Our first flying experience

Earlier this week, Mehul suggested this place in Fremont called iFly that offers an indoor skydiving experience in a vertical wind tunnel. It looked interesting and so we decided to try it out. Mehul confirmed that we could take turns and hence it was doable with kids around.

We got the appointment for today at 7:30. We had to report 45 mins earlier to get some training and also get ready with the gears. We got a group package for 5 people which offers some discount as well as free DVD. However, Tejas-Ishaani had to drop out since Tapas was not well. So, we thought Kavya could give it a try if she wanted. She was already excited to see people fly and when we asked her if she would like to do it, she was even more excited and ready.

We reached there around 6:45 and filled up the paperwork and headed upstairs. Our coach was Chris. He took us to a room for some training video and showed us some hand signals to remember. Then we headed out and got the gears : astronaut like costume, goggles, helmet and ear plugs. Priya and I were going to stay with Ishaan and Ved while Mehul, Gaurav and Kavya would go and take their turns first.We had total of 10 flights (1 min each) between the 5 of us.

Mehul was the first to go for the first 1-min flight, followed by Gaurav and then Kavya. I was super excited to see Kavya. What was funny was that she was trying to swim in the air by kicking with her legs. She was confident and no sign of fear. That's my girl ! I was a bit skeptical if she would go for 2nd flight, but to my surprise, she was all ready :)



After they finished their 2 flights each, they came out of the chamber and then it was my and Priya's turn. Priya was quite skeptical and scared. Chris suggested that she go in first and there she went and did fine. Then it was my turn. I wasn't scared, but at the same time I wasn't sure what to expect. As I went in, I felt wind blowing really hard from below. The force of the wind was good enough to lift you. There was a controller in a cabin outside the tunnel who would keep an eye on what's happening in the tunnel and control the force of wind accordingly. Chris was good at helping us control our body position. I kept my mouth open to breathe - that was a mistake. There were a couple of seconds when I felt that I was not able to breath properly due to the wind, but all-in-all it was a good experience. My second flight was much better since my mouth was closed and then Chris also helped by making me fly higher and in circles, which was quite exciting.

Overall, it was a good experience. Would I do it again ? Probably not - I would rather go for the real skydiving.

Here are pictures from our camera and Mehul's camera.