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I've recently got back into skydiving after a break of 7 years. The explosion of go pro videos, youtube and discussion forums has had a similar effect as descri

by Fuzzwah 13y ago

I've recently got back into skydiving after a break of 7 years. The explosion of go pro videos, youtube and discussion forums has had a similar effect as described in this article. Combined with the ease of spreading info was the proliferation of indoor skydiving wind tunnels. Being exposed to a new idea and then being able to practice it in the tunnel for an hour with out having to make 60 skydives means the lag between innovative ideas to wide spread adoption is so remarkably short now.

Retric 13y ago
Unfortunately, I think with the more dangerous sports this progress is associated with a lot of people pushing way beyond there skill level. Skydiving is a fairly dangerious sport, but base jumping + wing suit + near terrain following is practically suicidal. It looks awesome on YouTube, but they don't give any indication of wind which is absolutely critical etc etc. Edit: youtube.com/watch?v=PPmWOA9cVM4&feature=plpp PS: Check out birdmen the original dream of flight on netflix and take note of how many times they mention dead people.
- base698 13y ago
  Yep, out of 17 BASE accidents this year 15 were in a wing suit. I didn't do a wingsuit BASE jump until I had over 200 BASE jumps and 1400 skydives. Now every new skydiver rushes to do it after a single year of experience, and the numbers show what a great idea that is.
  - base1018 13y ago
    Didn't think I'd run into a BASE jumper on Hacker News. Certainly wouldn't have thought he or she would have a BASE number as low as yours... I don't jump anymore, but I was active from 2003 to 2007ish. Curious if we've met elsewhere, online or irl... drop me an email if we did.
mrb 13y ago
Where the heck do you find an indoor skydiving wind tunnel that you can use solo for one contiguous hour?
- base698 13y ago
  http://www.iflyglobal.net/locations.html http://www.iflyglobal.net/locations.html There are also ones in NC and two near LA. Granted to do one hour by yourself is hard to do you can split it in 15 or 10 minute blocks, which was likely what he meant.
  - mrb 13y ago
    Oh, I actually tried the iFLY location in Hollywood. But I only did 2 flights of 1 minute each(!) I did not remember they offered 60-minutes blocks of time. But at a price of $975 that is very steep... http://hollywood.iflyworld.com/flight-info/experienced-flyer http://hollywood.iflyworld.com/flight-info/experienced-flyer It sounded like Fuzzwah had cheaper access to wind tunnels.
    - base698 13y ago
      I have friends that have spent $10K - $20K in a year on time and one friend that works at M$ and spends all of his disposable income on it. You can get time for $500 or $600 an hour after you're experienced and then split it with others in the bigger tunnels so you are all flying at once.
    - Retric 13y ago
      Considering you get less than 2 min of free fall from a normal jump it's still cheaper and way safer for practicing stunts even at 1000$ an hour.
    - Fuzzwah 13y ago
      Group buying a block of time drives down the price a bit, but much like everything else skydiving related; it is expensive. I've only got about 15 mins of tunnel time logged. I've done ~60 skydives and was lucky enough to be invited to tag along with a friend who had purchased a 30 min block at the skydive AZ tunnel. We'd been jumping together that day and I'd been struggling to fall as slow as other people in our group. They threw me into the tunnel and in the space of the 1st two minutes had taught me how to adjust my fall rate WAY better than I had been doing. Getting instant feedback on your body position dramatically shortens the learning curve. Compared to trying to get coaching during a normal skydive, even when debriefing with video; where you have to repack, manifest for another jump, take the ride to height and then try to implement the adjustments you'd been instructed about some 45 minutes prior. So yeah, "burning" ~$150 to get 5 mins of tunnel time seems expensive. I hadn't spent any of my own cash on it exactly because I thought it was too rich and I'd rather actually skydive. But now I see that investing that $150 to ensure I didn't waste another 4 or 5 jumps (~$200 including gear hire) learning to fall slower saved me a load of frustration and a bit of money. That's why I think the tunnel is an amazing learning tool. When you're in the tunnel there is no distractions, you're in there to learn and improve. When I skydive I'm still trying to learn and improve, but mostly I'm doing it for pure enjoyment of the experience of flying bigger formations.

by Fuzzwah 13y ago

Retric 13y ago

Unfortunately, I think with the more dangerous sports this progress is associated with a lot of people pushing way beyond there skill level. Skydiving is a fairly dangerious sport, but base jumping + wing suit + near terrain following is practically suicidal. It looks awesome on YouTube, but they don't give any indication of wind which is absolutely critical etc etc. Edit: youtube.com/watch?v=PPmWOA9cVM4&feature=plpp PS: Check out birdmen the original dream of flight on netflix and take note of how many times they mention dead people.

base698 13y ago
Yep, out of 17 BASE accidents this year 15 were in a wing suit. I didn't do a wingsuit BASE jump until I had over 200 BASE jumps and 1400 skydives. Now every new skydiver rushes to do it after a single year of experience, and the numbers show what a great idea that is.
- base1018 13y ago
  Didn't think I'd run into a BASE jumper on Hacker News. Certainly wouldn't have thought he or she would have a BASE number as low as yours... I don't jump anymore, but I was active from 2003 to 2007ish. Curious if we've met elsewhere, online or irl... drop me an email if we did.

mrb 13y ago

Where the heck do you find an indoor skydiving wind tunnel that you can use solo for one contiguous hour?

base698 13y ago
http://www.iflyglobal.net/locations.html http://www.iflyglobal.net/locations.html There are also ones in NC and two near LA. Granted to do one hour by yourself is hard to do you can split it in 15 or 10 minute blocks, which was likely what he meant.
- mrb 13y ago
  Oh, I actually tried the iFLY location in Hollywood. But I only did 2 flights of 1 minute each(!) I did not remember they offered 60-minutes blocks of time. But at a price of $975 that is very steep... http://hollywood.iflyworld.com/flight-info/experienced-flyer http://hollywood.iflyworld.com/flight-info/experienced-flyer It sounded like Fuzzwah had cheaper access to wind tunnels.
  - base698 13y ago
    I have friends that have spent $10K - $20K in a year on time and one friend that works at M$ and spends all of his disposable income on it. You can get time for $500 or $600 an hour after you're experienced and then split it with others in the bigger tunnels so you are all flying at once.
  - Retric 13y ago
    Considering you get less than 2 min of free fall from a normal jump it's still cheaper and way safer for practicing stunts even at 1000$ an hour.
  - Fuzzwah 13y ago
    Group buying a block of time drives down the price a bit, but much like everything else skydiving related; it is expensive. I've only got about 15 mins of tunnel time logged. I've done ~60 skydives and was lucky enough to be invited to tag along with a friend who had purchased a 30 min block at the skydive AZ tunnel. We'd been jumping together that day and I'd been struggling to fall as slow as other people in our group. They threw me into the tunnel and in the space of the 1st two minutes had taught me how to adjust my fall rate WAY better than I had been doing. Getting instant feedback on your body position dramatically shortens the learning curve. Compared to trying to get coaching during a normal skydive, even when debriefing with video; where you have to repack, manifest for another jump, take the ride to height and then try to implement the adjustments you'd been instructed about some 45 minutes prior. So yeah, "burning" ~$150 to get 5 mins of tunnel time seems expensive. I hadn't spent any of my own cash on it exactly because I thought it was too rich and I'd rather actually skydive. But now I see that investing that $150 to ensure I didn't waste another 4 or 5 jumps (~$200 including gear hire) learning to fall slower saved me a load of frustration and a bit of money. That's why I think the tunnel is an amazing learning tool. When you're in the tunnel there is no distractions, you're in there to learn and improve. When I skydive I'm still trying to learn and improve, but mostly I'm doing it for pure enjoyment of the experience of flying bigger formations.