Now I can check off another item on my “Big List”….Zero G experience.

I have to say it was very cool – but really different than what I expected. I just got back from Florida from my final Millionaire MasterMind group meeting. The last meeting of the year I told everyone we’d go on an optional adventure travel trip. Well, I’m proud to say we had about 12 guys on board the flight from members of our group and some of my Internet buddies like Rich Schefren, Tom Bell and Mike Filsaime.

Frankly, the experience is really more peaceful and euphoric then wild and crazy. Though, it is called the “vomit comet” for a reason…and I’ll tell you about that in a moment.

Here’s Millionaire MasterMind member, Jon Tuttle, giving his best HURLING impression!

The night before I heeded the advice of the GoZeroG.com website and didn’t get wild. I barely went out which is pretty tough since we were staying at the Hard Rock in Hollywood, FL and they have a huge outdoor bar/restaurant area. I was a good little boy and went to bed by 12 and only had about 2 or 3 drinks. Some of our MasterMind members will down there for a good 2 or 3 AM strong finish!

Early the next morning we get down to the training room and get fitted for flight suits. We all wear our name badges upside down which was a NASA tradition they told us until your first flight.

We spent about 45 minutes of classroom time getting prepared for the flight and having an explanation of how Parabolic flight works.

The gang hoping there won’t be a pop quiz

Essentially you are up between 24,000 and 34,000 feet or so and the plane keeps doing up & down arcs. So when the plane’s nose reaches the top of the arc and points down is when you get your “zero gravity”. It lasts about 30 seconds and then you have to lay on the floor because you experience about 1.8 g’s and it pushes your whole body down. The plane can also fly parabolic arcs that less step so you get Lunar (1/6th) or Martian (1/3rd) gravity. There are only like 4 or 5 planes out there that are set-up for Zero G flights. And this is the same way they train astronauts – so that’s pretty cool! They tell us that “regular” people have only been allowed to do the Zero G flight 2 years and it took them about 10 years to get FAA approval.

Finally, we get loaded up on the van and head to a private jetport at the Ft. Lauderdale Airport. Everyone’s really excited and taking pictures in front of the plane and then we board “G-Force 1”, which is the DC Cargo plane we’re flying.

Before the 1st boarding

After everyone’s strapped in they tell us there is some sort of problem with one of the seats and we hang tight while we’re roasting in our flight suits for 30 minutes. Then we have to get off the plane because the problems turns out to be some part is defective and they have to have it couriered from Miami.

So we wait…and wait…and wait.

The flight delay is nearly 3 hours until we finally get onboard again.

Shhhhh….the little guys are all tuckered out!

By this time our original crew has to leave because they have to do another flight in NY the next morning. The cool thing is I end 2 seats away from my Yellow team’s new coach. Her name is Loretta and we get to chatting while basking in the plane again waiting for take-off. She tells me that her and her husband are one of the Founders for Virgin Galactic, which means they are one of the first 100 to go up on that flight. They had to pay $200,000/each upfront. I told her that’s on my “Big List” too. Actually I submitted my info to Virgin Galactic and told them I’m ready to deposit $20k but nobody got back to me. Well Loretta said she’d fix that and if I put up $175k I could be #164. Who knows I might go for that and then you’ll see a “Yanik Goes to Space Sale”. Or I might just wait and go the second year of flight.

Okay the moment we’ve been waiting for is finally here and we all unstrap our seatbelts and head for the front of the plane. There are 3 groups: Yellow (us), Green and Blue. I think we ended up with the best area of the plane because we were all the way upfront and could use the bulkhead to push off like Superman!

We all lay down like we were taught and you can feel the g’s pressing you down onto the floor until all of a sudden you felt free. This was the first parabolic and were doing Martian gravity (1/3 your weight) but it was still cool. You jump higher and even go for a flip – which I did and ended up jarring my back hard because I didn’t make it all the way around!

After a few of those arcs we went into Lunar gravity (1/6 your weight) – and you could even cooler things like one-fingered push-ups and more!

And then we settled in for the final arcs – which were zero gravity! It was the absolute coolest and most serene. Everybody just lit up into big smiles. It took me a few arcs to get the hang of it because they tell certain stuff but it doesn’t hit you until you apply it. For instance, in zero gravity you cannot just direct your body where you want it to go. So if you jump up – you’ll keep going up until you hit the roof the plane. In fact, you’ll keep moving in any directions you originally set off in until you hit something else.

I had a ton of fun doing flips and then stood on my head and pushed off so I could ‘land’ on the ceiling. Funny how Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling” seemed to go through my head. I really liked being able to essentially run/crawl in a circle around the cabin. I ran up the side of the plane, then crawled on the roof and grabbed one of the tow ropes and came down the other end. Pretty cool. I also tried doing the water in mid-air trick – but that didn’t quite come off too slick. They give you water bottles and it just takes a tiny squeeze for the goblet of water to float out – then you go chase it and gulp it down. Easier said than done.

Here are a couple shots of your fearless hero in action:

Dancing on the ceiling

Next stop please. Ding! Ding!

WooHoo!

I also gave flying like Superman a try. My first attempt at a Superman was a complete bust – but by the 2nd try I got the hang of it and actually pushed off from the front of the plane and cruised through the 2 other groups. I wasn’t supposed to but my yellow armband had fallen off and I guess the spotters didn’t see me torpedoing at them. I landed with the Green group and they had like 2 or 3 of our guys. After a quick forearm to the back of one of my buddy’s head – I asked him how things were here. He quickly told me to go back to my group because there was some puking going on.

Once he said that I could smell it. Ugh!

It seems that since we were 3 hours late, one of very astute info marketing friends, Ryan, couldn’t make the flight anymore because he had a conference call for his coaching members. (These guys pay him like $30k/year so he figured he’d make the wrap up call.)

Since he left there was a spot open. And a wife of one of the other fliers (not our group) who had only come along to watch decided to jump in. Bad idea. She ended puking all over the place and then the best (or worst part depending on who’s perspective) is that the video guy filming us starting hurling chunks! I’m looking forward to seeing the video since the guy was a trooper and kept the video recorder going while he stuck his head from one barf bag to the next.

We’re awaiting our DVD and hopefully I’ll figure out how to post some of it soon. For now I did upload a video to YouTube. This is my first one and it seems like the sizing is a bit off – but it will give you an idea of what it was like up there.