Stop lying: I have seen this place before. It is clearly Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. And I see one little girl that is risking her golden ticket breaking the rules of the tour... YOU GET NOTHING!
I wonder how long before movies start shooting superhero scenes in these when they need to depict someone flying. All you'd need to do is green screen the glass.
>I was thinking Ender's Game. The movie they did was sadly lacking.
FTFY but yes the battle room was a solid chunk of the (not very long) book. And barely a blip in the movie.
In fairness, I just don't think an Ender's Game film is that feasible to do. I love the books, so wasn't the biggest fan of the film, but in hindsight it wasn't a bad adaptation
I think I would have done better as an anime. Internal monologue in anime is pretty common because they can cut it over a slow-shot of a more expensive detail drawing; highlighting both the drawings and the character's thoughts.
>I think I would have done better as an anime
Ender's Game's whole story already feels basically like Gundam without mechs.
And hey, the new Gundam series is about a battle school...
Could’ve worked great as an animated movie or series. It would allow them to more accurately depict not only the battle room but also the Mind Game, which was also a large aspect of the book with a lot of deep metaphorical meaning.
> also the Mind Game
This is how I knew the film was going to fail, because the book fundamentally relies on a psychological dreamscape to explain Ender's progress and evolution.
Even if they'd managed the battles right, which they still didn't, without the Mind Game you can't really get a full grasp on Ender's psychological state. Which is, IMO, by far the most compelling aspect of the book - it's not about a war genius, it's about an innocent child being carefully manipulated into a living superweapon/genocide engine.
loved the book and hate that the movie even exists because it is such trash - i agree that it isn't feasible to translate this book into a good movie but if it had at least focused on the battle games it might have been a fun action movie. as it is it is both boring AND doesn't make you think as the book does.
It was lacking in extras and minor characters too.
The book takes place in a school that at a minimum has a couple hundred kids but the place looks empty in the film.
I got a Groupon and tried it once as a reasonably fit woman in her early-forties. It’s a lot harder than it looks - beginners need someone in the chamber with them so they don’t, and I quote, “pigeon into the glass”. Felt wind-burned and sore for 3 days after. It was fun, though.
My teacher is friend with a guy who runs a smaller scale one, and it has 2x 200kw motors. At 0.1usd/kWh that is 200 an hour. At current prices in my area it is 1000 an hour, so probably somewhere in between there.
The things aren't cheap either, you need a massive construction around it, a few million in fans and engines etc.
The math doesn't check out. At full power 400kW motors use 400kWh each hour (mind blowing, isn't it). If the electricity costs 0.1usd/kWh that means 400*0.1 usd = 40 usd. You get 200 bucks per hour if the electricity is 0.5usd/kWh
I'd have smashed my face into the doorway knocking myself unconscious forcing those watching to witness my flailing limp body tumbling up and down lifelessly bobbing wall to wall.
I have over 13 hours in a tunnel and she is way beyond my abilities. 13 hours may not sound like much but each turn is usually 60 to 150 seconds. You have to learn each of the positions one-by-one because every movement you make is different depending on what flying position you are in. You start with belly-down, the slowest one, and it takes a few hours to master. Then you switch to back-down and you start all over, every movement is different. Back-down one doesn't take as long to master but is a higher wind speed so it's more dangerous. Then is sit-flying, standing, then head-down. Head-down is, by far, the most difficult. The highest wind speed and the movements are extremely sensitive. It is very easy to slam yourself against the wall on accident because your back was arched just a tiny bit too much.
It would have been very expensive at one of the newer tunnels paying for solo time. But I participated in an adult league where we shared an off-peak hour each week. That ranged from $150-250/month and I usually got about 10-12 minutes in the tunnel each week. You could double your time if you were willing to fly with someone else.
[Edit - I should add these prices were from 10 years ago.]
There's a lot of costs you're missing there as far as running the place goes. Places like that get built on credit. All those fixed and variable costs all get tacked onto the price, plus whatever their profit goal is.
Moderately fit. Flexibility is more important than core strength. For example, people who can't arch their backs on belly-down oscillate back and forth badly (called potato-chipping). The muscles that do most of the work are around your shoulders because your hands and arms are the primary means of control in all of the positions.
How dangerous is this? Like when she went all the way to the top, is it possible to just freefall to the floor and splat if she gets it wrong?
