Home Gaming Experience free-fall flight with Birdly and HTC Vive

Experience free-fall flight with Birdly and HTC Vive

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Birdly

After getting over my disappointment about having to bloody well exercise, I went back to the HTC booth and asked for another shot at something. While the VR war scene was unavailable, I did try something else that wholly made up for it. Developed by Somniacs, Birdly, an HTC Vive powered flying simulator lets you take flights over a pretty damned impressive virtual Manhattan.

Birdly2

It works by having you strap on to a machine with articulating wings. It’s a full body simulator; so you lie horizontally, controlling your descent with your flappable wings. Tilt down, and you’ll head towards free-fall, while pulling up lets you ascend. Flapping – and yes, looking like an absolute dork – helps you speed up.

There’s a fan positioned in front of you, helping create the illusion, and the immersion of free flight over a city. It’s pretty convincing too, both meditative and exhilarating. It’s a weird and wonderful experience – but just like the Holodia, it doesn’t come cheap. There’s no word on just how “not cheap” it is, but we suspect the answer to that question is “very”.

I’ve always wanted to fly, and this is probably as close to realising that dream as I’ll get. Really it’s the sort of stuff that’s great for tech demoes, and perhaps entertainment venues, but I’m really struggling to come up with a good, practical reason for this to exist. It’s is pretty damned amazing though.

 

Last Updated: June 2, 2016

12 Comments

  1. Ottokie

    June 2, 2016 at 12:10

    So now you can experience that fright of a falling dream any time of the day 😛

    Reply

  2. Greylingad[He Charges!]

    June 2, 2016 at 12:12

    NEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPEEEEEEEE!! As awesome as that seems, me being 2m in length is the reason why I have a fear of heights…

    Reply

  3. Greylingad[He Charges!]

    June 2, 2016 at 12:32

    I finally know what to call this… An epileptic seizure on a bed, followed by a heart attack…

    Reply

  4. Raptor Rants

    June 2, 2016 at 12:38

    Wonder how many times you could actually jump out a plane for the real thing at the price of VR

    Reply

    • HairyEwok

      June 2, 2016 at 12:56

      I can actually give you the numbers you’ll just need to do the math…
      Tandem jump with somebody = R2400
      Doing a course so you may jump solo = R8 000-R16 000 each individual jump afterwards is R600-R1200

      Reply

  5. HairyEwok

    June 2, 2016 at 12:54

    The size of these peripherals…. at this rate you’ll need another small house to house all the equipment.

    Reply

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