Читать книгу The 50 List – A Father’s Heartfelt Message to his Daughter: Anything Is Possible - Nigel Holland - Страница 20

What a rush! The experience is incredible, as exhilarating as it is surreal. Basically, we ‘fly’ in a vertical wind tunnel, essentially a Perspex-bound room within a room. Once you’re shut in it, the sense that it’s a tunnel is even stronger; it has a mesh floor, below which is a 20-foot drop to the bottom. It’s down there that the ‘wind’ that will lift us is generated, in the form of a large chamber that will expel airflow at approximately 140 mph, while above us is another 30 feet or so of headroom. And the windflow – the air that will keep me aloft – is greater than any storm I’ve ever experienced.

It feels amazing. I say ‘fly’ but what I’m really doing, once my instructor pulls me into position and we begin spinning upwards, is falling at terminal velocity. That’s the fastest speed at which a body can fall through the air towards the ground. Of course, I’m never going to hit the ground; that’s the point of the upward draught. Because the air is pushing me upwards I’m ‘falling’ for what feels like minutes at a time, my cheeks being moulded so that I feel as though I have a rubber face. It’s a powerful force; so much so that I have to wear goggles – without them my eyes would dry up like prunes. It’s also incredibly loud, despite the ear plugs I’ve been given. It really is an assault on all my senses.

We come back down to earth, but in my head, I’m still floating. I can see Ellie outside, sitting on the viewing bench with Lisa, Matt and Amy. And I can see from my older two children’s faces that they would both so love to be me right now. I make a mental note: must find the time and the money to allow them to experience this for themselves. Not to mention Ellie, even though I can see she has no appetite for it – not right now, anyway. Her expression is as anxious as Matt’s and Amy’s are awed. But though I know it has scared her, seeing her dad whirling high above her head in thin air, I really hope one day she tries this for herself.

Time to move on, though, and let someone else have a go. I can see a gaggle of new people now waiting, crammed into the flight room, all of them presumably thrill seekers just like me. Climbing back up into my wheelchair, I count around ten of them, and as I manoeuvre up to the seat I can’t resist it. ‘Brace yourselves,’ I quip, as they look on, in some confusion. ‘I didn’t need this thing before I went in there …’