AlexJ

Yeah no 4-way at the Malaysian tunnel. It's too underpowered. Purely solo and some 2-way stuff and it's best suited to medium builds. It's not great for bigger or heavier guys. It's not for everyone - but if it works for you then it's a good option to start out with your learning for sure.

Thanks for that info - didn't know that. Might hang around to see it go down. The tunnel time comes in at about 400USD per hour I think, and each camper does 3 hours usually over 3 days.

Hi All, We have been going to the SkyVenture in Genting, Malaysia for 6 or 7 years now and usually book 40 to 50 hours for our group. The group is always South African jumpers and we go there since it's the cheapest time you can buy and although the tunnel is old and slow (think first Orlando version or current Abu Dhabi version) it's amazing for personal skills for jumpers starting out and for those that need to focus on some of the basics again. We also do basic backflying, transitions and other fun stuff. Anyway, on our previous trip we met some Australians thee that were interested in joining us if we went again so we thought we would post here when a new trip comes around and open it up to the International community a bit. Our next trip is from 17-21 September and then 22-27. I think we may have some availability left in the first camp. This is based purely on time since we literally purchase all their hours that they have in the day and fly ourselves ragged. So if anyone out there is interested in hitting up some tunnel time in Malaysia drop me an email at alex at alexjordaan dot com or PM me here and we can chat. Ciao, Alex

The IBA website is for tunnel flyers as well as tunnel instructors. The theory is that as you progress any instructor that has witnessed your abilities can check you off on the site so if you arrive at a new tunnel like Montreal the guys can look you up and know what you are signed off to do. Without it you would have to demonstrate acceptable skills in each area before being allowed to progress your learning. Like I said, that's the theory in it anyway. It's free and it's fun so why not ;-) Get a coach and spend some time briefing and debriefing with video and you will move through the formalities fast. Ciao, Alex

Hey, Check out http://www.tunnelflight.com for all the requirements. It's pretty black and white. There is a specific progression that is required in order to get to where you want to be since each skill builds on previous skills in terms of technique required and also to keep you safe. Belly fly, back fly, walk, transitions, sit fly, head down. How long it takes is up to you and how quickly you learn. I was skeptical about the formality of it when I started but after having gone through it to some extent I can tell you that in my opinion it really works and is as efficient as you will find. The SkyVenture guys did an amazing job in structuring what they learned over the years. SV Montreal will be an IBA affiliated tunnel I'm pretty sure so register on the website and get chcked off as you progress. Good luck and have fun :-) Alex IBA Instructor#: 66TV28GP

Hey all, I see that Bodyflight in Bedford are holding the World Challenge event again on March 29 and 30. Anyone out there keen to put together a pretty competent pickup team? Or any teams that may already be entered in need of a flyer? I'll head over to the UK for some fun. Later, Alex

Hey there, I've been there a few times and plan on taking anothe trip in October this year. I usually go with novice skydivers and we do basic freefall drills. The tunnel is perfect for solo and 2-way flying. The design is that of SV Orlando and the tunnel has the original 850HP fans on still. That and the fact that it is about 6000ft above sea level means that you cannot do 4-way in there nor can you freefly. For novice skydivers it is the perfect training tool, specifically due to cost. Expert jumpers would also have fun playing around in there. Ok, that said, you may find it tough to find someone to help you with AFF specific learning. 2 of the instructors there (Nizam and Hasleyzam) are brilliant guys and will help you as much as you want but you wont get the same foused learning that you would from the Europe or US based tunnel instructors. You mey get lucky and happen across an experienced jumper while you are there who can help you out. All that being said if you bust out an hour or two of whatever with whoever you will be well prepped for you AFF. An hour int here will cost you probably as much as 15 min in a US tunnel so milk it! If you need other info such as where to stay etc just give me a shout. later, Alex

Post removed on request of one of the team members. Initial post reflected my opinion only. I will post ALL pertinent detail as soon as I am able and you will understand the full picture. So for now we keep smiling

Ah yes .. what a pity that the other events that were not completed were also not given the opportunity to jump on the weather day. Anyway, we will not bore the rest of the world with our stupid arguing. What's done is done. I'm glad that Quintoya kicked your butts. It was well deserved.

