Go-kart racing was the main event at last year’s work holiday party for Wildlife 4-8. However, after a broken hand, a safer activity was settled upon – indoor skydiving! At iFly in Union City, vertical wind tunnels create an air column one can float on and simulate the feeling of skydiving.

As first-time flyers, our large party was broken up into groups of 12, we took a quick lesson at flight school, then suited up. The wind tunnel was centered in the room for everyone to see and if our smile grew too big, everyone would see our drool shoot to the ceiling. One person entered at a time with the instructor where we had a minute to work on our technique and see how high we could fly by ourself. After everyone went through once, it was time for round two. This time the instructor grabbed ahold of our fight suit, the controller increased the wind speed, and the two went circling up to the top of the tower and back down, reminding me of the ride Drop Zone – amazing! At the end the instructor put on a flight show where he wowed the onlookers by zipping around the air tunnel, twisting and turning, all the while the Mission Impossible theme song playing in my head.

When we arrived other folks were flying, but after they cleared out we had the flight deck to ourselves for a few hours. As Wildlife 4-8 said, “it’s nice if you rent the place out so you at least kind of know the people that are judging you.” Think of that drool I mentioned earlier.

This would also be a great test for actual skydiving or a suitable alternative. There were mixed reviews between folks that had jumped out of a plane before and how the two compared. One said it wasn’t similar at all. However, I think the wind speed gives you the same feeling of not actually falling. Wildlife 4-8 was new to any sort of skydiving and has a thing with heights, but said he was too excited about flying to worry about the heights. To be honest, I was so focus on holding the flight position of looking up I didn’t even notice how high we flew up in the tunnel. That’s when I missed the views from actual skydiving. I don’t want to look at walls, I want to look at mountains beyond mountains and valleys laid out before me. But hey, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane isn’t for everyone, unlike indoor skydiving.

-JenFly