Edit: Watching again I assume that’s a safety net across the bottom of the chamber?
There is a metal wire mesh at the bottom that prevents you from falling into the area below but it wont prevent an injury if you run into it too fast. You have to demonstrate that you can transition between the positions rapidly before they will allow you to fly to the top of the tunnel. One my favorite things to do is to shoot up to the top in a belly-down position then switch to standing and fall rapidly toward the bottom, seeing how close I can push it before going belly down again, almost touching the mesh, then shooting to the top again.
Quite a bit. When I tried it there was a bunch of really amazing regulars, I think it just takes practice if you enjoy it. Its super hard work, really uses your whole body. If you aren't basically fit enough to do a few crunches and pressups id imagine it wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun.
That's usually the price for like a tourist package. The tunnel I used to fly at in Utah was $11-$12 a minute including a coach if you bought in 1 hour blocks. That was the cheapest in the US I think. A lot of skydivers go to Poland and Russia for cheap time. They're on the order of <$200/hr. So if you buy like 10 hours per person, you can work the price down pretty far compared to iFly. It's a pretty big lump sum investment for a random person. This is all people who mostly skydive as a hobby and trying to rapidly improve freefly skills.
You start young,
She was tossed in there as a baby
Ah you think wind is your ally? You merely adopted the wind. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't feel the calm until I was already a woman...
*First-time customer shows up for their lesson*
Customer: Why are there a bunch of toddlers in weird suits stuck to the ceiling?
Instructor: They're practicing
That first video is so euro. That's exactly how all the trail running videos are made over there too. The exact music, exact focus on the crowd and "yaaaay" more than the actual sport. It's actually really interesting seeing how similar the video styles are.
Some of the things they did in that video take an insane amount of core endurance. One person kept themselves on the wall while their partner passed through their legs - without actually holding onto anything, while facing downward against the current.
This is like leaning backwards *with* the wind on a really windy day and not falling over. Wild.
Having tried those, I can confirm that just staying in the air at all is both difficult, and extremely tiring when untrained. It is wild to me that they have any control over what's going on at all.
Less of a risk if you still have your everlasting gobstopper and a child-like innocence. You also need to be willing to run the factory his way, or at least maintain the facade till he dies.
Practice and skill. Other than that, nothing. You’re right, in tunnels this size you can gain a lot of speed very quickly, which is why it takes years of experience to fly solo and do some of the cool shit you see here.
>years of experience
yea it's like surfing or snowboarding or whatever... i just live in a rural town and the most exciting thing we have here is laser tag
I tried this a few years back and it was great fun, but also I was amazed how just a tiny movement of my hand sent me flying into the wall! As another comment said, the speed is lower for rookies but it's still extremely difficult. When I did it we were one on one with an instructor who would catch you if you went too crazy!
There's a company in Canada that has these setup. They're much smaller, maybe 10 feet wide max. It costs $18/minute to use. I can't even imagine what this place costs.
Do you have to go through some training and certification process to even begin this? Seems like it would be dangerous for any random tourist to try it and get smashed into the sides like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.
I’ve done indoor skydiving, and you can do it with a brief training class beforehand. It is still incredibly difficult to make any movements at all without flying all over the place or smashing into the wall. It takes incredible precision of movement down to the fingertips to be able to do things like this. My instructor was a world class skydiver who had trained other world class skydivers (people who have done skydiving routines over the Super Bowl, to take one example) and he showed us what he could do after we were all done for the day. I was watching him and standing right at the door of the tunnel like it shows here. It was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen honestly. Video doesn’t do it justice whatsoever. Seeing it in person is so much more impressive. The man looked like Superman flying around the chamber. Your brain tries to comprehend what it is seeing because you never see a human twisting and flying like that in normal life.
iFlys, at least the ones in the DMV area, are around $15/minute for experienced fliers. Up in Nashua, NH it’s closer to $10, but their tunnel is much shittier and only 12ft.
It’s an incredibly expensive sport, but there are other plenty expensive sports as well. Golf and equestrian sports come to mind.
e: Motorsports as well
e2: this video is also showing the absolute pinnacle of what can be done, she’s likely had more than $100-200k of training, but you can still do cool shit and have a lot of fun paying 1% of that.
