Who dares flies‘You’re in control’ the instructor shouted at my clearly petrified face, over the noise of the engine. What the hell was she talking about? I was bound to a potential death trap and there was no way out. Later, I grasped what she meant.
The ride I was about to undertake, called Fly-by-wire, was the brainchild of Kiwi property developer and adventure sport entrepreneur, Neil Harrap, back in 1999. ‘I woke up at four in the morning with the idea for a swing that would move in figure-eights.’ A ride that makes bungy jumping look tame.
Out of his middle-of-the-night epiphany came a missile-shaped plane with a cut-out for a pilot and powered by a 60-horsepower aircraft engine. A single pilot, lying on his or her stomach, is strapped into the craft with a five-point harness and ankle clips. Arms are extended in front, and steering and acceleration are controlled by the pilot’s own hand.
So there I was, two and a half metres off the ground, being winched back a further 60 metres, much in the way you’d pull a child back on a swing, up to the desired height for launch. At this point I was almost vertical. It was also when I had a rather pressing decision to make – yes, I was going to have a say in the propulsion I desired. I didn’t have to be pulled all the way back, I could launch from any point by simply releasing myself, giving as much acceleration as I wanted. I looked at my audience below, faces to the sky, wide-eyed and expectant, and I remembered my safety instructor’s words: ‘More daring pilots who let the winch retract to maximum will be released at a 200-degree angle.’ I couldn’t think of letting down the gawping hobbits below.
Continued...
Suddenly I was swishing through the air, going head-first for the valley floor. Then in figure-eights, loops, arcs and wild swings, finally my epiphany came – I grasped what my instructor meant. I was actually controlling this thing, steering with both hands, pretty much the way you steer a bike, and accelerating and decelerating as I saw fit. As my confidence grew so did my speed. Decked out in red flying overalls, goggles and a helmet, lying face-down on my aluminium capsule, swinging between tall hills, reaching heights of 60 metres and plummeting to teeth-gnashing lows of a mere one-and-a-half metres from the ground, I felt wildly exhilarated.
Eventually I got the knack of this obscure 4m-high contraption, the idea being to steer as straight as you can during the swing, and then turn as sharply and as late as you can at the top of the swing, and then repeat it. As I got the hang of it all, my swings grew higher and higher, and then suddenly I was experiencing weightlessness for about three and a half seconds in each turn. In contrast to the weightlessness I was also, at times, pulling three G’s – trebling my own body weight. To turn the handlebars at the top of the arc to steer required quite a lot of brute force, part of the problem being the prostrate, face-down position. But when an adrenaline high is coursing through your veins, it’s really all about the ride.
After six minutes of experiencing the sensation of falling from a great height, my ride came to an end and I was levered down to safety. (As a last resort, if you panic for whatever reason during the flight, the plane has a kill-switch that enables you to stop the engine’s motor.
I didn’t get around to performing any aerial stunts such as the stall turns and tail slides, but I did open her up fully and experience the full throttle of this huge, powered swing strung across the valley from Queenstown Hill – the closest most of us mortals will ever get to flying a fighter jet.
Prices start from £38 per adult.
