We have started getting commercials for iFly indoor skydiving, showing a family in coveralls doing acrobatics effortlessly in a glass enclosure. Have you done this and, if so, was it as easy as the commercials make it out to be?
This is the commercial they are showing in Portland-is it really this easy?
Its incredibly difficult, and actually a really good workout. I tried it once, 2 sessions of 2 minutes each in close succession and physically I was in bits afterwards.
Its all about micro movements so you have to have total control of your body, you can’t relax at any point or you will lose control. Even something as simple as twisting your hands or lifting your head up and down is used to raise/lower your height, so you can imagine the effect loose arms or legs flapping about would have.
Its fun, I enjoyed it, but no it is not easy. Anybody doing spins and acrobatics has put a good bit of work into it for sure.
It’s not physically easy. You have to arch your body in a rather unnatural position and maintain it that way while a strong wind is blowing (which is quite uncomfortable.) I did iFly in Portland once. It was actually, I would say, more physically strenuous than actual skydiving (but maybe because when I did actual skydiving, it was a tandem jump with an instructor)
REALLY hard at first unless you have some background in something like gymnastics or diving. Very fun though - the kids love it.
Interesting how peaceful the video makes it look, instead of looking like you are being blown by the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane.
Yeah, well, if they showed beginners flopping around and crashing into the walls with a sound track of the actual roaring of the air it wouldn’t sell well I think.
There’s a reason they’re wearing crash helmets.
I tried it long ago in Vegas, fun and interesting, but at one point the flap on my suit (the suit had lots of excess material on it, to give the wind more to push against) whipped back and forth really really rapidly, fwapping me in the 'nads repeatedly and unpleasantly. Hard to feel like flying free as a bird with that happening.
I can’t do this myself due to a frozen shoulder issue, but I got my nine year old grandson several flights for his birthday and he really loved it. The iFly location here is very nice, they have good equipment for the flyers and on your first flights you have an instructor in there with you to make sure you don’t do a faceplant or squash yourself like a bug on the wall. Since an average regular jump from a plane style flight runs about a minute and a half, max, you can get an incredibly lengthy experience with a lot less time commitment and expense. And I’ll tell you what, those guys who work at this place can do some amazing stuff in the flight chamber. I really hope my shoulder improves to the point where I can do this stuff because I really want to try it!
ETA: Just realized we’re in the same town, OP, and yep it’s pretty much just that easy, they have the process dialled in.
Ages ago in the carefree days of my youth I did a few actual jumps - Para-Commander which I figure these days qualifies as stone-age tech. Rush forward an eon or so to a few years back and I tried one of those indoor places when we were on vacation. It beat the snot out of my physically and to me was much more difficult than the real thing. Maybe I had a crummy “instructor” or maybe I just sucked at it but after a couple minutes I was convinced to mark that off as a NEVER AGAIN.
I believe the cute family in the commercial could be a real family ---- of circus performers who trained for hours before getting anything on film. Your mileage may be more like this
and you may need several bottles of this
or this
afterwards.
Did it about a decade ago. Fun, but definitely not easy. You are definitely not going to be doing acrobatics like the commercial you linked to; that is expert-level stuff, and unless you’re a demonstrated expert, you’re going to have a handler in there with you to make sure you don’t kill yourself. It’s hard to learn, not just how to maneuver, but how to be stable. I had a tough time learning how to damp out a fore-and-aft rocking instability, as well as controlling fore-and-aft movement. You only get a few minutes of tunnel time, and I think the longest continuous period the instructor let go of me was maybe 15-20 seconds, and that was toward the end of my session. If you’re just going in for one session, expect to spend most of it in the standard face-down freefall position, just trying to learn how to gently turn left/right and not bump into the walls.
It’ll still be fun, so go for it; I’m glad I went, and I think you will be too.
I’ll echo everyone else. It is fun, but it’s hard, and you will not be doing cool upside down spins and turns without a lot of practice.
If you’re relatively good at balancing, you might be able to remain stable for 15 seconds without the instructor grabbing you and pulling you back into the center.
I preferred actual tandem skydiving by a lot. It’s a very different experience, but jumping out of an airplane and free falling, then getting to spin around on a parachute for a while is way more exciting than trying to balance on a column of air.
Ballpark - how much for how long?
Did a post on the ifly here in Orlando on our blog. I did Orlando’s, but I can’t imagine yours would be any different:
Yes. Went to iFly in Baltimore last year for a friend’s birthday (we like to find dumb stuff to do on our birthdays). It was fun, but the problem is you only get 2 minutes at a time and it takes you a minute to really get oriented and the second minute is really just the instructor swinging you around. The instructors are all really good in the thing, but they’ve had all the time they want in there to learn. If I could get like 10-15 minutes to just fool around in there I’d get so much more out of it; at 2 minutes at a time it’s just a tease.
ETA: what was hilarious was watching the people waiting their turn on the bench; at the far end everyone was smiling and having a good time, but the faces got more and more nervous the closer they got to taking their turn.
.
I went to one of the iFly locations here in Chicago a couple of years ago, with a couple of friends, one of whom had done actual skydiving a couple of times, and wanted to try the indoor experience, as well. As I’m unlikely to ever do “real” skydiving (heights and I aren’t on speaking terms), I went along, to experience what it might be like.
Echoing what others have already said – holding the proper posture isn’t easy, it’s very loud, and about all you’ll be able to do the first time is get into a stable freefall position (which is still pretty cool).
Looking at iFly’s site, it’s hard to suss out their exact pricing (because they want to sell you packages of multiple trips, as well as extras). My recollection is that I paid about $100, which gave about 4 minutes or so of time in the chamber, over the course of four or so “turns” (you take turns with several other people). I seem to recall that I paid a bit extra to “go high” on the last turn I took, which entailed the instructor taking me high up into the flight chamber (maybe 20’ or so above the “floor”), which was a rush.
I just subscribed to your blog. If you don’t mine my asking, how much did you pay for the whole experience?
I believe the first-timer package in Baltimore was $60. You got a mandatory class (it’s like 10 minutes), then I think two 2-minute sessions in the machine. If you wanted one of the instructors to take you up to the top of the tube it was more, or you could pay for more time.
My siblings and I rented the tunnel at Skyventure in NH for an hour so our nieces and nephews could try it (13 kids). It was $900. I forget exactly how we divvied up the time but each kid got two tries totaling about 4 minutes and a few adults, including me, tried it in the remaining time. A few minutes doesn’t sound like much but it’s more than enough.
It was cool to be floating on air but it’s really hard. I had trouble staying in the proper position and I couldn’t understand what adjustments the instructor was asking me to make. My time was spent floating awesomely for 5 seconds and then falling down, over and over again. I tapped out early.
The two flights were 60 and the high fly was an extra 10.
Add on the tip for my instructor and it was just shy of 100.