tunnel time count for instructor

[spencer 0]

Hello
can you tell me if two hours in a tunnel count as air time towards my 6 hours needed for my aff instructor rating,i aleady have 200 jumps,any help would be greatful

[AggieDave 6]

No it does not count, but it will help you out with your in air skills. Go jump and jump often. You'll get there and the experience you gain along the way will be invaluable to you as an instructor.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[WatchYourStep 0]

Dave-

I'm not saying your wrong but I believe there has been a case where someone with a ton of tunnel time but not quite enough FF time had a wavier approved by the USPA to receive his AFFI.

I could look more into it if needed.

"You start off your skydiving career with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience up before your bag of luck runs out."

[BillyVance 34]

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Dave-

I'm not saying your wrong but I believe there has been a case where someone with a ton of tunnel time but not quite enough FF time had a wavier approved by the USPA to receive his AFFI.

I could look more into it if needed.

That would be interesting, because there was a guy, Hiro Masuda from Japan, who got on the 400 way world record with less than 1000 jumps, because he had accumulated more or less a whole day's worth of tunnel time. His in-air skill is impeccable. Not sure that tunnel time directly translates into being able to save your student when the shit hits the fan, but he does know exactly how to use his body in the air stream.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[diablopilot 2]

NO way.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[MakeItHappen 15]

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NO way.

Actually, there has been one AFFI rating given out to someone that substituted WT time for FF time.
See the Winter 2007 USPA Minutes.

I don't agree with WT time = FF time, or even many hours of WT = 1 hour of FF time, either because there is so much more to a jump than just FF skills.

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Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[diablopilot 2]

Agreed. The person wavered in this case may or may not have been a worthy flyer, but I am not a fan of such a policy. There is much more than freefall time an ability to being an AFF instructor.





Jan can you e-mail me re: unrelated subject. I can't find your contact info. diablopilot at gmail dot com

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[NickDG 23]

Gee, USPA, what's next, boxtops . . .

NickD BASE 194

[DSE 5]

Although I don't agree with the waiver, at the same time, wouldn't the candidate have to pass the evaluation dives? Hopefully the evaluator threw some heavy garbage at the candidate?

[billvon 2,995]

90% of the "work" of doing real world AFF involves flying unstable exits - and you get no practice flying unstable exits when using the tunnel. It's a great tool but doesn't substitute for real experience in the air.

[squarecanopy 0]

If USPA is counting tunnel time towards a skydiving rating, especially an instructor's rating, they should STOP that practice immediately IMO. I have about 10 times as much tunnel time as freefall time, and it has not made me a better SKYDIVER, just a better BODY FLYER.

Just burning a hole in the sky.....

[Andrewwhyte 1]

Why not? There is no talk about replacing jump numbers with it, just freefall time. Bill's point about exits is valid, but the candidate would still need the same number of exits. I don't think "time is time" but to discount the value of tunnel time to zero is nothing short of dogmatic.

[peregrinerose 0]

Is there a jump number requirement? I thought it was just C license and 6 hours of freefall time.

I'd be hesitant to see someone with 200 jumps be an AFF instructor, even if they did have shitloads of tunnel time. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to have a 'time in sport' requirement like tandems do.

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

[DSE 5]

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Is there a jump number requirement? I thought it was just C license and 6 hours of freefall time.

I'd be hesitant to see someone with 200 jumps be an AFF instructor, even if they did have shitloads of tunnel time. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to have a 'time in sport' requirement like tandems do.

Agreed, but also met a kid with 260 jumps, most of them wingsuit, who feels he's ready to become an AFFI. It'll be interesting to see if he passes the course. He's got the 6 hours...
How would it be possible to measure/apply tunnel time towards freefall time with any real value?

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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Is there a jump number requirement? I thought it was just C license and 6 hours of freefall time.

Hmm. I was not aware of that; in Canada its 600 jumps and 6hrs. That changes things.

[diablopilot 2]

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[diablopilot 2]

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Why not? There is no talk about replacing jump numbers with it, just freefall time. Bill's point about exits is valid, but the candidate would still need the same number of exits. I don't think "time is time" but to discount the value of tunnel time to zero is nothing short of dogmatic.

