PERRIS, CA, January 1st, 2003—Construction is moving ahead on the SkyVenture vertical wind tunnel at Perris Valley Skydiving in southern California, scheduled to open in the fall of 2003.
The May 3 official groundbreaking for the $2.5 million USD project was followed by intense site preparation work, which included the installation of five 30-foot-deep steel-reinforced concrete foundation piers. SkyVenture is shipping the major structural components now. The tunnel’s 100-foot-tall skeleton, topped by five 200hp electric motors, will rise in July.
The Perris tunnel is the world’s first permanent free fall simulator to be located on a drop zone, and the first SkyVenture built in the U.S. since the prototype’s 1997 debut in Orlando, Florida. It will soon be followed by tunnels in New Jersey and Colorado at an indoor motocross arena and an entertainment complex, respectively.
“Perris should also perform quite well,” says CEO Alan Metni. “Our Orlando experience proves that skydiver demand is more than enough to make a drop zone location profitable. In the first three months of 2003, we operated 24 hours a day more often than not. In March we averaged 21.9 hours a day, running for a straight week, not once but twice. There is more than two tunnels worth of business here already.”
SkyVenture tunnels became wildly popular with skydivers of all experience levels because their patented design more closely approximates true freefall than any other system currently on the market. The design is a hit with buyers because its wall-to-wall airflow removes the single biggest risk in body flight – the danger that a person might fall off the column of air.
“We didn’t patent wind tunnels per se,” says Metni, “we just worked hard to create a better, safer, more efficient wind tunnel design and patented that. My partner, Bill Kitchen, invented the wall-to-wall airflow that makes SkyVenture so safe and the multiple overhead fan system that makes it so smooth. Both features together make the tunnel hyper-efficient. In fact, our current designs require less than half the electricity to do the same job as first generation wind tunnels.”
As a result, SkyVenture is poised for major expansion worldwide. Its first production tunnel opened in Malaysia in 2001, and a second tunnel in the United Arab Emirates starts up in the next few months. Contracts have also been signed and non-refundable deposits taken for another eight tunnels in the US and around the world.
“We’ve grown up as a company,” Metni said. “We’re not just a bunch of skydivers with a tunnel in Orlando. We have sold 10 wind tunnels, 8 of them in the last year. Our product line includes 12 different models of various speeds, sizes and types. We have been issued two U.S. Patents, more than a dozen international patents, and have dozens of inventions at various stages in the process.”
SkyVenture’s product development team includes three wind tunnel experts (two of them former NASA engineers and one a professor of Wind Tunnel design), seven engineers, an acoustics specialist, and a host of consultants working in six different states. While current designs are protected by a $1 million patent infringement insurance policy, Metni says the company’s long-term success depends entirely on its “culture of excellence.”
“We’ve already spent enormous resources developing these designs,” Metni said, “and we’ll spend another $1.6 Million on R&D in 2003. Or to put it another way: We’re never satisfied no matter how far we are ahead of the pack.”
Contact:
SkyVenture: Trevor Thompson, 512.674.9200, Trevor@skyventure.com
Potential Franchisees: info@iFLYfranchising.com
Interested Investors: InvestorRelations@skyventure.com