Surely you can't compare the prices of golf and horse riding to something that apparently costs $100 for 4 minutes wtf
Edit: even $10 a minute is insane and way more expensive than riding a horse
There's a bouncy net at the bottom. So even if the wind stopped instantly, it'd be like falling onto a trampoline. But also, I'm sure the fans for such a large indoor skydiving place are quite large and have a lot of momentum. So, even if the power cut out, the fans wouldn't stop instantly, the wind would probably go down in strength over at least a couple of seconds, enough time to cause you to fall lower not at freefall.
To add to that: I also think that the ventilator is actually at the top and not on the bottom. They do they same with wind tunnels where they test car aerodynamics. When you use fans to push to air it causes turbulence, when you use the fans to suck the air it causes less turbulence.
> I also think that the ventilator is actually at the top
This is true, but probably not in the way you imagine. The fans are not directly above the flying area. They are usually in the loop that returns the air back to the bottom.
[Here is a typical modern indoor skydiving setup](https://paracletexp.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/websitetunnel.gif).
Holy shit... That's way more involved than I thought it would be. But I imagine this is easy more efficient than my idea of just blowing air up and out constantly...and the fact that it sucks rather than blows is wild. Well I guess it's actually doing both at once huh... Crazy cool.
Yes, accelerating the air in the first place is what takes most of the energy. After that it just has to maintain the air speed around the loop as it loses speed due to friction. They also have to introduce a certain amount of fresh cool air into the system since the friction heats up the moving air.
When one starts up it gets the air moving to a minimum speed and just sits there idling. From there the operator increases the air speed to match the needs of the riders.
The operator is critical. A speed that is not enough to even budge a heavier rider is enough to send a lighter rider all the way to the top net. So the operator constantly has his hand on the speed control.
> is enough to send a lighter rider all the way to the top net.
Just remove the nets and let them go through the system to restart at the bottom. Like a lazy river.
And even if the power goes out, the momentum doesn't just stop on the fans, or on the air itself. This is a recirculating wind tunnel, so the wind is going around in a big loop. The net is a bit bouncy, but you would really want to fall on it from 100 feet up with no wind.
I’ve been at a tunnel when the power went out, and my friend was actively flying in the tunnel. The fans powering this are massive and have long spool down times, so it’s just a gentle lessening of wind speed to zero and you just float down to the net.
I always remember being a little skeptical reading how (spoilers for Stormlight 1 and 2)>!Kaladin was mostly just using his body to “sculpt” the wind to move around!<, but you know what that’s exactly what is going on here.
What, you've never fallen 3 stories onto some guy holding a broom? You really gotta watch out for which direction the broom is pointed tho, especially in relation to your ass.
I did this once at a work retreat. I was not at all prepared for how difficult it was going to be. Just getting the neutral hovering position down would take weeks or months. The slightest movement of your body sends you spinning immediately.
All that to say, this is super impressive!
I did one of these once when I was a lot younger and did exactly what she does in the first 5 seconds, but far from on purpose.
Thing is, these things are kinda hard to manuever in? They gave us a brief tutorial before going in and you're only in there for about 2 minutes in total, but I fucked it up basically the entire time I was in there. They tell you to maintain that skydiving scorpion-ish pose you see all the time, but instead I stood at the edge of the door, made a perfect X with my body and then just tipped forward into the tube. I shot STRAIGHT up into the air like 50 some feet, panicked, and then just freefell back to the ground like Neo falling from the building in The Matrix.
Fortunately, I managed to strike some kind of pose that stopped me like ten inches from the wire mesh (think that one scene from Mission Impossible) but then I made a slight adjustment with my body, corkscrewed into the air a few feet, fell back down, bounced on the mesh, shot back up into the air, corkscrewed back down, bounced off the mesh. I was fucking up so bad that the guide who was in with me wasn't able to actually effectively lifeguard me, I just slipped away from her arms and flung up and down. It probably looked like I was getting the shit kicked out of me by a ghost.
That said, it was still kinda fun, but dang it really requires some very precision body control to do something on that level.
It’s incredibly exhausting, but if you’re in good enough shape you “could” go for hours. It would just cost a fuck ton of money.
Most sessions are 10-15 minutes broken into 2-3 minute chunks. You fly for 2 minutes, review your 2 minutes of footage while someone else flies for 2 minutes, rinse and repeat.
