So, you’re interested in a little adventure, but skydiving prices are too high, and let’s face it, you’re just not ready to jump out of a perfectly functional hunk of metal hurtling through the air at an altitude of 15,000 feet. That’s pretty high.
No worries, have you thought about indoor skydiving? Imagine a vertical, cylindrical tunnel that moves air up at a great enough speed to enable human beings to fly in air, without planes or parachutes. The speed of the wind is approximately 195 km/h (120 mph or 55 m/s), which is the terminal velocity of a falling human belly-downwards. Because the optimal floating speed varies from person to person, the air speed in the wind tunnels can be increased or decreased fairly easily. Due to the popularity of these cylindrical containers among skydivers, indoor skydiving is also frequently advertised as bodyflight or wind tunnel skydiving.
Indoor Skydiving Tips and Formations
I was fortunate to go indoor skydiving one time with my friends, just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. I feel silly saying this, but despite my athletic prowess, I didn’t fare too well inside the chamber. The art of flying your body in a controlled manner is much tougher than I thought it would be. Indoor skydiving includes turns, rolls, lateral movement, fall rate control, and other airborne acrobatics. One of the reasons skydivers like wind tunnel skydiving so much is that they can practice flying with each other in close proximity, working on formations, particular techniques and the like.
Bodyflight is optimized via increasing or decreasing the drag of your body, and using your arms and legs as rudders for motion control. Not only skydivers work on honing these skills. Professional athletes like ski jumpers use wind tunnel skydiving to increase jumping distance by learning to make their bodies more airfoil-like.
The Cost of Indoor Skydiving vs. Tandem Skydiving
While indoor skydiving is still expensive – I paid $90 for my session – it’s still more affordable than tandem skydiving, which can run you anywhere from $150-$300, depending on what part of the world you’re jumping in, the height of the airplane at your jump, and the specific company you’re jumping with.
Most tandem skydiving jumps have about a 30-45 second freefall, then a 5-7 minute canopy ride down to the ground. Indoor skydiving, on the other hand, is typically arranged in 4-5 sessions of 2 minutes in the chamber, where people in your party keep rotating in and out.
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