If "...A..." had been invented, "...B..." would never have been approved.

WI "...A..." had been invented earlier, would "...B..." have been approved?
If Tandem had been invented a few years earlier, AFF would never have been approved ..... as a method for training first jump students.
AFF was approved circa 1980 as the supply of Korean War surplus round parachutes dried up and progressive skydiving schools admitted that old military style training methods (heavy on negative reinforcement) no longer fit 1980s sports psychology practices (heavy on positive reinforcement).

20 years later, tandem dominates the first skydive market to the point that many schools now refuse to teach AFF to first-timers. Later in the training cycle, is still acknowledged as the second best way to teach freefall skills.
Nowadays, indoor vertical wind tunnels are acknowledged as the best way to teach basic freefall skills. The first civilian wind tunnel opened circa 1980, but was as crude as most other prototypes.
WI wind tunnels had been perfected by 1980?
Would AFF or tandem jumping ever get approved?

WI the Sterling submachine gun was perfected earlier? Would STENs have been made in significant numbers?
 

Insider

Banned
WI wind tunnels had been perfected by 1980?
Could you please explain what was wrong with wind tunnels in 1980 IOTL. I happen to have some interest in researching history of aviation research (a bit of metatopic I admit) and it seemed to me that by 1970thies there were both subsonic and supersonic wind tunnels in both military and civilian research centres across the globe. Of course first numerical wind tunnel ( a computer that could simulate one) was up only in early nineties.
 
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