Seattle’s iFly Indoor Skydiving is a 1.5 hour experience located by the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila. You get to achieve the feeling of floating through rushing air as if you were in free fall from an airplane before deploying your parachute.
It all starts with a fun and interactive instructor providing an overview, followed by a short training video. Then everything comes out of pockets, off fingers, off ears, and from anything that could potentially fall down into the huge whirling fan blades below. “Flight” gear includes a baggy flight suit, helmet, and wind-protective eye goggles. And then into the waiting bench right outside the chamber.
One by one, participants enter for two “flights”, each one to two minutes long. The experience is rather expensive on a per minute basis for the actual flight time, but it’s fun and unique, so what the heck. An instructor helps each participant get horizontal, provides arm and leg adjustments for proper floating, and gently guides the participant’s body to avoid tumbles or hitting the side walls hard. If the participant seems fairly comfortable, then he will spin the person around before sending him/her back out to the bench. On the second flight, (by paying an additional ten dollars) the fan speed will be increased and the instructor will spin with the participant up and down the full height of the wind tunnel column. Lots of laughing and high fives follow each flight. Each group session is ended with an impressive acrobatic aerial show by the instructor.
iFly Indoor Skydiving is located in the unusual, bright red, custom constructed building that is easily visible from I-405 when passing the Westfield Southcenter Mall. The building’s shape allows for air to be forced up a wind tunnel and recirculated around, achieving wind speeds up to 235 mph.
It’s a fun outing for yourself, a date, family, friends, whatever. Feel the flight!
Indoor skydiving at iFly
Practicing indoor skydiving body position
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