For a birthday present I received a voucher to do an indoor skydive at LuxFly at the Luxembourg and Belgium border.
Thanks to Covid 19 lockdowns I had another birthday before I could actually make use of the Falcon9 experience.
Arrival
As Covid restrictions were still in place there were not many people there when I arrived, but the staff were very welcoming and efficient finding my booking, checking me in and explaining how things would work.
I was early so had time to watch some experienced people flying around, hovering in a seated position, doing headstands and slow motion backflips, sometimes it reminded me of wire work in a Wuxia movie.
I remember it something like this...
or more far fetched a bit of Money Magic
The group
I was surprised when I noticed that an RTL camera crew had turned up for my skydive. Unfortunately, despite the fact that there only being 2 of us in the group at that point, the camera was for the other person, who, based on the car outside was there for "de Journal".
The Briefing
After being greeted by our instructor, Lane, we were shown a short video explaining the basics of the skydive, the "simple instructions" were:
- relax, Lane will help guide you into the correct position.
- 2 straight fingers means straighten your legs
- bent fingers means bend your legs
- finger pointing up means look upwards
That's it! Simple, right?
The Reality
I was assured I was good for a first timer, after 3 flights of 1 minute 20 seconds each I was able to hover without assistance, spin left and right by moving my hands a little, move forward and back by straightening and bending my legs and control myself up and down to some extent by pushing my hips through or straightening my body.
In truth that also included belly flopping into the floor and crashing into the window and crumpling a little which caused me to drop quickly and get caught by Lane before I hit the floor again, not to mention the far from elegant wrestling to get me to the door at the end of my first go.
Somehow when you are in free fall those simple instructions I mentioned earlier become much more difficult, my eyes saw 2 straight fingers, but it took an age to convince my legs to move.
The Grand Finale
The HighFly, this was truly a heart in mouth stomach turning experience which I can't wait to do again.
https://www.tvlux.be/video/info/arlon-le-luxfly-skydive-a-ouvert-ses-portes_34978.html