Birds really piss me off.
Not because they crap on my truck just after I’ve washed it, not because they steal my picnic sandwiches when I’m not looking and not because they scare the bejezus out of me when they smack into my kitchen window. They piss me off because they are able to do what I cannot: soar.
Most people will tell you that they’d love to fly, but all that flapping seems like a lot of work. What really looks like fun, is leaping from a cliff, spreading your wings and catching an updraft.
As a human, it’s one of my biggest frustrations. I want to adjust my freefall with the slightest movement. I want to tuck my limbs and drop like a stone, or spread my arms and rocket to the sky.
Earth-bound humanoids have some options, but parachuting is expensive, and the daredevils who base jump have a short life expectancy. However, in a growing number of cities, soaring is becoming a realistic budget-friendly possibility.
Enter: “Indoor Skydiving” and a company called iFly. Indoor skydiving uses a vertical wind tunnel to give skydivers the opportunity to parachute without a parachute. Multiple fans are located at the top and bottom of the flight chamber to produce wall-to-wall airflow. The fans (and the wind speed) are totally controllable and set to a person’s body weight or skill.
To celebrate Amanda’s birthday, four of us signed up for the beginner’s package and dressed in comic book jumpsuits after a brief video tutorial. The instructor stood on a cable mesh floor inside the roaring chamber and gave me the signal for “arms crossed, head up.” Then he beckoned me forward.
I fell like a stiff board before the breeze caught me. I felt my feet leave the ground. Instinctively, my arms and legs shot out – and for a split second, I was doing it. I was soaring. Not perfectly, mind you, I faltered and hit the glass wall. The instructor stood near by and pulled me to the center of the tunnel.
“Everybody’s neutral position is a little bit different,” he told me later. Soon I got the feel for it. Even the slightest change in my hand or foot sent me spinning or cascading to the floor, but when I arched my back just right and found the correct posture for my arms, I floated a good ten feet off the floor.
I will admit that it’s harder than it looks, but the learning curve is also steep. By the second round, our instructor rarely had to reposition me, and I even got a little cocky and tried to make myself spin by cupping my hand.
As for soaring, I would probably classify myself as an albatross – gangly and awkward. But at least I can say I did it. I finally soared.
Screw you birds!