Look Mom! I'm flying..

Flying brings to mind thoughts of gliding gracefully thru the sky and enjoying the peace and quiet while soaring above beautiful places.  I remember believing that I could fly when I was a child.. and some of those memories still seem like they could have been real.  Too bad those  magical beliefs and memories fade away as you get older.

Lately, I have really wanted to try and do some of the things that scare me.. and skydiving became one of those things... But, I'm not brave enough to do the real thing (yet!) and so when I heard about iFly I wanted to try it.

Actually, I was nervous about trying it.  Thoughts of not being able to find a jumpsuit big enough or dropping to the floor like a sack of potatoes were some of the "self-affirming" thoughts that I had.  Gotta love those "self affirming" thoughts.  Despite those fears, the desire to try new things won out and I scheduled a flying time at iFly-- an indoor skydiving place in Ogden.  I figured what is the worst that could happen?  Better to crash to the floor from four feet up than from 10,000 feet doing real sky diving...

I signed up for the basic package--introductory class and two one-minute flights.  I was definitely the oldest one in my flight group; it was mostly kids.  One guy was there with his young teenage son, and he was probably the closest in age but I bet I had him by at least ten years..  He had his wings as a regular sky diver but had never tried it indoors before.  

So, the class was the easy part.  Watched a video that goes over proper position and the hand signals that the instructor will use to cue you if you are not in the right position.  Then, the instructor came in and reviewed the hand signals and said that he will be giving hand signals to most people.  He also said that the feeling is the same whether you are three feet off the ground or fifteen and not to worry if you don't go high.  I actually think that they adjusted the air to keep you from going higher because it's a lot safer.   Quite a workout for the instructor with everyone because he was holding on trying to keep you from smashing into walls and floors and things.  Takes a bit to gain some control...and most didn't this go around (including me).    

I was relieved to see that most of the people ahead of me all dropped to the floor at least a few times.  Afterwards, Kim asked me if I ever wanted to run out when I saw that because she knew that was one of my biggest fears.  Actually, I thought it was a relief because it was happening to everyone and wouldn't be unique to me and no one was all that great at it initially.  Stepping into a wind tunnel isn't scary like jumping off a plane would be.  I was pretty relaxed and my position was good, didn't get any hand signals at all. My thoughts of flying being a peaceful thing were pretty much shattered though.  Flying in a wind tunnel is a really noisy- and cold- kind of thing.  Maybe flying is peaceful for birds.. their bodies are designed for it.  In the pic, it looks like the instructor is holding me up the whole time (which would have been a pretty herculean task.. LOL).  He isn't really, and even with him holding on I still managed to hit the wall and floor a few times, including one pretty good face plant on the wall.  

I was a bit of a bottom feeder, probably because I arched my back too much.  One of the kids beforehand said that if you hunched your back a bit you would go up.  I tried it and it worked, but I think they adjusted the air flow right away when I did it because that's when I would go back to the bottom.  

There was a 3 year old in our group and watching him fly was a riot.  The instructor could just hold on to him by his heel and he looked like one of those super kids from a cartoon.  Funniest thing was he was right in front of me so the instructor had to go from teeny to big pretty quickly and the tech guy had to adjust the air.

So, was it fun??

It was an incredible rush!  And, something that I would do again in a heartbeat.  Seemed like those who were doing it for the second time had a lot more control and could go up higher.  The instructor demonstrated some of what HE could do in the wind tunnel and it was pretty amazing.  He was doing flips, jumping up about 20 feet, spinning around.. pretty awesome!

On the way out, the receptionist asked me if I wanted to buy a tee shirt.  I said "no", but she said that she would give me one for trying something new (and because I had told her earlier that I was celebrating losing weight and trying things that I hadn't been able to do in years).  So, I got a free tee-shirt plus a certificate saying that I had completed basic flight training.  Cool!