Today the 4th and 5th grade from my school went to iFly, an indoor skydiving facility. The entire school will be going on field trip there this week except for our littlest students. These trips were gifted to the school by some generous donors.
iFly has educational packages for schools, so our students learned something about aerodynamics and terminal velocity as it relates to mass and shape. It sounds complicated, but the instructor was wonderful and the activities were all hands-on. Every student and teacher got to fly, too. You don't jump out of a plane or anything -- there's a vertical wind tunnel where the flying takes place. It's very high-tech and safe, as long as you don't have back or shoulder issues. We all got basic instruction in how to hold our arms and hands, legs, and head while flying, as well as the hand signals the flight instructor would use since you can't hear inside the wind tunnel.
Everyone got to fly twice for a minute each time. In between groups, the flight instructors did demonstrations of advanced techniques -- they basically could all have been stand-ins for Spiderman. It was impressive.
So the part about back and shoulder issues? Yes, that's me. I slipped a disc about 18 years ago so I was disqualified from flying.
In spite of not flying, I'm still tired tonight.
This is a-maz-ing!! What a wonderful gift to your students! I bet it was disappointing not getting to go, but probably still a blast to watch all the kiddos have so much fun!
ReplyDeleteIt was really fun to watch them! They had a blast! And I think they'll sleep well tonight!
DeleteWhat a fun day! My mother (age 77) has always wanted to skydive, so maybe this is the what we should try!! Unfortunately, she just had rotator cuff surgery (not sure how to spell it) in November. Fingers crossed that her doctor won't rule this out for a birthday treat in the summer!
ReplyDeleteI hope she can! There were many ages and sizes of people there.
Delete