Since being introduced to wingsuiting in 2006 in a video by Espen Fadnes and Jean Luic Albert, I always wanted to be able to fly with a wingsuit. In the past decade, I trained over the summers at Skydive Twin Cities to be able to skydive and perform 200 jumps. This is required before I can perform wingsuit jumps. After completed this requirement, I have been wingsuiting for 400 jumps in the past 6+ years.

As I progressed through my wingsuiting, I watched with awe on social media how other wingsuiters were training in the new Indoor Wingsuit Tunnel that was created in Sweden in 2016. Since its inception, I have always wanted to visit the tunnel and get better at wingsuiting.

Eventually, I was able to coincide a trip to the tunnel with a trip to Scandinavia in April 2024. I purchased 300 minutes from Indoor Wingsuit Stockholm (IWS) while they were visiting Chicago Summerfest. I stayed at Mornington Bromma which is less than 5 min walk to the tunnel. After arriving in Bromma, I walked over to the tunnel and was underwhelmed by the size of the facility. Nonetheless, it did not fail to deliver!

Walking through the entrance, there is a nice waiting area where you are able to see other wingsuiters training in the tunnel. After checking in, I was given a short briefing on how the training would occur while I am there. Regardless of my experience, I would be started with a 4-point harness, then a leash, and then I can fly on my own. I was really confident that with my experience of 350 wingsuit jumps, I did not need to start from the basics, but I figured I would trust the pros. I am glad I did!

Getting into the tunnel for the first time, I realized how inexperienced I was. In the air while wingsuiting, I can be off my spot for meters and it wouldn’t be noticeable. In the tunnel, you cannot move a few inches without losing your spot. Realizing how difficult it was to keep the harness centered, I understood why they had the program in place for beginners and advanced wingsuiters alike.

After moving on from the 4-point harness, the instructor held me on a leash. This ensured that he can still have some control if I kept flying off the center and I don’t hurt myself. The training between the harness and the leash primarily involved being safe in the tunnel where a student can get seriously injured if they crash into the walls at high speed.

As I progressed in the training, they taught me how to precisely hold my position in a spot. Then further progression involved changing spots vertically and horizontally within the limited confines of the tunnel. My biggest failure during the progression was that I was unable to fly on my back no matter how hard I tried.

The key highlight of the week I spent at the tunnel was witnessing Espen Fadnes doing training and getting a chance to hang out with him and Amber Forte. As I mentioned earlier, I got interested in wingsuiting almost 20 years ago when I saw Espen’s video of him wingsuiting.

It was great to hang out with Espen and Amber and hear about their adventures in different parts of the world. Their recent trip to Pakistan involved hiking in some areas where a lot of people would not venture. This was awe inspiring for me to hear from them on how different their experience was from other tourists visiting the same area. Espen was also generous with his time and gave me some pointers on how I can get better at wingsuiting.

Overall, the trip to IWS in Stockholm was a very memorable trip. I would love to go back and continue my training progression there.

Have you been to IWS? Do you plan on going there? What has been your experience? Share in the comments.