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flexagonMy rescheduled Zero-G flight in fact came around last weekend and did not cancel! I ended up driving down to Newark and doing the whole thing with rye and one of our fellow Zillian/circus crossover comrades (who drove all the way down and back. I'm forever grateful.)
It was a bit of a production, which I guess one expects for that kind of splash-out. We all held out for their doctor-approved anti-nausea breakfast, which turned out to simply be "no protein, low dairy" -- fruit and croissants and mini-bagels, but also almond milk for my coffee, which worked out great for me. I mildly regretted the second cup of coffee later on, but not at the time.
They had personalized tote bags with our names on them, in which were properly sized flight suits and T-shirts. Everyone suited up excitedly. They showed us a half-hour video explaining things, and I haven't seen a roomful of adults quite as rapt over a mandatory training in some time... they showed how the plane is laid out, and explained how we'd do about 15 parabolic passes. First one with light gravity (Martian, 1/3 G) and then lighter for two parabolas (Lunar, 1/6 G) and then a bunch of zero-G ones. The plane has 36 seats in the back, and then three padded, color-coded areas between there and the cockpit where we'd spend the interesting part of the flight. Oh, and we had an ex-astronaut with us on our flight: this one, to be specific! He's a 65-year-old businessman now, and flies on Zero-G every now and then just to feel that space feeling again. :D
We left most of our stuff behind, except things we could zip into pockets, and the boring part commenced: busses, shuttles, mini airport security with a metal detector. We took selfies with the plane behind us and got on, and they were required to make sure we buckled up for takeoff and they gave us the mandatory parts of the safety talk. Then they took our shoes away from us and we all put on color-coded socks indicating our group (which also indicated where in the plane we were supposed to float around). Blue socks for us. Then after some time, they brought us out to the color-coded areas and had us lie flat on the floor to prepare for 1.8G.
It wasn't a big deal. We got heavier, like you do in certain fast-spinning amusement rides but without the feeling of sideways motion. We were allowed to lift our arms and legs to let them drop heavily, and of course I tried a straddle stretch, which felt nice. Then whoa, we got lighter. Light, so light on Mars. We had been encouraged to do push-ups here but we did full front planches instead. Then I remembered hey, I'm supposed to be doing a press handstand! Instructively, even in the low gravity I pushed myself backward, until I bent my arms and just rolled forward and did a full handstand pushup (which was easy). I went over into the yellow area, oops, and was ushered back just as we were told to prepare for heavy gravity again. I would have liked to do pushups with a 360 twist, like someone in the training video had, but the press was worth that small sacrifice.
Next was lunar gravity, which FELT like zero-g at the time. Imagine being so light that you are having trouble keeping contact with the ground. I did a very gentle back tuck here, low because the plane ceiling was low, and I think it felt very normal except slow and dreamy. I wanted more time but it ended, and on the 2nd lunar pass I did an agreed-upon three-person trick with my compatriots (two of us held full front levers hanging from the outstretched arms of the third. Finding this trivial, the third then jumped up and down with all that! It was ludicrously easy.)
They did two zero-G passes before giving us a short break, and OK OK, it was different than lunar. Having been told not to kick or swim, I held a "canoe" hollow-body shape as if I were flying a basket toss trick, and this worked perfectly because it's a shape I already associate with free-fall and with holding no matter what. I floated for a few seconds, decided I wasn't freaking out, and bent into a pike which started me slowly tumbling. That's all I did my first time, I think. Each pass was only 30 seconds, so it wasn't long until "feet down, coming out!" which was our signal to put feet or our whole selves near the floor.
We kept going like that, heavy and floaty. I tried tumbling around in a straddle pike. The three of us tried holding onto each others' feet and tumbling around in a molecule shape (which took two tries, and shrinking the molecule). They kept telling us which parabola we were on: "Zero five, and feeling alive!" I pushed against my friend's hand to spin both of us away from each other. I took the rubber band out of my hair to let it float free, and floated around in front of a GoPro in hopes that it would get footage. I tried pushing off the floor in a backbend, and rising to the ceiling like an angel or something, then scrambling around and around the circumference of the plane with my hands (that one was fun). The feeling was simultaneously like nothing else on earth, and like falling, and strangely natural, but not like swimming. One time the photographer had us all line up against the floor, then do a superman glide all together, toward the camera... I rose toward the ceiling and will be prominent in that picture/video, looking like a total dork. :-)
We were in the middle section. Halfway through or so, I looked back past the next section toward the seats and there were indeed a couple of seated people breathing into their vomit bags. One of them started puking rhythmically and I was glad to not be in the section adjacent to that, because I never smelled the puke and was able to stay pretty disconnected from all that. The coaches / herders / staff seemed to do a good job finding, talking to and removing the folks who felt bad, without disturbing those of us who were tumbling around like happy monkeys in our dorkalicious flight suits. And near parabola 11 or so, one of our party also felt a little sick and reverted to more peaceful floating. As for me, I was fine to the end. I may have packed in one final flip on the last "feet down, coming out!" and landed a bit crunchily, but was no worse for wear beyond a slight headache and needing to pee. We got twelve parabolas in all, I guess a little short but we had done the things that needed doing.
