Learn to Fly

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Can you tell us a little about your three iFLY venues and about iFLY as a company?

iFLY Indoor Skydiving is the simulation of true free-fall conditions in a vertical wind tunnel. Opening our first purpose built Milton Keynes venue in 2005, Manchester and Basingstoke soon followed, and iFLY is now the biggest provider of indoor skydiving in the UK.

The unique nature of how we simulate the exhilarating skydiving experience is rooted in science, technology, engineering, and maths, and prompted much interest, curiosity, and wonder from visitors.

With this in mind, we started to incorporate the STEM aspects of iFLY into our schools offering.

science week

You have recently teamed up with Fun Science to create some new educational programs focusing specifically on STEM. Could you give us an outline of what exciting new programs you have to offer schools?

We've always attracted a lot of interest from schools who want to treat their pupils to a thrilling experience they'll never forget, but we wanted to provide a more fulfilling and educational worth to our offering.

To this end, we experimented with including a 60 minute educational workshop in our schools offer, taking place before the flights. We found this made the experience more interesting for the students, and more justifiable for the schools!

With the success of this model, in early 2019, iFLY partnered with FunScience to create the ultimate out-of-classroom learning experience, covering subjects including materials, experiments, forces, air-resistance and data recording.

STEM is becoming a hugely important area within education and it sounds like you have some really fun and engaging workshops for schools to take part in. What activities are available to schools?

At iFLY, our STEM workshops have an emphasis on having FUN! Our practical hands-on educational sessions have direct links to the national curriculum, ensuring they carry a legitimate educational value. Children learn about the science behind our wind tunnel, the physics of flight, and engage in a wind powered model making experiment tested on our laser tracks. After the course, the children will then put into practice what they have learnt, as they experience exhilarating indoor skydiving themselves in our wind tunnel -a huge interactive science exhibit!

science week offer

Who delivers the workshops?

To guarantee maximum educational worth, and to ensure all questions can be answered (and we do get asked everything!), our workshops are delivered by local science professionals. They work closely with our in-house team so they have an expert understanding of how our tunnels work and the physics of bodyflight. When recruiting hosts, our prioity is that along with qualfiied science credentials, they embody the fun and engaging spirit of iFLY!

You have so many fun aspects to your schools package, what is the most popular activity with the Pupils?

Our workshops are interactive, featuring lots of fun activities which different classes respond to in different ways.

In the workshop, our laser-track wind car racing is always a highlight.

Using building blocks on a standard vehicle chassis, the experiment encourages full design creativity in building a model which will best be propelled by a blow dryer across a track. Laser technology then records the exact speeds shown on a digital leaderboard!

Despite the excitement and teamwork involved in the wind car racing, the fact is that there is little on earth which compares to the thrill of flying in our wind tunnel!

With such a huge range of subjects that you can cover with a visit to iFLY, what are the most popular with teachers?

Our feedback from teachers is overwhelmingly positive. The educational content of the workshops, and the pupil's post-flight elation are the most common areas of praise we receive, along with how well our events are organised. Being such a popular activity, we regularly manage large groups, and know what a huge difference this makes to the whole experience for teachers!

indoor skydiving

With British Science Week fast approaching, this sounds like the ideal School trip. What is iFLY doing to celebrate British Science Week?

With such a strong STEM message to our packages, we're taking it as a personal challenge to get a school in with us at each of our 3 UK sites every day during British Science Week.

Further to this, for bookings taking place in British Science Week, we're offering 15% off our workshop package!

Do you offer packages for Schools who want to come and learn with you?

  • iFLY offers several different packages to cater for all types of school trips. These can be educational, teambuilding, sporting, or for reward.
  • Our workshop packages are �29.99 per child, with a light version of the package available from �19.99 per child.
  • iFLY workshop packages include a free flight for the teacher!
  • We also provide flight-only packages, and can create bespoke packages too!
  • For British Science Week, we're offering 15% off our standard workshop packages.

What size groups can you accommodate for and is it suitable for all ages?

  • iFLY is proud to be an all-abilities activity, and are always working to better promote our message of inclusivity.
  • We can fly as young as 3, and have had flyers as old as 103!
  • Whilst we can create bespoke packages for all group sizes, our schools packages have a minimum of 10 flyers.
  • iFLY has workshops suitable for either primary (KS1+2) or secondary (KS3+4) school levels.
  • iFLY also offers flight-only packages.

What do groups need to bring with them?

  • Everything pupils need for the Workshop will be supplied including a workbook for each child.
  • Flight suits, helmets and goggles will also be provided for the flight experience.


If you are interested in hearing a bit more about how iFLY can help you with planning your next school visit then why not get in touch here.

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