Lincoln Park Is Getting An Indoor Skydiving Facility This March
By Mae Rice in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 25, 2016 8:43PM
iFLY, an indoor skydiving company, is bringing its signature simulated free falls to Lincoln Park this spring. This will be the first-ever indoor skydiving facility within Chicago;s city limits, a representative for iFLY told Chicagoist.
The facility will open on March 7 at 800 W. Scott St., and will be similar to iFly’s existing Chicagoland facilities in Rosemont and Naperville.
Here’s how iFLY works, for the uninitiated (and for those who only skydive outdoors, in the actual sky): After a training class—safety first!—guests in put on red, astronauty suits and experience simulated falls in vertical wind tunnels.
It’s hard to explain the technology—iFLY themselves call it a “wall to wall cushion of air” in a “flight chamber”—but here’s an Instagram video that shows their technology in action, sort of.
(There’s a typo in the caption, though; they mean “exits,” not “exists.”)
This photo, meanwhile, captures what people look like in a typical state of freefall.
Every stint in the wind tunnel/flight chamber involves “all freefall time— the good stuff—no airplane jump and no hard landing,” according to the iFLY Facebook page.
Hard to argue with that? But seriously, I tried indoor skydiving (though not at iFLY), and if you're afraid of heights but still like to experience things, it's a semi-cool, approachable version of real skydiving.
A note for the curious, though: Indoor skydiving can be a little awkward, because you’re lying flat, facedown, and crazy gusts of wind are blowing straight up at you. Like, into your face. This prompts some people to instinctively open their mouths and drool profusely? (Definitely not me, though. I am an elegant woman who would never.)
Just saying, it's maybe not a great first date activity.