Skydiving at iFLY!

Hello again! In continuing my trend of discussing fun things to do, I am going to tell you all of a fun experience a little outside of Chicago. Ever wanted to skydive without paying around 300 dollars? Ever wanted to experience the feeling of free-fall? Ever just wanted to be suspended in the air and pretend like you are living in a Harry Potter world? Well if you answered yes to at least one of these questions, you should check out iFLY!

I went to iFLY a couple weeks ago and just wanted to tell you all about it. It is right outside of Chicago in Rosemont and is located next to O’Hare airport (which I am sure some of you will be familiar with if you are coming to Loyola from out of state). iFLY is an indoor skydiving experience. You can call ahead of time to make reservations, which we did because ya know, better safe than sorry, or you can walk right in and register there and try to see what times they have available. It fills up pretty fast, but the experience takes only around an hour total so there is some time slots with openings.

Once you walk in and sign in, you are taken to a classroom where you watch a short video on the safety rules of indoor skydiving. An instructor goes in the air tunnel with you, but you have to learn all the hand motions to communicate with them because you can’t talk in the tunnel. After the instructional video, you get geared up. They give you a jumpsuit, a helmet, and goggles. Then it is time to go. You get to experience two flights of 30 seconds. It does not seem like super long, but trust me, once you are in the tunnel, 30 seconds feels like 30 minutes (in a good way of course!). Being in the tunnel is a crazy experience. You are literally just floating in midair in a wind tunnel and being pelted by air. The instructor holds onto you for some of it and lets you go for parts as well. It really is a weird feeling being blasted with air and just hovering, but it gives you an awesome rush of adrenaline that makes you just want to do it all over again! On the second flight, the instructor does a high flight. This is where they take you up to the top of the wind tunnel and back down again.  This was the best part hands down!

After the whole experience is over, you get to take home two videos of your flight so that you can share with friends your experience. The whole thing is only 70 dollars per person! Which may seems pricey on a college budget, but save up for a couple weeks and you can definitely make your dream of skydiving a reality. I already cannot wait to go back and am seriously considering just becoming an instructor there. They have to log 150 hours in the air tunnel. Now that sounds like the best job in the world. I mean, I am a bio major, and defying gravity has to do with physics soooo it would sort of be a career related to my major, right???