Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime? Endless fun awaits you at the coolest adventure park in Springfield: Flight! This new themed adventure park has just opened its doors for you to enjoy. All indoors, it’s packed with fun activities and we even offer a special Junior Pilots Zone for the little ones!
Among the many new attractions offered in Springfield are zip lining through the cargo bay of a space shuttle, riding a rocket through takeoff, bailing out of an aircraft into a giant airbag and descending the evacuation slide of an aircraft.
Have a birthday coming up?
All the birthday party rooms have also been reimagined with aircraft, spacecraft, helicopters and hot air balloons, along with STEAM-related facts to interest young minds. One of the best things about having a party at Flight is that everything is taken care of for you, the parents, so you can enjoy your child’s special day. Your birthday kid will even receive a Golden Ticket which allows them to jump for free for 30 consecutive days!
Two of the most popular programs at Flight are back – Kids Flight and Flight Fit.
Kids Flight is for those 6 years of age and younger and they get the ENTIRE park to themselves! Offered on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., they let your little one experience the park without all the big kids running past them. If you haven’t tried Flight Fit, you need to! It’s a great cardio workout that is loads of fun and different every time. This is offered at 9 a.m. every Saturday morning.
A new program that Flight is featuring is Flight Night!
The lights go out, the glow in the dark lights come on and the music pumps all while you are flying high on the attractions and having a blast. Can you think of a better way to spend a Friday and Saturday night? And the whole family can join in on the fun, all ages are welcome!
Flight is far more than just an adventure park, with over 25,000 square feet of fun. There is something for everyone!
“This is an incredibly exciting time for FLIGHT – this retrofit is more than just about a facelift, it’s a completely new strategy which we’re finally seeing come to fruition after years of hard work and planning,” says Steven L. Yeffa, CEO of FLIGHT and chairman of the International Adventure and Trampoline Parks Association (IATP). “Springfield is a first for us and will serve as a blueprint for how FLIGHT will be deploying retrofit operations across our entire network of parks. We’re believers in the fascination and imagination that’s inherent in all aspects of aviation, and we put that front and center as we reimagined the entire spectrum of the guest experiences provided at our adventure parks. We’re eager to begin work on our additional locations later this year.”
In attendance at Flight Adventure Park Springfield’s grand opening in late August 2022 were two distinguished guests: Capt. Tammie Jo Shults and retired astronaut Robert “Hoot” Gibson, also a part of Flight’s Advisory Council and there to celebrate the occasion.
Shults possessed an early interest in flying, but she faced various obstacles on her path to becoming a military pilot. Applying her lifelong trait of perseverance, she eventually became one of the first female F/A-18 Hornet pilots in the U.S. Navy. Her duties, before women were allowed into combat roles, encompassed teaching Out-of-Control Flight as well as serving as a bogey/bandit against TOPGUN students as well as other squadrons, ships or entire carrier groups.
After concluding her Navy career, Shults flew over forest fires one summer then became a pilot for Southwest Airlines. Her incredible history and talent received wide acclaim on April 17, 2018, when she successfully landed a Southwest Boeing 737 after an engine exploded at high altitude, causing multiple system failures and a rapid depressurization. The successful landing of Flight 1380 in Philadelphia saved 148 lives including passengers and crew, as detailed in her national bestselling book, “Nerves of Steel: How I Followed My Dreams, Earned My Wings, and Faced My Greatest Challenge.”
“This is a new day in aviation where the opportunities available match the adventure that’s always been a part of aviation,” says Shults. “Flight Adventure Park is part of the spark that will start this conversation from the dinner table to classrooms and recess. Amelia Earhart once said that adventure is worthwhile, and I can say that Flight Adventure Park is one of those adventures.”
NASA selected Gibson for astronaut training in 1978.
On his first flight, aboard Challenger in 1984, he was pilot on a mission in which the five-person crew properly deployed two communications satellites, but both failed to reach desired synchronous orbits because of upper stage rocket failures. The flight was the first in which astronauts tested the Manned Maneuvering Unit – with both Bruce McCandless and Robert Stewart flying untethered up to several hundred feet from the orbiter. Gibson was in command of a seven-man crew when Columbia was launched in January 1986, deploying a communications satellite and conducting experiments in astrophysics and materials processing. Later that month, the shuttle Challenger exploded after liftoff, killing its seven-person crew. Gibson participated in the investigation of the accident and contributed to the redesign of the solid fuel rocket boosters which caused the disaster.
Gibson flew the second mission after the Challenger explosion, commanding a five-person Atlantis crew on a 1988 classified military mission, during which a radar satellite was released and the astronauts performed experiments aimed at defining a human’s role as a military observer in space. Next up for Gibson was command of Endeavour, launched in 1992 with a seven-person crew, including the first Japanese astronaut. During eight days aloft, the astronauts focused on science and materials processing experiments in more than 40 investigations aboard a Spacelab module cradled in the shuttle cargo bay.
On his fifth and final space flight, Gibson in 1995 commanded Atlantis on the first shuttle mission to dock with Russia’s Mir space station.
Atlantis was modified to carry a docking system compatible with Mir’s. There was an exchange of crew members, and while the shuttle was launched with seven astronauts, it returned to earth after 10 days with eight. It was the 100th space mission for U.S. astronauts. To commemorate the event, Gibson carried with him the first American flag flown in space – by Alan Shepard on the first U.S. astronaut flight in 1961. The flag is now displayed in the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.
“I am very excited to be sharing the thrills of aviation and space from Flight Springfield,” says Gibson, “We find that the technology of flight is a great way to motivate young people for rewarding lives and careers in science.”
What are you waiting for? Get the kids and head on over to Flight Adventure Park. A day spent encouraging active play and inspiring minds is a win in our book! Visit Flight Adventure Park at 7200 Fullerton Road, Springfield, Va. 22150, FlightAdventurePark.com/Springfield
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Flight Adventure Park Springfield