Why is it people so easily forget that the life saving bit about skydiving is landing safely under an open parachute?

The AFF rating had no requirements as to ability to teach safe canopy flight. And that's a problem.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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The AFF rating had no requirements as to ability to teach safe canopy flight. And that's a problem.

It is not confined to AFF; Virtually all instructor ratings in every skydiving organization I have looked at are seriously behind the curve here.

[diablopilot 2]

The nice thing about Static Line/IAD is that canopy flight doesn't seem to get overlooked as much, probably because there is little else for the student and instructor to focus on for the first few jumps.

I do agree that it's a short coming in all Ratings Programs.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Why not? There is no talk about replacing jump numbers with it, just freefall time. Bill's point about exits is valid, but the candidate would still need the same number of exits. I don't think "time is time" but to discount the value of tunnel time to zero is nothing short of dogmatic.

It's not asking a lot to have the bar be roughly 400 jumps. Since we use 500 for everything else, why not here too. 3 years and 500 is a nice standard.

People may be good enough to pass the eval, but is 'good enough' the standard to aim for? What's the rush, exactly? Is there a shortage of AFF-Is?

[davelepka 4]

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is 'good enough' the standard to aim for? What's the rush, exactly? Is there a shortage of AFF-Is?

This was the thinking the first time they dumbed down the AFF cert course. Not enough people were passing, and in turn not enough were even attending, leaving a shortage (or the possibility of a shortage).

I guess tunnel time should be coutned, they don't seem to consider your flying ability anyway, or your attitude, or your judgement.....


Just to be clear, not all instructors certified under the new course are inept and under qualified. Just about 75% of them are, the 75% that would have failed the old course.

[NickDG 23]

>>The AFF rating had no requirements as to ability to teach safe canopy flight. And that's a problem.
I'm not sure if you are talking about the new cert course or old cert course. But in the old one (the better one) you had to demonstrate the ability to teach safe canopy control in the graded ground preps. Each candidate had to run through the entire process from deployment to landing, including patterns, obstacle avoidance, head on a swivel, and all that good stuff.

If you mean we aren't giving students the tools to survive swooping later on in their careers (and I wouldn’t think you are) then know AFF students are more like teenagers in driver's education going for a learner's permit, not already experienced drivers practicing for NASCAR.

One thing that is upside down, in my opinion, even with the old style cert course was too much emphasis being placed on the air skills and not enough on the ground skills. Some candidates that struggled in the air (and I don't mean the ones who had no chance at all) were the type you could see had the basic skills just not the polish. Mostly these were the types who suffered from poor homegrown AFF pre-courses, or no pre-courses at all. It was a double shame when these folks were unsuccessful in the cert course when there ground preps were very good.

On the other hand there are some stellar flyers, who had the dive flow down cold and the skills to make it happen, and they are successful in the cert course, but on the ground their teaching skills were weak. My feeling is a flyer will always get better with practice, but teachers are a harder thing to produce. In the ranks of rated AFF Instructors I'd say there are very few who shouldn't be allowed in the air with an AFF student, but there are more than a few who probably shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a classroom.

In the early days of AFF besides having the required freefall time and in those days it was only four hours not six, one had to already be a static line Jumpmaster or Instructor. If you came to the AFF cert course as a S/L Jumpmaster then you left as an AFF Jumpmaster. This meant you could jump with students but not teach an AFF first jump course on your own. Then once you later became a static line Instructor you automatically became an AFF Instructor. The thinking was the S/L Instructor courses (ICC) were heavy on teaching fundamentals because the previous S/L Jumpmaster (JCC) course taken already were weighted toward the nut's and bolts of handing students in an aircraft.

Later they upped the freefall requirements for AFF to six hours and bumped up the flying ability that must be displayed and this was an example of raising the bar. As the AFF Instructor corps became better the cert courses followed along by becoming harder. We were going in the right direction. There were other problems with the old course too. Since these were "certification" courses and not "teaching" courses we, as evaluators, had to sit quietly and bite our tongues as the candidates dug themselves into holes from which no one ever returned.

