Birdman Instructor Program

When BIRDMAN made the first commercially available wingsuit in 1999, skyflying (or wingsuit flying) was in effect a non-existing discipline. Knowing its true potential, I also knew that wingsuits must not claim another life (Patrick had died a year before), or this yet to be born discipline would be banned – and it would die before it ever had a chance to begin.

A bit of history

In order to prevent serious accidents, and to share the knowledge of how to use the BIRDMAN suit and how to fly it, I created the BIRDMAN First Flight Program.

The manuscript was seven pages long and it covered everything from equipment and flight planning to flight and deployment. Of course the program has since evolved quite a bit, but all the basic principles for the safe flight were there from the start. Now these same principles are accepted and recommended world wide.

Indeed, the BIRDMAN First Flight Program has been extremely successful – we have never experienced a student fatality, nor has any birdman or -woman trained by the program been reported a fatality. As a result, not only has the BIRDMAN First Flight Program been adopted by many national organizations as a guideline for the wingsuit safety, it is also copied and distributed by other wingsuit manufacturers alike.

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Being the only person in the world teaching skydivers how to fly was fun. But as soon as the popularity of wingsuits increased, it became apparent that other instructors were needed for teaching as well. The answer to that problem was to create a standardized program for teaching the first flight course.

Being an AFF Instructor myself, it was only logical for me to take the USPA AFF Instructor course and develop it to suit our needs. For the BMI course to follow the same strict AFF course guidelines was also handy, since it created familiar grounds for the BMI candidates who were almost all AFF Instructors.

After the step-by-step program was created, the next thing was to set a minimum experience level for entering the course. The level was set to 500 regular skydives and 100 wingsuit flights minimum, while other instructional experience was a plus. As it turned out to be, only a handful of people were able to fulfill those specs.

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The early days of the BMI program played a big part in how the skyflying developed. I’d like to tribute a BIG THANKS to Kim Griffin aka BirdBabe nr one; Chuck Blue aka SkyMonkeyone, Don Yahrling, Lyle Presse, Vesa Toropainen and Vladi Pesa, who all contributed their knowledge from years of skydiving instructing (AFF, tandem, coaching), and with whom I had an opportunity to work together and learn from.

There are many others who have continued our work with us and helped the BMI program to become even more. BMCI’s: Chuck Blue, Rolf Brombach, Scott Campos, Greg Cox, Neil Fergie, Kimberly Griffin, Mark Harris, Tero Paukku, Ed Pawlowski, Bo Wienberg, Dunkan Wright, Christian Stadler and over 100 BIRDMAN INSTRUCTORS from all over the world, plus all of you whose name I did not mention here, but crossed our path throughout the years and helped us – to become more.

Thank you.

Helsinki 6.12.2006
Jari Kuosma
BIRDMAN CEO, Chief Instructor # 1

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The Course

Are you interested in becoming a BMI?

You can request BIRDMAN, Inc./Oy and one of our regional BMCI’s to come to your DZ and conduct a BMI course for you. The course lasts from two to four days, depending on the size of the course and weather.

The course consists of theory, practice, and evaluations. The BMI candidates’ teaching and instructional skills will be evaluated both on the ground and in the air. Both evaluations must be passed as satisfactory in order to earn a BMI rating.

What does a BMI rating mean?

The individual experienced skydiver who passes the course, becomes a BIRDMAN Instructor (BMI), thus receiving our recommendation to teach and coach experienced skydivers to fly BIRDMAN wingsuits.

A skydiver with a BMI rating possesses the necessary skills and information:

• To teach a BIRDMAN First Flight Course
• To identify to whom the BMI can give training to.
• To teach and make a positive changes in their students’ wanted behavior.
• To determine what equipment the BMI can train his/her students with.
• To teach wingsuit flight to experienced skydivers (BIRDMAN Recommendation: 200+ jumps).
• The BMI rating also gives the BMI a right to demo BIRDMAN wingsuits.
• BMI’s are also entitled to our 20% discount off all personal wingsuits.

Requirements

There must be a minimum of three candidates for the course. The minimum requirements for the candidates are: 18 – years of age, a valid national or international D license or equivalent,  500 skydives, 100 wingsuit jumps, previous instructional experience.

The candidate should study the BM Flight Manual, The BM Instructor Course Manual, as well as the BIRDMAN Instructors Check List and know all the TLO’s (Targeted Learning Objectives) that he/she will be evaluated by. The evaluation is either pass or fail, with multiple evaluations possible, time permitting.

Equipment: The candidate must have his/her own skydiving gear and wingsuit(s) that are used during the course and evaluation.

Course fee: 250,00 €/person plus all evaluation jumps. The candidate must cover the jump expenses for both the candidate and the evaluator. Additionally, the course director’s travel and accommodation expenses are to be paid if applicable.

Please contact Mark Harris (mark at bird-man . com) or Jari  (jari at bird-man . com) for more info.