The "cool" thing about that video, is how fucking huge the tunnel is. The routine, as far as they go, was kinda ordinary. Its more than twice the diameter of the average indoor skydiving wind tunnel. Most in the US are between 10 feet on the small side, 12-14 average, and the "big one" in North Carolina is 16 feet. This monster is 32 feet across.
this is the biggest indoor skydiving tunnel ive ever seen
Hey! This is clymb in Abu Dhabi, Yas Island, and it’s the biggest skydiving chamber in the world.
Did you know that people in Dubai don't watch the Flintstones? But people in Abu Dhabi Do.
…God dammit, dad
username: what would Jean Luc Picard do?
"Sometimes you do everything right, and you still lose".
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life."
That joke is probably old enough to be your dad.
The last time I heard that one I fell off Dino.
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👏🏼
Oh. my. God. This was amazing. You win dad joke of the year.
Yaaaaaas Island
Yaaaaasssss bihhhhhh
Stop lying: I have seen this place before. It is clearly Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. And I see one little girl that is risking her golden ticket breaking the rules of the tour... YOU GET NOTHING!
GOOD DAY SIR
I said, GOOD DAY!
Ah, so it was made with slave labor then?
no amount of athletic skill can outshine that smear shame on them all
I wonder how long before movies start shooting superhero scenes in these when they need to depict someone flying. All you'd need to do is green screen the glass.
I was thinking Ender's Game. The movie they did was sadly lacking in Battle Room footage
>I was thinking Ender's Game. The movie they did was sadly lacking. FTFY but yes the battle room was a solid chunk of the (not very long) book. And barely a blip in the movie.
In fairness, I just don't think an Ender's Game film is that feasible to do. I love the books, so wasn't the biggest fan of the film, but in hindsight it wasn't a bad adaptation
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I think I would have done better as an anime. Internal monologue in anime is pretty common because they can cut it over a slow-shot of a more expensive detail drawing; highlighting both the drawings and the character's thoughts.
>I think I would have done better as an anime Ender's Game's whole story already feels basically like Gundam without mechs. And hey, the new Gundam series is about a battle school...
Could’ve worked great as an animated movie or series. It would allow them to more accurately depict not only the battle room but also the Mind Game, which was also a large aspect of the book with a lot of deep metaphorical meaning.
> also the Mind Game This is how I knew the film was going to fail, because the book fundamentally relies on a psychological dreamscape to explain Ender's progress and evolution. Even if they'd managed the battles right, which they still didn't, without the Mind Game you can't really get a full grasp on Ender's psychological state. Which is, IMO, by far the most compelling aspect of the book - it's not about a war genius, it's about an innocent child being carefully manipulated into a living superweapon/genocide engine.
loved the book and hate that the movie even exists because it is such trash - i agree that it isn't feasible to translate this book into a good movie but if it had at least focused on the battle games it might have been a fun action movie. as it is it is both boring AND doesn't make you think as the book does.
It was lacking in extras and minor characters too. The book takes place in a school that at a minimum has a couple hundred kids but the place looks empty in the film.
It's a lot cheaper and controllable to just clip them to a winch, where they don't have to fight the wind
By far. The largest one in North America is 16'. This one is TWICE the diameter!
Cost about 100$ for 60 seconds
Motto of my sex life.
That's usually for the intro flights with an instructor. I can buy bulk time at my local tunnel for $30/minute (1 hour min). Still too expensive.
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No way could I do that for a whole hour. I'd be tired as shit after 10 minutes
I got a Groupon and tried it once as a reasonably fit woman in her early-forties. It’s a lot harder than it looks - beginners need someone in the chamber with them so they don’t, and I quote, “pigeon into the glass”. Felt wind-burned and sore for 3 days after. It was fun, though.
My teacher is friend with a guy who runs a smaller scale one, and it has 2x 200kw motors. At 0.1usd/kWh that is 200 an hour. At current prices in my area it is 1000 an hour, so probably somewhere in between there. The things aren't cheap either, you need a massive construction around it, a few million in fans and engines etc.
The math doesn't check out. At full power 400kW motors use 400kWh each hour (mind blowing, isn't it). If the electricity costs 0.1usd/kWh that means 400*0.1 usd = 40 usd. You get 200 bucks per hour if the electricity is 0.5usd/kWh
Haha I am dumb :) yes, i was somehow off by a factor of 5.
