A few months ago, Groupon was offering almost 1/2 off for an indoor skydiving adventure at a place called SkyVenture in Nashua, NH. Nashua is about an hour away from us and since there is no way in this lifetime I would ever get Robyn to jump out of a plane (he is TERRIFIED of heights) I asked him on the off-chance he would try it in a controlled environment and he surprisingly agreed so I bought the tickets and we went this past Saturday.
My niece came over right around Ashton’s nap time and we headed to NH for our “fly high experience.” We booked two individual 4 minute sessions that had to be used by the beginning of November. We finally squared away a date and when I called and booked our date and time, they told us that we needed to get to our appointment early as there was a mandatory training session. In my usual Sara self, we arrived in PLENTY of time and then they made us wait over an hour because there was a scheduling issue
We filled out all the waivers and after we waited almost an hour, it was our time to go through our training. It took about 20 minutes and we went through hand signals, how to enter and exit the tunnel and the instructor answered any questions we had. Then, we got all suited up.
What is so cool about SkyVenture is that it is supposed to simulate free fall so accurately that skydiving teams from all over the world often use this technology for their training. So how does it work? According to SkyVenture, some tunnels (in warm climates) simply suck the air in from ground level, push it through the flight chamber and diffuser and expel it at the top. SkyVenture uses a recirculating airflow skydiving simulator. This means the exhaust air is channeled and redirected to become the intake air. Because they have complete control of the air, they can maintain a comfortable atmosphere in the flight chamber regardless of the outside weather conditions.
So, after we were suited up, we got helmets, goggles and ear plugs and we were ready to go inside. We went into the waiting chamber and I was the first in the group to make my first of 2 “dives.” I wasn’t nervous but I didn’t really know what to expect. I thought it would be fun, but I didn’t know just HOW much fun I would have! Once I entered the chamber the instructor immediately helped me get into place. I felt like I was floating and depending on how you positioned you feet and arms/hands, you would move in different directions, so it was really fun to play around with that. You also feel your cheeks moving around a lot from all the wind, it was kind of a weird sensation. Before I knew it, my first dive was over and Robyn was up.
What is really cool is that they have photographers standing inside the chamber to get action shots during both dives. Here are some from our dives.
At the end of our second dive, the instructor held onto us and flew us up to the top of the tunnel and would bring us diving down really quickly and spin us around. That was so exhilarating! Both Robyn and I wish we had more time to play in the chamber, it was a total blast and we both agreed we definitely would do it again.
Lastly, I wanted to share with you a video and song from One Republic called “I Lived.” I’ve had this song on replay for a few weeks and not only is the song amazing and speaks to me, but in the video they highlight a Cystic Fibrosis (CF) patient from Denver. I have talked about my connection to CF through my work and it’s a disease and community that I am really passionate about helping. I am so proud to be working on products to help patients in this therapeutic area and I love that One Republic is bringing more awareness to this disease through this video. It’s worth a watch and the song really is inspiring and motivating!
That’s it from me today folks, have a great Wednesday!
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Question of the day
Anyone been indoor or outdoor skydiving before? If not, would you try it?
Have you heard this song/seen this video before?
