iFly Indoor Skydiving (Penrith Panthers)

The building

The iFly Indoor Skydiving facility constructed immediately adjacent to the Penrith Panthers Leagues Club is Australia’s first vertical wind tunnel and indoor skydiving facility. The building is intended to be a training centre for the military, professional groups and the general thrill seeking public. This unique structure contains two (2) large air plenums (i.e. upper & lower) which are connected via two (2) vertical return air tunnels and a central air riser, containing the flight chamber. Four (4) fixed-pitch axial fans are located in the upper plenum and provide continuous high velocity streams of air which are channelled through the central flight chamber. An observation deck allows occupants to watch flyers whilst in the flight chamber.

The approach

The building is essentially a flight chamber and is relatively unique in structure, occupancy and use. The prescriptive provisions of the building code does not accommodate the specific requirements for an indoor skydiving centre. Therefore, the fire safety engineering analysis and report was produced purely on a risk basis addressing the building, its function and use on its exclusive merit. The prescriptive provisions were deemed to be more appropriate for mainstream public/entertainment complexes hence the necessity to produce a performance based risk assessment to address a range of construction and egress provisions.

Location Penrith, News South Wales, Australia
Completion 2014