Out of the Comfort Zone – Taking the Leap with iFly

As parents, we spend so much time telling children to “be careful” that sometimes we accidentally teach them to stay small. As adults, we often become prisoners of our own comfort zones, worrying about looking silly, overthinking every risk, and imagining failure before we’ve even begun. Children, meanwhile, often just shrug and ask: “Can I do it twice?”

That spirit is exactly what iFLY seems designed to unlock. And honestly? It was brilliant.

Tucked beside the Snow Centre complex next to the Trafford Centre, iFLY is the place where they strap children into jumpsuits and fire them into the air inside a giant vertical wind tunnel – like human crisp packets caught in a hurricane.

I visited with my daughter Saffy, aged seven, and my son Eric, aged four. The experience is indoor skydiving – the closest thing you can get to the feeling of freefalling without having to fling yourself out of a plane at 15,000 feet.

There is, understandably, a huge focus on safety. Before entering the tunnel, everyone is weighed so the team can adjust the wind resistance correctly. The baggy flight suits are specially designed to catch the airflow and help carry you upwards. It all feels incredibly well managed without ever becoming intimidating or taking the edge off the thrill. The instructors clearly love what they do, and that enthusiasm is infectious.
There is, understandably, a strong focus on safety. I also spoke with Flight Team Manager Jack Everett, who explained the company’s SOAR values.
“S is for safety first,” he explained. “O is for outrageous passion, A is for accountability, and R is for respect.”

Jack also explained that iFLY are members of the International Bodyflight Association – an independent governing body for indoor skydiving safety – which adds another layer of reassurance for nervous parents wondering whether launching their offspring into a wind vortex is entirely sensible. (For the record: it is.)

One of the most interesting things Jack told me was how well children usually handle the experience.

“Kids are not as nervous as you’d think,” he said. “Most are really up for it. But even the ones who are worried nearly always leave with a massive smile on their face.”

That absolutely matched our experience.

Before we flew, we met our instructor, Tedd, who managed the impossible task of being simultaneously calming, funny and effortlessly cool in a flight suit. He talked us through the process.

Saffy loved it instantly. From the second she got suited up, she looked like she’d been preparing for her aviation career her entire life. She marched into the briefing session with the confidence of Maverick from Top Gun – just smaller and with more glitter on her trainers.

“THAT. WAS. AMAAAAZZINNG!” she shouted through her helmet after leaving the tunnel.

Eric, meanwhile, was more cautious.

At four years old, he’s at that fascinating age where bravery and uncertainty seem to exist simultaneously. One minute he’s fearless. The next he’s suspicious of hand dryers.

When it came time to enter the tunnel, you could see the nerves kicking in. His eyes widened slightly as the roaring air blasted upwards. For a second, I wondered whether he might back out.

But Tedd was superb.

Patient, encouraging, and endlessly reassuring, he guided Eric through every stage of the experience. There was never any pressure, just gentle support and confidence-building. And then suddenly, there Eric was: floating. Actually flying.

We decided to “Go High” and add the extra high-flight experience. Eric went first, with Tedd wisely recognising that younger children can sometimes overthink things if they spend too long watching.

The expression on Eric’s face afterwards was pure pride. Not just excitement, genuine pride. He knew he’d been nervous, and he knew he’d done it anyway.

That’s real bravery.

And that’s the magic of experiences like this. Confidence doesn’t come from never feeling afraid. It comes from discovering you can do difficult things despite the nerves.

Honestly, adults could probably learn a thing or two from that.
There’s something uniquely bonding about sharing an experience that feels extraordinary. By the time all three of us had flown, we were absolutely buzzing with adrenaline and laughter.

Naturally, this led straight into the essential post-flight pizza debrief.

Over dinner afterwards, we talked endlessly about the experience. And the conversation didn’t stop there.

For the last week, we’ve been showing the flight videos to pretty much every friend, relative, and vaguely interested passer-by we’ve encountered. There is something undeniably entertaining about watching someone attempt to look aerodynamic while their cheeks flap violently in the wind. But more than that, the videos captured something important: joy.

Real joy.

Not screen-time joy. Not “just one more Bluey episode” joy. Proper, shared family joy built around doing something unforgettable together.

We even brought home one of the hand signals instructors use during the flight. Because speaking inside a hurricane-strength wind tunnel is surprisingly difficult, instructors communicate using simple gestures. One of them means “relax.”

That “relax” hand signal has now become family code.

Stressed about something? Relax sign.

Can’t find the car keys? Relax sign.

Meltdown in the cereal aisle when you tell them they can’t pick the box of Marshmallow Mateys? Double relax sign.

It has also become this funny little reminder that sometimes things feel scary right before they become brilliant.

What struck me most about iFLY was how accessible it felt. Indoor skydiving sounds extreme until you actually experience it. Then you realise it’s carefully managed, highly supervised, and surprisingly family-friendly.

You do not need to be an adrenaline junkie. You do not need prior experience. You do not need to leap from an aircraft at terminal velocity.
You just need a willingness to try something different.

Watching Saffy and Eric fly reminded me that courage does not always look dramatic. Sometimes courage looks like a four-year-old taking a deep breath and stepping into the tunnel anyway.

Sometimes it looks like a seven-year-old discovering she absolutely loves doing something nobody expected her to try.

And sometimes it looks like a family laughing together over pizza afterwards while replaying wind tunnel videos for the hundredth time.

There may be nothing quite like actually jumping out of a plane, but iFLY comes astonishingly close – except here, the landings are softer, the smiles are bigger, and you don’t have to strap yourself intimately to a stranger to try it. Which, frankly, feels like the superior choice.