Love at First Flight
The year was 1993. A young American entrepreneur was in Moscow,
recruiting computer programmers for his new software company when
a guy named Andrey offered him a flight in
a MiG-29. It was a case of "love at first flight". He signed a deal
to market the flights worldwide, returned home to Florida and founded MIGS etc.
After renting an office and hiring staff, an ad was placed in The
Wall Street Journal, introducing the world to high-performance
flying holidays. Then he rushed back to Moscow to take another flight
in a MiG, becoming the first of many jet flight addicts.
Fly a MiG-29 at Mach 2.3 in Moscow. Yes, Really!
Media interest in the new company was high from day one. The cold
war was over but travel to Russia to fly a MiG was, and remains,
a lifetime thrill that many people dream about.
When the kicks just keep getting harder to find, why not climb into the cockpit of your very own major-league Russian jet fighter and take that baby up for a spin, or a roll, or whatever it is supersonic pilot types like to do when they have a little time on their hands.
~ Rick Horowitz, Chicago Tribune
For
the first time ever, you could pull out your credit card and buy
a flight in a high-performance military jet. Many thought the first
ad was a joke. (Obviously they didn't know how expensive it is to
place an ad in The Wall Street Journal.) Our very first client
to fly was a female investment banker from New York, followed closely
by a furniture dealer from Miami. Their history-making flights were
featured in an NBC story by Tom Brokaw. The Chicago
Tribune ran this article in 1993.
Soon, Customers and News Crews Were Arriving from All Over the
World
I remember one of our early customers, a
guy from Switzerland, accused us of trying to kill him. He didn't
realize fighter jets are made to fly low and fast and everything
he did in the jet was perfectly safe and routine. I guess we didn't
do a very good job or preparing him for the incredible thrill
of flying in a MiG.
~ Jane Reifert, one of the company's original
employees
News
of what was going on at Zhukovsky Air Base soon reached officials
at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. MIGS et.c was asked
to help find customers for their IL-76 zero-gravity flights. The
company's first weightless flight took place in February 1994 with
a CNN reporter on board.
Feeling the "etc" in MIGS etc. just couldn't hold all the new adventures added over the years, the company was rechristened Incredible Adventures, Inc. in 1996. When the company was acquired by long-time employees in 2015, the company’s legal name changed again, to “IA Worldwide, Inc.” What hasn’t changed in the last 25+ years is the dedication to delivering one-of-a-kind adventure activities.
Today, Incredible Adventures (or “IA” for short) offers fighter jet flights in six countries, space adventures at Star City, four different great white shark dives, military adventures around the world, and much, much more. The company maintains a full-time staff in Sarasota and Moscow and a worldwide network of really incredible people ready to help fulfill your adventure dreams. |