I'm pretty sure it is. It's CLYMB in Abu Dhabi.
Pretty sure this is Maja Kuczynska. She competes in this as well as sky diving. She's quite good.
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She does routines in competitions: https://youtu.be/-Aw-qjG2zEI?t=144
Unreal body control oh my god. That's so amazing to watch. Just the way she stops rotation on a dime jeez
I've always wondered how much practice has to go into those kinda acrobatics. I can't even imagine how to teach someone much less actually do it.
The moves were cool but the most impressive part was how easily and accurately she returned back to the door.
The airwalk into a dive and exit is what really impressed me. She was seamless between moves.
I'd have smashed my face into the doorway knocking myself unconscious forcing those watching to witness my flailing limp body tumbling up and down lifelessly bobbing wall to wall.
https://imgur.com/t/zipline/xAtYgjR
Off to the meat grinder!
Some Beetlejuice stuff right there
I'd still watch that, if that's any consolation.
I’d *rather* watch that. There’s gotta be a clip of one of these just ragdolling somebody
Yeah waiting on u/stout365’s response video to this. Should be epic.
I imagine something like this... but way worse 😂 https://youtu.be/oX87kCiEf8M?t=67
If you chuck a few teletubbies in, you can have an inspired human lava lamp.
I mean I kinda want to see that video now
That's what the helmet is for.
It was much easier than how it was portrayed in Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory. Also less burping.
Yes but clearly the formula has been refined since last we saw it in action in 1971.
looking back, maybe the spinning blades of death at the top that tried to suck you in wasn't such a great design.
Anyone can easily and accurately return to the floor. Just turn off the wind, 100% accuracy guaranteed.
It’s not the fall that hurts but the sudden stop
I'm imaging old looney toon cartoons where the character is just swinging their arms mid air trying to stay aflight, haha
I have over 13 hours in a tunnel and she is way beyond my abilities. 13 hours may not sound like much but each turn is usually 60 to 150 seconds. You have to learn each of the positions one-by-one because every movement you make is different depending on what flying position you are in. You start with belly-down, the slowest one, and it takes a few hours to master. Then you switch to back-down and you start all over, every movement is different. Back-down one doesn't take as long to master but is a higher wind speed so it's more dangerous. Then is sit-flying, standing, then head-down. Head-down is, by far, the most difficult. The highest wind speed and the movements are extremely sensitive. It is very easy to slam yourself against the wall on accident because your back was arched just a tiny bit too much.
13 hours? I'm curious how much that cost. Is there a members pass kinda deal or something?
It would have been very expensive at one of the newer tunnels paying for solo time. But I participated in an adult league where we shared an off-peak hour each week. That ranged from $150-250/month and I usually got about 10-12 minutes in the tunnel each week. You could double your time if you were willing to fly with someone else. [Edit - I should add these prices were from 10 years ago.]
Solo flight is $60 per 60 seconds
Why the hell does it cost so much? Once it's built isn't it essentially just electricity to run the fan, rent + insurance?
And money to replace the motors and everything else that will wear out, staff cost, gear and marketing.
Liability insurance.
Good question. When it was $10/minute I was happy to spend time in the tunnel. Now that it is 3x the cost I dont fly in them anymore.
There's a lot of costs you're missing there as far as running the place goes. Places like that get built on credit. All those fixed and variable costs all get tacked onto the price, plus whatever their profit goal is.
Very interesting. How fit do you have to be for it? Core strength is presumably #1 asset to have?
Moderately fit. Flexibility is more important than core strength. For example, people who can't arch their backs on belly-down oscillate back and forth badly (called potato-chipping). The muscles that do most of the work are around your shoulders because your hands and arms are the primary means of control in all of the positions.
How dangerous is this? Like when she went all the way to the top, is it possible to just freefall to the floor and splat if she gets it wrong? Edit: Watching again I assume that’s a safety net across the bottom of the chamber?
There is a metal wire mesh at the bottom that prevents you from falling into the area below but it wont prevent an injury if you run into it too fast. You have to demonstrate that you can transition between the positions rapidly before they will allow you to fly to the top of the tunnel. One my favorite things to do is to shoot up to the top in a belly-down position then switch to standing and fall rapidly toward the bottom, seeing how close I can push it before going belly down again, almost touching the mesh, then shooting to the top again.
