iFly – Chicago

Skydiving is one of the many activities on Ryan’s bucket list. On one of our southern Chicago hikes in November, we stopped in at a skydiving outfit to ask some questions. The first thing we found out was that the skydiving season in Chicago was over. I guess the air gets cold and unpredictable.

Since we are not easily swayed from our goals, we looked into indoor skydiving at iFly Chicago (https://www.iflyworld.com). Scott booked at session to follow our Des Plaines River – Cook County hike.

As the videos demonstrate, this was an ideal alternative. Ryan had 2x 2min sessions and Scott had 2x 1min sessions. This seems short, but an actual free fall from an airplane is less than a minute. We paid for their in-house videos and that allowed us to film with our cameras as well.

The first video is a quick time lapse of the entire session and the last video is the full 12 minute session. Watch until the end because the instructor does some pretty cool acrobatics. The middle two videos are samples of the iFly paid video service.

As a celebration of my first year of sobriety, my dad and I went to iFly Skydiving for some indoor adventures. We tried to book normal, outdoor skydiving but the season is over in IL. This was a fantastic alternative, less expensive and I learned a lot of technique.

I purchased the bigger package which allowed me 2 turns for 2 minutes each. Although that does not seem like much time, actual free-falling from an airplane is usually less than a minute. Here, I got to float longer in the wind tunnel and learn some different techniques.

Dad got the package that allowed him 2 turns for a minute each. Dad has been tandem sky diving and he felt this was actually more fun. There is definitely more adrenaline when jumping from a plane but here we get to feel the nuances of flying through the air.

Stay until the end, our coach goes in and does some amazing tricks and flips. Obviously, I need to do the real thing next summer. I’m even more excited to jump from a plane. I’m sure I will come back to iFly in the spring so I have a better feeling for when I free fall from a plane.