New iFly Indoor Skydiving Center Opens in Dallas, TX

iFLY has continued its global expansion of vertical wind tunnel centers with the opening of iFly Dallas this week. The company, who now operate 27 facilities around the world, cut the ribbon on the new North Texas on Monday, 18th November 2013. The center is located at the Stonebrier Center Mall in Frisco.

The company has claimed that the center boasts the world's most advanced wind tunnel with wind speeds of up to 175mph. The tunnel measurements are 14’ in diameter and 48’ in height. It will cater to persons aged 3 to 103.

Whether or not we will see the iFly Dallas center hosting any competition in the near future is left to be seen, and it does seem that given the location and the focus of the press release, that the Dallas center may be catered more towards non-skydivers who are looking for fun, as opposed to other tunnels that tend to focus more on competitive training. Never the less, the center will still be open to competitive skydivers and will also no doubt expand the already explosive growth of indoor flying.

Over the past decade tunnel flying has become an imperative part of freefly training and is now an almost mandatory aspect of competitive training. The expansion and increase in accessibility has also seen an entire new wave of tunnel flyers emerge, as children under the ages of 10 have become proficient flyers. The impact that this may have on the growth of the skydiving industry will be seen in a few years. With these children already skilled in freeflying, it will no doubt give them a large advantage should they take up skydiving and begin doing it competitively - particularly within the freeflying discipline.

iFly is largest indoor skydiving company in the world with 27 tunnels across several continents. The company has plans of further expansion and will see more tunnels being erected in the coming years. The company opened their Orlando center in 1999, and 10 years later, at the end of 2009 iFly had 18 centers up and running. In 2013 alone, they have opened up an additional four indoor tunnel centers.