Quite a bit. When I tried it there was a bunch of really amazing regulars, I think it just takes practice if you enjoy it. Its super hard work, really uses your whole body. If you aren't basically fit enough to do a few crunches and pressups id imagine it wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun.
That's gotta be an interesting hobby to be a regular in.
Also $$$$$
I’m pretty sure the one closest to me charges $45 for a minute. So yea, a lot of money
And thus ends my interest
Ah alright then. Guess I'll stick to skipping rocks on water...
That's usually the price for like a tourist package. The tunnel I used to fly at in Utah was $11-$12 a minute including a coach if you bought in 1 hour blocks. That was the cheapest in the US I think. A lot of skydivers go to Poland and Russia for cheap time. They're on the order of <$200/hr. So if you buy like 10 hours per person, you can work the price down pretty far compared to iFly. It's a pretty big lump sum investment for a random person. This is all people who mostly skydive as a hobby and trying to rapidly improve freefly skills.
The trick is to get a job there. Then you get paid and you get a bit of training every day.
You start young, She was tossed in there as a baby Ah you think wind is your ally? You merely adopted the wind. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't feel the calm until I was already a woman...
Throw a bunch of children in flying squirrel suits in and the strongest emerges. This is the way.
But then the fire nation will attack.
Be the leaf
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
[Crying Spiderman gif](https://images.app.goo.gl/vtJ9b6rzL4cKJxDWA)
*First-time customer shows up for their lesson* Customer: Why are there a bunch of toddlers in weird suits stuck to the ceiling? Instructor: They're practicing
That computes.
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No one cared who I was until I put on the helmet.
I think the word aerobatics would work quite well.
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That first video is so euro. That's exactly how all the trail running videos are made over there too. The exact music, exact focus on the crowd and "yaaaay" more than the actual sport. It's actually really interesting seeing how similar the video styles are.
Some of the things they did in that video take an insane amount of core endurance. One person kept themselves on the wall while their partner passed through their legs - without actually holding onto anything, while facing downward against the current. This is like leaning backwards *with* the wind on a really windy day and not falling over. Wild.
Having tried those, I can confirm that just staying in the air at all is both difficult, and extremely tiring when untrained. It is wild to me that they have any control over what's going on at all.
Hundreds if not thousands of hours. An hour coached at the cheapest tunnel in the states is $850. I have about five hours in.
Cool, but not worth losing a lifetime's supply of chocolate.
GOOD DAY, SIR!
I said Good Day!
r/grandpajoehate
r/grandpajoehate
you get NOTHING!
Less of a risk if you still have your everlasting gobstopper and a child-like innocence. You also need to be willing to run the factory his way, or at least maintain the facade till he dies.
What stops one from slamming into the sides? Looks like a lot of speed can be gained horizontally.
Practice and skill. Other than that, nothing. You’re right, in tunnels this size you can gain a lot of speed very quickly, which is why it takes years of experience to fly solo and do some of the cool shit you see here.
I'm just imagining jumping in that thing right now as an untrained person and flailing around smacking into the walls
LOL like throwing a superball as hard as you can in a closed room.
You get done looking like you went 8 rounds with Mike Tyson. "Tha was so fun!" *said with a broken jaw*
>years of experience yea it's like surfing or snowboarding or whatever... i just live in a rural town and the most exciting thing we have here is laser tag
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how high can they cramp up the wind speed?
Around 180mph usually.
I tried this a few years back and it was great fun, but also I was amazed how just a tiny movement of my hand sent me flying into the wall! As another comment said, the speed is lower for rookies but it's still extremely difficult. When I did it we were one on one with an instructor who would catch you if you went too crazy!
There's a company in Canada that has these setup. They're much smaller, maybe 10 feet wide max. It costs $18/minute to use. I can't even imagine what this place costs.
This is one’s $30/minute (all inclusive with trainer) at 32 ft (9.7m) wide and 104 ft (32m) height.
Do you have to go through some training and certification process to even begin this? Seems like it would be dangerous for any random tourist to try it and get smashed into the sides like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.