Maybe we will have the video upload thing in place next year - that would be cool. In FS the current national team won as expected with a personal best (I think) of 160 over 10 rounds. They really wanted a 16 average an weere very pleased with the result. In second place was a team that included a few members of previous national team and had a wealth of skill and experience that saw them through even though they really only got together for the meet and did not train at all. In third place was my team called dPhi with a 10 something average over 10 rounds. Our last jump was just before the awards ceremony so I'm not sure about the exact scores. There were 7 teams in the Open event. My team also entered the Intermediate and Junior/Novice event where we got Silver and Gold respectively (new SA record in the novice category). It was a phenomenal experiment for me to put together a very junior team with about 800 jumps between the other 3 members and almost zero competition experience and see what we could do with 50 training jumps and 9 hours at Bodyflight Bedford coached by Lise Nansen who was amazing. The results were surprising since we beat some teams that have been together for a couple of years and have also done the wind tunnel training thing etc. In the FS Female event there were 2 registerd teams: Quintoya and PUG. They only completed 7 rounds over the scheduled meet and Quintoya won the event by 1 point over those 7 rounds. PUG completed the last 3 rounds yesterday (after the meet had been called we thought and the awards ceremony had taken place) and will no doubt claim the win but the jumpers here know the true result. It must be noted that 2 members of the current national open team that will participate at the WM in Germany jumped on the PUG team considerably increasing their skill and experience level. In SA, if requested, the female draw is different to the Open draw to enable females to participate in both. There are many argumets both for and against this but that's a seperate thread! Quintoya [Jacqueline Geyer, Charis Baleson, Lynda Krul, Claire King, Teryl Harrington, Riaan Bergh (Camera)] were also coached by Lise at Bodyflight Bedford and did an outstanding job at this competition. I'm not sure what the average was but it was over 10 think. Anyway, small country skydiving politics aside this was one the best FS national competitions that I have attended in terms of turnout and competency. The skill level is increasing largely due to facilities like SV and Bodyflight and generally a higher drive to compete better against the rest of the world. Official scores and results will no doubt be posted soon. If they are not then I will track them dow and put them up here. Alex

Hi there, I have been there a few times. The tunnel is located inside the Genting Theme Park (First World) so the most natural choice is the First World Hotel which overlooks the tunnel. Alternatively there are other, (presumably nicer) hotels in the Genting Park which you can stay at. These require a 5 minute walk to get to the theme park. There is a hotel in the park called Genting Highlands. Don't confuse that one with the Awana Highlands which is at the bottom of the mountain and requires a lengthy (20 min) cable car ride to get to the top. You can book online and the accom is very cheap. I have stayed a couple of different hotels and roughing it at the First World Hotel will be my choice next time round. KL is quite far away and if you are flying on more than 1 day then is not that practical. PM me i you need more details or other info. Ciao, Alex

I would be sure to check how the hour is flown and charged. An hour of coaching time may very well be flown in 4 sessions of 15 min each but still requires you and the coach to be in the chamber for an hour each time. That's 4 hours effectively of coach time. The rates advertised may be for a single hour session, but then you could surely split that with other flyers interested in learning similar skills. Rates are always negotiable, and remember that coaches sometimes have added benefits if they book the hours for you, so there is certainly some negotiation room. I have never know of a top level coach to try and sell services that were not of value to the flyers. This is an ethical sport and while the coaches have to put food on the table, they are always fair and usually open to discussion on the rates issue. World class FS competitors coaching should be paid more than tunnel specific instructors in my opinion. They could be making good money coaching a team on a dropzone somewhere. I would imagine that for DZ's with tunnels on site such as Eloy and Perris that $200 to $300 per hour is very steep though. 4-way teams could each chip in the cost of a jump ticket or so and pay a coach $100 per hour without breaking the bank which seems very fair. Hopefully someone will respond with the specific hourly rates. Camp rates are something alltogether different since you get dedicated attention for a period of 2 or 3 days.

