Airkix Indoor Skydiving

Another bank holiday weekend… another item ticked off my things to do list.  This time it was indoor skydiving, which has been on there for a good few years – and while I’ve already done the real thing, this was still something I really wanted to do.

I received an experience voucher for my birthday at the end of last year, which was good for two one minute flights for two people at Airkix.  We chose to go to the Milton Keynes one, which is located at Xscape next to the SnoZone slope (which we’d had a play on the evening before!).

The experience doesn’t really sound like much – two one minute long flights.  In all we were there about two hours – signing the consent form, getting our instruction, suiting up, the flight itself, and then waiting for the DVD at the end.  Each one minute flight seemed to last for ages – one minute at a time is plenty and watching the others in the group (about 12 people) taking their turn was also fun to watch.

We each lent into the flight area in turn and were immediately horizontal!  The instructor helped us get into the right position, moving us around so we could get the most from the time we had.  The fan was loud (and we wore ear plugs) so we were given instructions in the form of hand signals.  I found getting the right flying position quite tricky but managed it in the end – I think!

It was really exhilarating and while the scenery wasn’t as spectacular as when I did my tandem skydive last year, it was definitely a similar experience to the free fall I had on that day.  It was fun to spin around – trying to keep your body still was hard when you were being blown around so much, even harder was making sure you gave a good smile to the camera which was snapping away all the time.

We both decided to go for a “high fly” which is when the instructor takes you spinning up high in the wind tunnel – it costs an extra fiver (I’m not really sure why it costs extra but hey ho) but was well worth it – very exhilarating.

The experience also included a DVD… so here you go!  (The guy showing off at the end is our instructor Steve – he’s only been doing this 18 months or so… awesome!)

If you’ve not tried this and fancy doing something where you are literally lifted off your feet so you can fly… then you should definitely give this a go.  And because it’s a fan and indoors there is no fear of anything bad happening – don’t worry about falling or anything else.  Do I want to go again?  Yes please!