They let us sit peacefully around on the padded floor, in 1G, for a while, and brought around snacks and water, and I did a handstand (briefly -- got busted) and taught my friend how to do an elbow lever. We took pictures of other people with the logo behind them. Then it was back to the seats for half an hour or so of boring no-bathroom-available flight back to the airport. I noticed a definite contingent of unhappy-looking people, including one who'd reminded me of an older Lion earlier and who, unnervingly, cried all the way back with his forehead in his hands. Maybe the whole thing triggered a migraine? I felt pretty bad for him.
They got us off the plane rather ceremonially, one at a time with the photographer doing his thing. Then, after the reverse of all the shuttles and busses, we found a lunch of actual savory food waiting for us -- it was then 2:00, and you might remember the "no protein" aspect of the breakfast, so I was pretty hungry. A sandwich with about five kinds of meat, and some pasta, and salad, and more coffee did me a lot of good. Somewhere in here we realized nobody was asking for our flight suits back, which rather neatly solved my problem of what to do for Halloween at the office. And we noticed two people laid out flat on the floor: the migraine guy and one other. They gave us funny certificates of participation (which note, correctly, that I have "communed with floating objects" and levitated). And we un-suited and took off for the long drive back to Boston.
I think it was really, really helpful to have all the acro experience. The feeling of lightness is in fact the same as the feeling at the top of a toss or a jump, and I seldom got disoriented.
Nor did I flail. I look forward to the photos and videos in a few days -- the photographer may never have gotten me in a shot by myself, but surely there'll be some evidence. Words don't really do justice to the floatiness the way pictures will.
rye and one of our fellow Zillian/circus crossover comrades (who drove all the way down and back. I'm forever grateful.) It was a bit of a production, which I guess one expects for that kind of splash-out. We all held out for their doctor-approved anti-nausea breakfast, which turned out to simply be "no protein, low dairy" -- fruit and croissants and mini-bagels, but also almond milk for my coffee, which worked out great for me. I mildly regretted the second cup of coffee later on, but not at the time.
They had personalized tote bags with our names on them, in which were properly sized flight suits and T-shirts. Everyone suited up excitedly. They showed us a half-hour video explaining things, and I haven't seen a roomful of adults quite as rapt over a mandatory training in some time... they showed how the plane is laid out, and explained how we'd do about 15 parabolic passes. First one with light gravity (Martian, 1/3 G) and then lighter for two parabolas (Lunar, 1/6 G) and then a bunch of zero-G ones. The plane has 36 seats in the back, and then three padded, color-coded areas between there and the cockpit where we'd spend the interesting part of the flight. Oh, and we had an ex-astronaut with us on our flight: this one, to be specific! He's a 65-year-old businessman now, and flies on Zero-G every now and then just to feel that space feeling again. :D
We left most of our stuff behind, except things we could zip into pockets, and the boring part commenced: busses, shuttles, mini airport security with a metal detector. We took selfies with the plane behind us and got on, and they were required to make sure we buckled up for takeoff and they gave us the mandatory parts of the safety talk. Then they took our shoes away from us and we all put on color-coded socks indicating our group (which also indicated where in the plane we were supposed to float around). Blue socks for us. Then after some time, they brought us out to the color-coded areas and had us lie flat on the floor to prepare for 1.8G.
It wasn't a big deal. We got heavier, like you do in certain fast-spinning amusement rides but without the feeling of sideways motion. We were allowed to lift our arms and legs to let them drop heavily, and of course I tried a straddle stretch, which felt nice. Then whoa, we got lighter. Light, so light on Mars. We had been encouraged to do push-ups here but we did full front planches instead. Then I remembered hey, I'm supposed to be doing a press handstand! Instructively, even in the low gravity I pushed myself backward, until I bent my arms and just rolled forward and did a full handstand pushup (which was easy). I went over into the yellow area, oops, and was ushered back just as we were told to prepare for heavy gravity again. I would have liked to do pushups with a 360 twist, like someone in the training video had, but the press was worth that small sacrifice.
