Indoor Skydiving at the Hurricane Factory, Liptovský Mikuláš

Not everyone has the nerve to step out of a plane while it’s flying just so they can experience what it’s like to float back to earth attached to a parachute. Thankfully, you don’t have to. You can get the same adrenaline rush in a vertical wind tunnel like this one at the Hurricane Factory in Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia.

Vertical wind tunnels are an absolute blast – pun intended – and the wind they generate can vary from a relatively gentle one-hundred and thirty kilometres per hour to a gale-force, blow-you-into-the-next-town, three-hundred kilometres per hour. They’re wind speeds that are ideal for learning or practising skydiving techniques and the increasingly popular sport of bodyflight.

Stay with this live feed for a while and you’ll be able to observe all levels of flyer ranging from the first-time novice to the expert who knows how to pull an upside down movement called the bear which will leave you flabbergasted at the sight of it. Be prepared though as watching can turn out to be as addictive as participating. If you find yourself turning into a digital tunnel rat, don’t say you weren’t warned.