunnel in South? Carolina and buy about 30 minutes. There's also an old one in Tennesee that might be closer. Call your drop zone and ask them which they'd recommend (on where to go, not how to get the money
I was wondering if they will ever get around to putting together a dummy rig for guys like you to wear while training on basic body position and stability. The danger of a real rig of course is that if accidentally deployed, well.......it wouldn't be pretty as one can easily imagine. But wearing a harness and container is a factor at your experience level.
haha, looks like i would have to go to some extremes.... my "extracurricular activities" fund has been effectively depleted with the purchase of my nsx-r suspension :redface:
but sometime (hopefully relatively soon) i will definitely be going at it again - i can't wait to get to a point where i am comfortable with body position, maneuvering, etc. during freefall. i think, then, it would be 1000 times more fun (if that's even possible! :smile: )
(ugh, i just wish the dropzone were still open in the airport that's less than a mile from my apartment - it would make things so much easier
)and you know how it goes with cars and other hobbies.... you usually have to push one aside for a little while to get anywhere with the other one (well, at least my broke ass does hehe)....
it's true what they say, though.... you never look up into the sky the same way again....
Re: One word....humbling
Whew, I went to the tunnel today for my first 10 minutes of back flying. To say it was humbling is just the start. First I watched first timers showing more control "belly flying" in 10 minutes than I had after 50 jumps. Then I went in, did OK for the first basic exercises, barely lifting off the net (or "floor") but when it was time to actually lift off and fly, I bounced off the walls like a flailing AFF level 1. After just the first 6 minutes, I was tired. And stability? Wow, I'm thinking, my 50 hours of face to earth freefall didn't help one iota with basic flying on my back. :redface:
I drove away a little imtimidated, thinking there's no way I can devote the time to start from scratch and learn something totally new. Then like a damn fool, I drove straight to the dropzone and bought a free fly suit. Sheesh, what was I thinking????
As we've said for years: "I'm too old for this shit", right before we go on to do something questionable.
Whew, I went to the tunnel today for my first 10 minutes of back flying. To say it was humbling is just the start. First I watched first timers showing more control "belly flying" in 10 minutes than I had after 50 jumps. Then I went in, did OK for the first basic exercises, barely lifting off the net (or "floor") but when it was time to actually lift off and fly, I bounced off the walls like a flailing AFF level 1. After just the first 6 minutes, I was tired. And stability? Wow, I'm thinking, my 50 hours of face to earth freefall didn't help one iota with basic flying on my back. :redface:
I drove away a little imtimidated, thinking there's no way I can devote the time to start from scratch and learn something totally new. Then like a damn fool, I drove straight to the dropzone and bought a free fly suit. Sheesh, what was I thinking????
As we've said for years: "I'm too old for this shit", right before we go on to do something questionable.Similar threads
