OUTLET: Inside Business
By Butch Maier
butch.maier@insidebiz.com
They removed a parking lot and put up a paradise.
So now there’s something new and exciting for adventurers to do at the Oceanfront during the colder months.
For those who want to experience the joy of body flight, iFly Virginia Beach indoor skydiving offers fun for almost all ages.
At the 2412 Pacific Ave. location, which opened in mid-January, customers have ranged in age from 3 to 94.
Inside iFly, a vertical wind tunnel – with a flight chamber 14 feet in diameter and 50 feet tall – creates a wall-to-wall cushion of air on which participants can float.
Without a parachute.
Shirley Bueche, 80, has been skydiving for real three times and tried out iFly on Feb. 23.
She was one example that Westminster-Canterbury is an active aging community, and she also was a good source to find out the differences between iFly and actual skydiving.
“When you first jump out of the plane, you’re free-falling, so it’s somewhat the same and the positions are the same,” Bueche said. “When you go up, that’s more exciting.”
Wait, what? The high flight portion of iFly – the trip to the top of the wind tunnel – is more exciting than skydiving?
Not so fast. It’s just more exciting than the rest of the iFly flight.
“When you jump out at 14,000 feet and you’re free-falling at 123 miles an hour, that’s pretty exciting,” Bueche said with a laugh. “They’re both great fun. I love doing this. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Before your heart starts beating fast about the prospect of indoor skydiving without a parachute, rest assured that there have been no injuries, there is no jumping involved, you wear a helmet and an instructor is with you to guide you the entire time.
Two brothers from Virginia Beach – Jacob Gorman, 13, and Samuel Gorman, 11 – had a blast.
“It was like falling but knowing that you’re not really falling,” Jacob said.
“Awesome!” Samuel said. “I got to go all the way up!”
“All the way up” – the high flight – resembles the scene from the 1971 movie “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” when Charlie Bucket and his grandfather floated in the air – minus the bubbles, minus the dangerous fan at the top and minus the scolding from a candy mogul for stealing fizzy-lifting drink.
“It was fabulous!” said Suzy Armstrong, 74. “I just couldn’t imagine what it could be like. It was like you were really flying. Felt like a bird.”
Robert Pizzini, CEO of iFly Virginia Beach, felt there was a need for this business in the region.
“I used to write checks for three of these places around the country,” said Pizzini, who is retired from the Navy and has lived in Virginia Beach since 2006. “And I’d always come back to Virginia Beach and say, ‘Why isn’t there one here?’ So I started losing sleep over that one night.”
So what once was a 240-space municipal parking lot became iFly Virginia Beach. The Breeden Co. purchased the 2-acre site for $7.65 million. Breeden Construction President Brian Revere headed the project to build the iFly facility at a cost of $7 million. The building is owned by Breeden Co. Executive Vice President Torrey Breeden, Pizzini and Virginia Indoor Skydiving LLC. There is a 600-space parking garage being built next to it. From now until May 15, iFly customers can park at Ocean LightForce Chiropractic, across the street at 210 25th St.
Since iFly opened, more than 4,500 people have taken flight.
“It’s going awesome,” Pizzini said. “We opened mid-January, dead of winter, and things went really well. And February has been incredible. Just looking at our schedule, March is looking excellent.
“Like any new business, it’s a crawl-walk-run process, so it’s good that we opened in January because the response has been so good. And this will help prepare our systems and our staff for the summer season.”
A staff that Pizzini expects will grow in number as the temperatures rise.
“We’re gonna bring on more instructors, and we’re gonna bring on more customer service staff to get us through the summer,” he said. “We’ll probably bring some people from out of the area.”
That could mean instructors from other iFly locations. Based in Austin, Texas, the company has 35 locations worldwide.
“Either that, or there are guys who are independent instructors who go from location to location,” Pizzini said.
There could be older customers – the oldest so far at any location has been 103 – but iFly would prefer no children younger than 3.
“It’s really based on the child’s development,” Pizzini said. “Generally, 3 years old is where they begin to have the awareness and the capability – understanding hand signals and understanding a combination of concepts rather than one singular concept.”
Before their first flight, customers go through classroom training that includes body positioning and hand signals.
Dixie Johnson, an 83-year-old from Atlantic Shores, admitted to being “a little apprehensive” before her first flight.
But that’s normal, no matter the age.
Next to her were Alyson Shellhammer and Donald Wernick, engaged, both 19 and from Virginia Beach.
Nervous?
“Yeah,” Shellhammer said.
“A little,” Wernick said.
“It looks fun. It looks real fun,” Shellhammer added.
Pizzini said first-time fliers have not had any, shall we say, getting-sick incidents.
“When they do occur – and it’s rare, it’s usually more experienced people trying advanced maneuvers,” Pizzini said.
After the entire group was done with its high flight, the instructor, Cameron McMahan, got to show off his Spider-Man-like moves.
“I get paid to have fun the entire day,” said McMahan, 18 and a transplant from Knoxville, Tenn.
Even for those people who are not comfortable with high altitudes.
“Marvelous,” said Bob Stahlin, 85. “Let’s go again.”
Was he ever scared?
“No,” Stahlin said. “And I’m amazed. Because I’m afraid of heights. But this didn’t bother me a bit.”
Instructor Mark Stoddart, from Perth, Australia, has been a professional skydiver for three years.
“It is amazing,” Stoddart said. “It’s an incredible opportunity to help people experience the freedom of body flight.”
