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March 12, 2005

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I guess I'd better explain a little more about vertical wind tunnels. I got lots of replies and lots of questions from my previous posting. Now, remember this is a large piece of equipment with huge motors and fans to produce enough wind to suspend a human body. Just enough to suspend a person about 5 feet or so into the air. No, It is NOT a device that is used to launch a person high enough into the sky so they can parachute back down to the ground. This is NOT a tube to shoot people into the sky like a cannon. This is NOT a device to see how aerodynamic a human body is, or is not. This is NOT a cheap blonde joke. If the motors die, or fail, the person, or persons will NOT fall back down and crash on the ground like some Bugs Bunny, Road Runner cartoon. They will most likely just slowly drop to the floor as the wind dies down, and immediately begin to yell at the wind tunnel attendant about the fact that they still have time left over.

The building is for the use of practicing maneuvers in freefall. As you can see in this picture, the very center of the tube is about 14 feet in diameter. In this construction wind is pulled through four very large fans on the top of the structure. This pulls the air from the bottom and up through the tunnel. There is a grated floor in the center of the tunnel where the air flows up through. I'm assuming that there may also be one in the ceiling to keep from sucking the smaller people up through the motors. hee hee.

As in a normal freefall from an airplane, in a relative body position, the average skydiver falls at approximately 120 miles per hour. The wind tunnel will produce the same amount of airflow so that a person can float just as they would during a normal skydive. This enables them to practice their maneuvers and gain valuable skills from that time spent in the tunnel. 

As I have stated before, a normal skydive only gives us about a 60 second freefall time before we have to open the chute. This is a short time to try to work out some of the more difficult tasks involved in the sport. Then you have to do get to the ground, pack your chute, wait until you can get on the next load, get to altitude, and then try it all over again in the short 60 second time frame. Practice, practice, practice.

But in a wind tunnel you can keep trying, experimenting and practicing your skills until you get them right or run out of your paid allotted time. But, just like skydiving, you pull out your credit card and buy more time in the tunnel.

Then, once you get your skills perfected in the tunnel, you can go out and try them in the air. Of course then you still realize that you still suck, and you still have to keep doing it over and over again. Or maybe that's just me. heh heh.

I hope that this clears up some of the concerns that many of you have had. 

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