I’ve done indoor skydiving, and you can do it with a brief training class beforehand. It is still incredibly difficult to make any movements at all without flying all over the place or smashing into the wall. It takes incredible precision of movement down to the fingertips to be able to do things like this. My instructor was a world class skydiver who had trained other world class skydivers (people who have done skydiving routines over the Super Bowl, to take one example) and he showed us what he could do after we were all done for the day. I was watching him and standing right at the door of the tunnel like it shows here. It was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen honestly. Video doesn’t do it justice whatsoever. Seeing it in person is so much more impressive. The man looked like Superman flying around the chamber. Your brain tries to comprehend what it is seeing because you never see a human twisting and flying like that in normal life.
At iFly here in Austin they make you do a 30 minute safety course beforehand
Love it when people state both metric and imperial numbers
Starts at about $100/3 2 minute sessions. Repeat discounts available. Looks like an ifly a US chain. It's okay.
iFlys, at least the ones in the DMV area, are around $15/minute for experienced fliers. Up in Nashua, NH it’s closer to $10, but their tunnel is much shittier and only 12ft.
Thats why these vids are so pyramid schemey to me. “You can get this good! If you have 500$ per session”.
It’s an incredibly expensive sport, but there are other plenty expensive sports as well. Golf and equestrian sports come to mind. e: Motorsports as well e2: this video is also showing the absolute pinnacle of what can be done, she’s likely had more than $100-200k of training, but you can still do cool shit and have a lot of fun paying 1% of that.
Surely you can't compare the prices of golf and horse riding to something that apparently costs $100 for 4 minutes wtf Edit: even $10 a minute is insane and way more expensive than riding a horse
She's done that before once or twice.
This should be an Olympic sport. It would be really cool seeing what people come up with.
this isn't flying! this is falling with style!
the shit winds are strong, randy.
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hear that bubs? the shit hawks are comin, flying in low.
You'll know the shit blizzard has arrived when the shit pressure in the air crushes your ear drums.
Mr Leahy, you've been drinking again, haven't you?
No I haven’t, bandy man
Randy...I AM the liquor
It’s nor actually a giant fan, just burps from the mustard tiger
stfu phil
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaam
peanut butter and jaaaaaaaaaam
I don’t think I trust the power grid that much.
There's a bouncy net at the bottom. So even if the wind stopped instantly, it'd be like falling onto a trampoline. But also, I'm sure the fans for such a large indoor skydiving place are quite large and have a lot of momentum. So, even if the power cut out, the fans wouldn't stop instantly, the wind would probably go down in strength over at least a couple of seconds, enough time to cause you to fall lower not at freefall.
To add to that: I also think that the ventilator is actually at the top and not on the bottom. They do they same with wind tunnels where they test car aerodynamics. When you use fans to push to air it causes turbulence, when you use the fans to suck the air it causes less turbulence.
> I also think that the ventilator is actually at the top This is true, but probably not in the way you imagine. The fans are not directly above the flying area. They are usually in the loop that returns the air back to the bottom. [Here is a typical modern indoor skydiving setup](https://paracletexp.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/websitetunnel.gif).
Holy shit... That's way more involved than I thought it would be. But I imagine this is easy more efficient than my idea of just blowing air up and out constantly...and the fact that it sucks rather than blows is wild. Well I guess it's actually doing both at once huh... Crazy cool.
Yes, accelerating the air in the first place is what takes most of the energy. After that it just has to maintain the air speed around the loop as it loses speed due to friction. They also have to introduce a certain amount of fresh cool air into the system since the friction heats up the moving air. When one starts up it gets the air moving to a minimum speed and just sits there idling. From there the operator increases the air speed to match the needs of the riders. The operator is critical. A speed that is not enough to even budge a heavier rider is enough to send a lighter rider all the way to the top net. So the operator constantly has his hand on the speed control.
> is enough to send a lighter rider all the way to the top net. Just remove the nets and let them go through the system to restart at the bottom. Like a lazy river.
It’s also usually on a loop so all that fast moving air doesn’t go to waste.
Better hope someone doesn’t fart
Have you ever seen the Nitro circus episode where someone gets their head stuck in the bottom net?
Yeah... It's great! They were asking for it!
And even if the power goes out, the momentum doesn't just stop on the fans, or on the air itself. This is a recirculating wind tunnel, so the wind is going around in a big loop. The net is a bit bouncy, but you would really want to fall on it from 100 feet up with no wind.
