iFly!

At the end of December, my wife announced she was taking me out for an early birthday surprise. I was given no information except that I could dress casual, and that I should be ready to leave the house at a very specific date and time. As we headed out towards an unknown destination, I started trying to guess the surprise. I had previously announced that I really wanted to get a keyboard, but she didn’t know the specific model (plus every store nearby was out of stock due to holiday demand).

Just as my mind was running out of ideas, we arrived at our destination: indoor skydiving at iFly Minnesota! My wife had done a flight years ago on a work trip and loved it. And, being the thoughtful person she is, she remembered how I had expressed interest in doing a flight some day too.

I got checked in at the front desk to claim my reservation for two flights, which my wife had made via Groupon. I’ll say more about this later, but I think the iFly business model is absolutely genius. I could’ve certainly just taken my “standard” two flights, which last a minute each and focus mainly on the instructor helping you get the basic skills down. However, for a small upgrade charge, you can have the instructor fly you up in the tube about 14 feet high and spin you around! Did I take that extra add on? You bet your upsold rear end I did!

After the check-in (and weigh-in) was complete, I was offered a seat in the lobby to watch the current group of students until my instructor was ready to check me in. Honestly, I was kind of nervous as I watched student after student take their turn in the tube. Everybody in that group was half my age, and looking at the other people scattered around the lobby, I was going to be the oldest in my group as well. Suddenly my mind sparked a thought I hadn’t had since junior high gym class: “All I want to do is not be the suckiest in my class.”

Soon, my instructor called me forward, introduced himself, provisioned me a flight suit and helmet, and brought me into a room with the rest of my class to watch the safety/training video. I’m not to proud to admit that my nerves got even worse once we were told that we’d be relying on hand signals to communicate. It’s not that the hand signals themselves were hard, it’s just that I was already freaking out. So I could envision myself forgetting my own name once inside the whooshing and roaring of the tube.

When the briefing wrapped up, we were escorted into a plexiglass room with a long bench - ready to line up and take our turn in the tube! I was set to go almost dead last - a group of 20-somethings head of me, and two little 5-year-olds behind me. I watched each student before me with intensity, trying to make good mental notes of the common corrections the instructors gave to each student.

One thing everybody seemed to struggle with was hand and arm placement. It looked like everybody’s instinct was to do long, straight, Superman-like arms as they started their flights. But the instructor had to correct the arm shapes into a more C-shaped position, with hands raised slightly above the ears. People also seemed to struggle with their legs - either extending them straight and stiff as a board, or kicking them frantically to try and level their bodies. The instructor flashed many students the “hang loose” hand sign we learned in training, indicating they just needed to loosen up their appendages a bit to have a smoother flight.

Soon it was my turn. I stepped up to the edge of the tube, raised my arms and head, and “fell” into the tube as instructed. The sensation that followed as I started my flight was something that is difficult to describe, and that’s probably because I had a real emotional connection to the experience. As a kid, I loved the old Christopher Reeve Superman movies. I spent countless hours running around the house with a red and blue bath towel attached to the back of my shirt with clothespins, hoping if I ran fast enough or jumped high enough I might actually take flight. Now, over 35 years later, in a blue flight suit and red helmet, I was finally using the superpower I had always wanted.

Suddenly I was overly aware of the flight experience and, just like the students before me, learned that this flying stuff is much harder than it looks! Every tiny little movement of an arm or leg moved my body in a different direction, but the instructor steadied me and started flashing various hand signals (a “V” with his fingers to tell me to straighten my legs, a “loosen up” signal to tell me to relax). After a few arm adjustments and bending my legs in a few different angles, I felt the rush of almost hovering without any assistance! But just as I was starting to enjoy that sensation, the instructor grabbed me and pushed us up into the air, doing a carousel-style spin as we headed up, then back down to ground level. That gave me butterflies in my stomach and, my wife would add, a “big dumb smile.” After a few more short trips up and down the tube, the instructor brought me back into the plexiglass room. And just like that, the adventure was over.

I got to fly two or three more times as part of my birthday package, each time feeling like I picked up a few more pointers to get me flying with more confidence. When all the students had completed their turns, the instructor did a quick demo of all the cool things you could do some day if you kept up with your training. My jaw dropped a bit as he jumped into the tube, sailed to the very top if it, then flew head first toward the ground, only to brace himself from a crash at the last minute. He did various twirls, flips and swoops, then landed back in the plexiglass room like Superman coming back from a zip around the neighborhood. Then he offered us one last chance to fly again at a discounted price (here is another instance of iFly having a genius business model). I mouthed “One more?” to my wife and pointed to my watch, as I had no idea what our plans were after this. She gave me a thumbs up, and off I went for one final flight, wishing I had bought two.

When it was all over, the instructor encouraged me to check out tunnelflight.com to pick up more of the finer details of basic flight skills. Still on a “high” from the flight experience, I bought a 10-pack of flights for a future visit. Again, iFly is genius in that they offer you steeply discounted future flights if you buy them during your current visit.

Suffice to say, I’ll be back. Am I worried that this could become an extremely expensive new hobby that will result in me needing a second mortgage on my house? Yes. But in 2022, I’m vowing to level out my work/play time balance, and flying seems like an awesome way to do just that.

P.S. On my way out, they handed me a flight certificate with the skills I had learned during my sessions: