Wind tunnel flying and coaching has erupted as one of the fastest-growing disciplines in skydiving training. Gone are the old days of having to wear baggy suits on a narrow column of air to only approximate freefall conditions; today’s wind tunnels such as the one in Raeford, North Carolina (currently tied for the world’s largest civilian wind tunnel: www.paracletexp.com) offer an exact simulation of freefall conditions to allow skydivers with zero to 20,000 jumps to train at an advanced level. As a result, it’s now possible to get 30-60 skydives worth of freefall (or more, for the truly hardcore) over the course of a few hours, which takes anyone’s learning curve to an unprecedented level. And by the minute, coached tunnel time is far cheaper than coached freefall time, which only makes the opportunity that much sweeter.
As a tunnel coach, I offer belly-flying instruction in Paraclete XP’s gigantic 16-foot indoor wind tunnel, mostly focusing on skills for jumpers with zero to 200 jumps and people working toward their coach or AFF instructor rating. I have more than 19 years of skydiving experience, including 13 years as an instructor and seven years of tunnel flying. I am also very familiar with Paraclete’s tunnel, having been fortunate enough to fly in it before it was even open to the public.
While it’s true that Paraclete is one of the more expensive tunnels out there, it’s also one of the biggest in operation and not too far from Orange, so it’s well worth it. And since it’s also still a good bit cheaper than coached freefall and because you can cram in many skydives worth of flying in a short period of time, your accelerated learning curve will be proof in itself that you made a wise investment in your skydiving talents.