I always thought these courses should be a week of teaching and a week of testing. I always hated not being able to help candidates when they only needed a small tweak here or there. But there is another type of candidate, and these are the ones I worry about the most as the ones who may be slipping through in the new course format. These are the ones who may have the skills and teaching ability at the entry AFF level but they fold under pressure. Testing with evaluators you don't personally know, and most times, not at your home DZ helps create that pressure. And being a good Instructor in any discipline means keeping your head and having the ability to think when everything is going wrong around you. If you can't handle an experienced evaluator giving you a test what are you going to do when an AFF student blows up in your face?

I've even had candidates I've pre-coursed myself who were unsuccessful, ones I had to personally give failing grades to. And these were folks who I thought were ready. When I asked them later what the hell happened I'd hear, "Man, I don't know, but by the third day I couldn't even remember my own name." And believe me I've heard all the excuses. "You guys were too hard on me," or, "that shit never happens in real life," but the truth of it is the candidates implode on their own. If that wasn't the case nobody would be passing.

While the old courses needed some changes, at least they were always evolving upward. We've now shit canned a lot of that by not keeping these courses under tight control. The three course director format assured that control. AFF always had the reputation for being the only rating the USPA didn’t just hand out. And yes, there is a problem in that some DZs (mostly the smaller ones) may not have the necessary rated instructors to run a first class AFF program. But dumbing down the rating was just the easy way to fix it, not the best way. It's not because the AFF cert course was too hard. It's because too many full time AFF Instructors have to move on to something else if they want to do anything normal like raise a family, or in some cases just eat.

And it's at the smaller DZs where the AFF standards my suffer the most. Big DZs with large AFF staffs always seemed to produce better prepared candidates simply because there is a brain trust of experience and broader standards are maintained. Sometimes I'd hear a candidate from a small DZs say, "Well, that's the way "old Bob" told me to do it," and sometimes what "old Bob" was doing wasn't totally unsafe or wrong, (and sometimes it was) but it just wasn't what everyone else was doing. Standardization breeds safety because when everyone is on the same page the things that need fixing become more readily apparent. And when talking about student skydivers they deserve the best we can offer them and not just what works for the most DZs.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone. About the time you are unbuckling your pants after dinner and putting on the football game, a bunch of AFF instructors will be suiting up their students who are making first solo parachute jumps. Let's throw a little thanks their way . . .

NickD BASE 194

[Zenister 0]

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When I asked them later what the hell happened I'd hear, "Man, I don't know, but by the third day I couldn't even remember my own name." And believe me I've heard all the excuses. "You guys were too hard on me," or, "that shit never happens in real life," but the truth of it is the candidates implode on their own.

one of the principles my fencing maestro used to quote all the time was "Russian gymnasts must perform any routine correctly one thousand times before it is considered competition ready." Per his ongoing lectures (given at the point of exhaustion always) this was to ingrain the action to the level the athlete wouldn't revert to 'less refined, more practiced' moves when faced with the pressure of competition.

Given that someones life very literally will depend on the instructors ability to perform both in the class room and in the air, one would hope a similar level of training (and testing) is required prior to letting someone teach another..

well one can hope at least.... to bad the dollar is more often the driving force and measure of 'success'.....

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Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[dannydan 5]

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Standardization breeds safety because when everyone is on the same page the things that need fixing become more readily apparent.

this applies (i believe) to 100% of life skills

This is EXACTLY why I like OLD~hat~PEOPLE!!!

They have the "been there, done that" shait..."tried and true" mentality..

Nick Sir, you make me want to start over to help make me a better and astute jumper!

YOU ROCK!!! :DD

[happythoughts 0]

My scuba buddy's 8 yo daughter has about 2000 hours experience driving the car-race simulator games and is almost unbeatable. She also has a 4-wheeler and can handle it like a pro.

She wanted to drive my car, but I explained that there are more things going on when driving a real car. Being in traffic in a real car, with other real cars, and stopping safely.