Next was lunar gravity, which FELT like zero-g at the time. Imagine being so light that you are having trouble keeping contact with the ground. I did a very gentle back tuck here, low because the plane ceiling was low, and I think it felt very normal except slow and dreamy. I wanted more time but it ended, and on the 2nd lunar pass I did an agreed-upon three-person trick with my compatriots (two of us held full front levers hanging from the outstretched arms of the third. Finding this trivial, the third then jumped up and down with all that! It was ludicrously easy.)
They did two zero-G passes before giving us a short break, and OK OK, it was different than lunar. Having been told not to kick or swim, I held a "canoe" hollow-body shape as if I were flying a basket toss trick, and this worked perfectly because it's a shape I already associate with free-fall and with holding no matter what. I floated for a few seconds, decided I wasn't freaking out, and bent into a pike which started me slowly tumbling. That's all I did my first time, I think. Each pass was only 30 seconds, so it wasn't long until "feet down, coming out!" which was our signal to put feet or our whole selves near the floor.
We kept going like that, heavy and floaty. I tried tumbling around in a straddle pike. The three of us tried holding onto each others' feet and tumbling around in a molecule shape (which took two tries, and shrinking the molecule). They kept telling us which parabola we were on: "Zero five, and feeling alive!" I pushed against my friend's hand to spin both of us away from each other. I took the rubber band out of my hair to let it float free, and floated around in front of a GoPro in hopes that it would get footage. I tried pushing off the floor in a backbend, and rising to the ceiling like an angel or something, then scrambling around and around the circumference of the plane with my hands (that one was fun). The feeling was simultaneously like nothing else on earth, and like falling, and strangely natural, but not like swimming. One time the photographer had us all line up against the floor, then do a superman glide all together, toward the camera... I rose toward the ceiling and will be prominent in that picture/video, looking like a total dork. :-)
We were in the middle section. Halfway through or so, I looked back past the next section toward the seats and there were indeed a couple of seated people breathing into their vomit bags. One of them started puking rhythmically and I was glad to not be in the section adjacent to that, because I never smelled the puke and was able to stay pretty disconnected from all that. The coaches / herders / staff seemed to do a good job finding, talking to and removing the folks who felt bad, without disturbing those of us who were tumbling around like happy monkeys in our dorkalicious flight suits. And near parabola 11 or so, one of our party also felt a little sick and reverted to more peaceful floating. As for me, I was fine to the end. I may have packed in one final flip on the last "feet down, coming out!" and landed a bit crunchily, but was no worse for wear beyond a slight headache and needing to pee. We got twelve parabolas in all, I guess a little short but we had done the things that needed doing.
They let us sit peacefully around on the padded floor, in 1G, for a while, and brought around snacks and water, and I did a handstand (briefly -- got busted) and taught my friend how to do an elbow lever. We took pictures of other people with the logo behind them. Then it was back to the seats for half an hour or so of boring no-bathroom-available flight back to the airport. I noticed a definite contingent of unhappy-looking people, including one who'd reminded me of an older Lion earlier and who, unnervingly, cried all the way back with his forehead in his hands. Maybe the whole thing triggered a migraine? I felt pretty bad for him.
They got us off the plane rather ceremonially, one at a time with the photographer doing his thing. Then, after the reverse of all the shuttles and busses, we found a lunch of actual savory food waiting for us -- it was then 2:00, and you might remember the "no protein" aspect of the breakfast, so I was pretty hungry. A sandwich with about five kinds of meat, and some pasta, and salad, and more coffee did me a lot of good. Somewhere in here we realized nobody was asking for our flight suits back, which rather neatly solved my problem of what to do for Halloween at the office. And we noticed two people laid out flat on the floor: the migraine guy and one other. They gave us funny certificates of participation (which note, correctly, that I have "communed with floating objects" and levitated). And we un-suited and took off for the long drive back to Boston.
I think it was really, really helpful to have all the acro experience. The feeling of lightness is in fact the same as the feeling at the top of a toss or a jump, and I seldom got disoriented.
Nor did I flail. I look forward to the photos and videos in a few days -- the photographer may never have gotten me in a shot by myself, but surely there'll be some evidence. Words don't really do justice to the floatiness the way pictures will.
