Members

Everyone in the IBA is a member, classified internally by a single integer field — role_id — that captures both their role on the platform (flyer, instructor, trainer, …) and their account-state edge cases (banned, pending verification). At any point in time a member has exactly one role_id.

Roles & groups

The values of role_id in active use:

`role_id`	Name	What it means
`1`	Administrator	IBA staff with back-office access — the Admin app audience. Manages members, processes change requests, oversees currency cycles, configures tunnels.
`2`	Banned / deleted	Account has been removed or suspended for cause. Can’t sign in, can’t be validated at integrated tunnels, and doesn’t accrue new logbook entries. Historical records (logbook entries, approvals they granted to others) are preserved for audit.
`4`	Pending email verification	Registration started but the member hasn’t yet clicked the verification link in their email. They exist on the platform but aren’t a full member yet — partner systems treat them as not-found.
`6`	Flyer	Anyone learning to fly, building skills, and progressing through the level system. The vast majority of members.
`7`	Coach (deprecated)	No longer used as a `role_id`. Coach status now lives as a flag on the member record — see “Roles tracked outside `role_id`” below.
`8`	Instructor	A flyer qualified to teach others and approve skills up to their authorised level.
`9`	Trainer	Qualified to train and certify new instructors.
`10`	Examiner	Qualified to run formal level assessments — the highest-trust signature on the platform.
`11`	Site Administrator	Per-tunnel administrative role — distinct from the IBA-staff Administrator at `role_id = 1`. Held by a small handful of members and treated alongside the instructor track for currency requirements.
`12`	Tunnel Manager	Manager of a specific tunnel’s IBA operations. Carries approval authority comparable to a senior examiner and receives currency-event notifications about staff at their tunnel. At Skyventure-manufactured tunnels (Skyventure is the parent company of TunnelFlight), tunnel managers get specific platform access and have their IBA membership fees waived as a corporate-family arrangement — see Tunnels → Manufacturer matters.
`13`	Airflow Controller	Tunnel operations staff who run the airflow controls during flight sessions. Many retain instructor currency from a prior role, but unlike the instructor track, currency isn’t required to remain an airflow controller.

role_id values 3 (Guests) and 5 (Members) exist in the roles table but currently have no live members — historical entries from earlier data-model iterations.

AFC is not a role_id. It’s a skill milestone that unlocks the instructor programme; flyers who pass AFC remain role_id = 6 until they’re certified as an Instructor (role_id = 8).

How a member moves between groups

role_id evolves with the member:

A new sign-up sits at role_id = 4 until they verify their email; on verification they become role_id = 6 (flyer).
Promotion through the instructor / trainer / examiner ladder shifts role_id up the table (8 → 9 → 10).
Tunnel-staff roles (role_id 11 Site Administrator, 12 Tunnel Manager, 13 Airflow Controller) are assigned by an administrator when a member is appointed to operate or manage a specific tunnel — they’re not earned through skill progression.
An active member who is banned or has their account removed drops to role_id = 2 by administrative action — they don’t drift there from inactivity.

role_id is independent of currency. An active flyer can be not-current; a not-current member is still in their normal group; banned (role_id = 2) wins regardless of currency.

Staff credentials vs active employment

role_id records a credential, not an employment status. A member qualified as an instructor (role_id = 8), trainer (9), or examiner (10) keeps that role_id after they leave the tunnel they were working at — they just become an inactive one.

When a staff member’s employment ends:

role_id is unchanged.
The corresponding approval_level_* is dropped to 0, so they can’t sign off on skill progressions.
The currency they need to maintain flips: active staff maintain their role’s currency (instructor / trainer / examiner — recurrent training); inactive staff maintain flyer currency (activity-based) like any other recreational flyer.

The same goes the other way: an active staff member doesn’t have to keep up flyer currency to fly recreationally — their role’s currency covers it.

See Approval levels for the derivation formula and Currency by role for the per-role currency mechanics.

Roles tracked outside `role_id`

Two roles live as flags on the member record, not as values of role_id:

Coach — the legacy role_id = 7 is no longer used. Coach status is now a boolean flag, which means a member can be (e.g.) an instructor (role_id = 8) and flagged as a coach at the same time. Each side carries its own currency clock and its own approval scope.
Military — military programme membership is also tracked as a flag, paired with the channel_currency_military table for the separate currency cycle. A military flyer is still a regular flyer in role_id terms; the flag is what activates the military-specific rules. See Skill levels → Military for the programme shape.

This split — a single role_id for the formal progression ladder, flags for parallel programmes — is why a member’s standing depends on both their role_id and the flags on their record. The IBA’s older data model put coach in role_id; that’s been deprecated in favour of the flag-based approach but the integer slot 7 is preserved for historical records.

Joining the IBA

A flyer joins the IBA when they register on the platform — usually after their first time in a wind tunnel. Registration captures the basics (name, email, screen name, contact details), verifies the email, and either creates a credentialed account directly or links to a Google identity. Once registered, the flyer’s logbook is opened and they can start recording skills.

Members are not free-floating: every flyer is associated with a home tunnel (the tunnel they primarily fly at), and every instructor is authorised at one or more tunnels. This matters for assessments and for how flight time gets attributed.

Becoming an instructor (and beyond)

Progression beyond flyer is gated. To enter the instructor track a flyer must:

Hold Flyer Level 1.
Pass AFC — the gateway milestone skill that says “this flyer is ready to teach others”. AFC + Flyer Level 1 together unlock the instructor programme; without AFC, no amount of flyer experience gets a member into instructor currency.

From there, instructor candidates complete instructor-specific safety training and a formal assessment run by a qualified examiner before they’re certified at Instructor Level 1. The same shape applies moving from instructor to trainer or trainer to examiner — each step demands more skill, more training, and a longer track record in the logbook. See Skill levels for the full ladder.

The platform enforces these gates automatically. A member cannot request an instructor assessment without AFC and the prerequisite skills and currency on file; an examiner cannot grant a level the IBA’s rules don’t allow them to grant; a logbook entry from an under-qualified approver is rejected before it lands.

Member standing

Each member’s current state on the platform combines several things:

Active membership — fees paid, account in good standing.
Active currency — meeting the role’s currency requirement (recent flight time for flyers, recent recurrent training for everyone else; see Currency).
Approval level — the highest skill level they are currently qualified at.
Open skills — skills they’re actively working toward but haven’t yet completed.

If any of these lapse, certain platform actions stop working — flights don’t generate logbook entries, instructor approvals are blocked, level assessments can’t be requested. The member is told why and given a path to restore the lapsed state.

Who manages whom

Members aren’t generally “assigned” to a single instructor. Instead, when a flyer trains for a skill they’re working with whoever is teaching them that day. The system records who approved each skill attempt and rolls that up as part of the flyer’s progression. Trainers and examiners have broader, more formal authorities — but the day-to-day “who taught me this” is recorded per-skill, not per-relationship.