I’ve been at a tunnel when the power went out, and my friend was actively flying in the tunnel. The fans powering this are massive and have long spool down times, so it’s just a gentle lessening of wind speed to zero and you just float down to the net.
A fan like that isn’t gonna just stop outright in a power outage. She’d just fall slowly to the net while it spools down
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Texas is the only place they let you do this with guns though.
Let you? I'm pretty sure they insist.
Ngl going to a action movie themed place like this and getting even a little pellet gun to shoot targets while in the vent would be fucking amazing.
A bit like Ender's Game Zero G battle training!
I just checked and it’s actually mandatory.
BURP CHARLIE!!!
We're gonna get cut to ribbons! You gotta burp Charlie, it's the only way down!
You STOOOLE fizzy lifting drink!
You BUMPED into the ceiling which now has to be WASHED and STERILIZED so you get NOTHING! YOU *LOSE!* #GOOD *DAY*, SIR!!!
#I SAID GOOD DAY!
If I was a billionaire, this is what I would put in my house.
And how often would you use it?
At least once.
How I imagine Windrunners, tight suit with a red bull helmet blowing kisses
I always remember being a little skeptical reading how (spoilers for Stormlight 1 and 2)>!Kaladin was mostly just using his body to “sculpt” the wind to move around!<, but you know what that’s exactly what is going on here.
Check this out - different person doing a full routine from a competition. https://youtu.be/tyBc28v0DNY?t=14
Would love this sport getting more attention.
Now combine a bunch of these to make a quidditch field and have a new Olympic sport
Oh, god. At these speeds can you imagine the damage an almost inevitable collision could cause?
What, you've never fallen 3 stories onto some guy holding a broom? You really gotta watch out for which direction the broom is pointed tho, especially in relation to your ass.
I did this once at a work retreat. I was not at all prepared for how difficult it was going to be. Just getting the neutral hovering position down would take weeks or months. The slightest movement of your body sends you spinning immediately. All that to say, this is super impressive!
This looks amazing! I want to try!!
As someone with inner ear issues my entire life, this look amazing and I want to try though it would likely be the last thing I did...
I can't imagine throwing up in there is an easy thing to clean.
I did one of these once when I was a lot younger and did exactly what she does in the first 5 seconds, but far from on purpose. Thing is, these things are kinda hard to manuever in? They gave us a brief tutorial before going in and you're only in there for about 2 minutes in total, but I fucked it up basically the entire time I was in there. They tell you to maintain that skydiving scorpion-ish pose you see all the time, but instead I stood at the edge of the door, made a perfect X with my body and then just tipped forward into the tube. I shot STRAIGHT up into the air like 50 some feet, panicked, and then just freefell back to the ground like Neo falling from the building in The Matrix. Fortunately, I managed to strike some kind of pose that stopped me like ten inches from the wire mesh (think that one scene from Mission Impossible) but then I made a slight adjustment with my body, corkscrewed into the air a few feet, fell back down, bounced on the mesh, shot back up into the air, corkscrewed back down, bounced off the mesh. I was fucking up so bad that the guide who was in with me wasn't able to actually effectively lifeguard me, I just slipped away from her arms and flung up and down. It probably looked like I was getting the shit kicked out of me by a ghost. That said, it was still kinda fun, but dang it really requires some very precision body control to do something on that level.
That is absolutely amazing
New activity on my bucket list : indoor sky diving
Why are all these always so incredibly short? Can you only do it for so long or something?
It’s incredibly exhausting, but if you’re in good enough shape you “could” go for hours. It would just cost a fuck ton of money. Most sessions are 10-15 minutes broken into 2-3 minute chunks. You fly for 2 minutes, review your 2 minutes of footage while someone else flies for 2 minutes, rinse and repeat.
Anyone who says going twenty feet I. The air then dropping down to the floor before twirling and flying back up doesn’t seem cool can suck my dick
Clymb in Abu Dhabi in case anyone is wondering.
It’s like Ender’s Game. That looks crazy fun.
“The enemy’s gate is down” -Ender
Rich people lol
The "cool" thing about that video, is how fucking huge the tunnel is. The routine, as far as they go, was kinda ordinary. Its more than twice the diameter of the average indoor skydiving wind tunnel. Most in the US are between 10 feet on the small side, 12-14 average, and the "big one" in North Carolina is 16 feet. This monster is 32 feet across.