Having a thought here. How soon before the top guys start playing with VRW stuff in 4-Way, if they already haven't? I dont mean 4-Way VRW but conventional 4-Way with the introduction of a few specialized moves in the freefly type genre. Naturally the level differences will make it inefficient a lot of the time, but I can see situations such as in block 7 where it would be faster to transition to bootie flying as you pick up grips, turn on the vertical axis and transition flat again as you complete the block and move to the next formation. A 360 on your knees or in a stand theoretically should be much faster than on your belly. Only for the very trained tunnel teams of course. Rusty Lewis and Thomas Hughes come to mind here to test this. Most of the top level competitors could pull this off I'm sure. Transition time will cost but it can be incorporated into the pickup of grips and the turn to shave off a millisecond or two. It's getting to a point where fractions of a seconds can mean the difference between first and second so the top teams are going to have to do somthing in future to get the edge. Not to mention the future tunnel kids that are going to take over the world. Interesting future for 4-Way I think. Just take a look at Black Majik

Ok, to address Tonto's question directly - One should be taught to swoop, as early as one asks for it. In fact, senior jumpers should watch out for low time jumpers who are starting to get the itch and offer advice and coaching from that point on. If dissuasion is neccessary then so be it, but evaluate the jumpers desires and dont ignore them if they really want to learn. If that's jump 50, then so be it. A couple of quick stories: I started at a hundred jumps or so (maybe less) to play with my canopy. A 170 I think it was. I bumped in a few times, but nothing too serious. I then moved to a 150 at a couple hundred jumps which I really liked due to the steeper dive characterristic so really started playing with it. I roughed myself up a bit, but again nothing too serious. I never asked anyone for help. All I knew then (or thought I knew) was that one needed to do a big turn to get speed. Setups, conditions, outs etc, etc were not part of my vocab. One day while trainign 4-way. after each jump, I did a 180 turn and attempted to land in the pro rating pit that we had at that stage. No science was implemented here, so I missed it almost every time. Back on the ground my team was making fun of the fact that I could never land in the right spot. In fact so much so that I decided to show them. I had a few hundred jumps I think. I went out to the airplane and the pilot quickly took me up to a few thousand feet. Dusk was on us and my team plus a bunch of others lined up at the landing area to see me attempt the target. It has to be said that some of these jumpers had thousands of jumps. Needless to say my 180 was done at an insufficient height since I really wanted the horizontal distance to be correct. I thumped hard enough to scare some people of course. Some told me that the turn was stupid. In hindsight of course it was. You all knew it was going to happen the minute I said I walked out the airplane. I imagine the spectators did too. Why didn't any of them say something? Still no advice or mentoring came forth. I still didn't ask for it. After time I started learning more stuff, and occasionally asked for info. Most of the time I didnt get any help. In hindsight again maybe I asked the wrong people. One day I did a turn to land, as did my teammate, and we almost collided - In fact our canopies did collide and when the dust settled he had a broken femur. Again, some indirect comments but nothing constructive and no advice offered. No post accident review. Anyway, at over 1000 jumps on my 150 hurricane I thought I had it figured out a bit. One day I did 270 turn and as I came out I carved to the left. Unknown to me our camera flyer happened to be swooping past me on the left at a much higher speed to to higher WL. He struck the top of my canopy. I was out for 8 months with various injuries and he is still in a wheelchair today. I was accused of being negligent. This was mainly due to the fact that I had thumped in a couple of times, had a collision in the past, was deemed aggressive in my attempts to learn, and now someone was in a wheelchair, I was roasted. There were a lot of I told you so's, we saw it coming's and it was a matter of time's. Funny that - never once were these phrases mentioned to me. I am not exagerrating here. I never received instruction, safety briefings/reviews, coaching etc. Even after I had incidents under canopy, nothing was said. In hindsight again I am to blame for not seeking help out. Hell, I was young and thought I could do it all. There is obviously a great deal more to these stories than I can tell here but my point is this: I was never given advice on the aspects of swooping and canopy piloting that mattered, and that could have saved me a lot of bruises, broken bones and torn muscles. I was going to learn one way or the other, but my path could have been entirely different, had the attitude on the DZ been different. I am not passing the buck here. I created my own path and accept the ramifications of my decisions. I consider myself fortunate to be jumping today and if ever asked by a low time jumper will immediately offer advice as best I can, since I know what it is like. If I am not asked but I see someone out there trying stuff I will also offer advice, even if I am construed as being arrogant or nosey. Better that than see someone hurt themselves when you could have helped avoid that. Let's give the jumpers the best tools possible from jump 1. It's up to them from there, which is the way we want it right? Alex

Whew, more than I expected in terms of rules. Can't wait to find out the specifics! Seems the margins between teams will become smaller since there are no deductions for infringements! All the more reason to push it just that little bit faster