Legends of the Free-Fall: The First Contact
- originalbirdman
- 15 hours ago
- 7 min read
Epilogue
Self-Discipline is the sacred war-art of the creator within: through unwavering commitment, ruthless structure, and singular focus, the warrior alchemist transmutes the formless potential of the cosmos into lived, breathing, conquering reality.
How does it feel to do something extraordinary for the first (known) time in history? What does one think and what is his mindset before his peak experience? What does it take to break the norm? Why does society try to stop them? What does it take to stand against the cult? Who are you to question accepted reality? What makes you so special that you think you can do the impossible? Is my life wasted if I die trying to live to my fullest potential?
All those questions raised my vibes both before and after the feat had happened. In fact, it's been now, April 20th 2026, exactly 24 years (or 8766 days) since I made the first controlled contact (in our case, a controlled grip) in free-fall with a skydiver under a fully open parachute, in the history of aviation and I still entertain those questions. Yeah, I know what you are thinking; ”What the hell is he talking ’bout? - ”Whu' fo' you jump out of dem planes?"
So here it is as I remember it, but little background first.
It was A.D. 2002 and there was a paradigm change in skydiving. In less than three years wing-suit's transformed from notorious and forbidden death traps into cooler than cool superhero costumes that occupied a huge extra space from existing paradigm and status-quo. A skydiver was no longer in just fallen state like Icarus after his encounter with the Sun but he had grown the wings back from ashes and was flying again further and faster than angels could dream of. Where skydivers were falling straight down at 220 kmh we BIRDMEN were flying 330 kmh forward and covering 10 km distance. You can imagine the extra headache, envy and doubts of those who didn’t want things to change!
Before BIRDMAN® about 92% of them batmen didn't make it according to some statistics. Thus, ie., in Finland (my native country where I tested many of the 1st suits and where I registered BirdMan International Ltd. 1999) wing suits had been made illegal to use. In Holland I had to register my wing-suit as an airplane or equivalent. In UK I was thrown out from a DZ for mentioning a word ”wing-suit”. Pilots feared us, normie skydivers didn’t want us anywhere near them and DZ owners wanted to make sure we didn’t take any extra room nor time in air-craft. But the resistance was futile. I came, I flew and I made an impression. I was the BirdMan Chief Instructor # 001 in the world I made the deals with them after demonstrating we had it all under control. The rest is history.
At this same time, parachutes were getting smaller and smaller as their performance due to technological innovations and pilots skills increased exponentially. Luigi Cani from Brazil landed a 39 sqf Icarus parachute (normie parachutes are still approximately 5-10 times bigger) and we regularly jumped with parachutes that confused AAD’s (Automatic Activation Device, which was supposed to detect our descent speed and activate a reserve parachute if one was going too fast too low) ”brain chip” / software. You see, it was possible to be under open parachute and fly downwards as fast and faster as birdman in free fall. I personally jumped parachutes between 77 sqf - 82,5 sqf (7,15 m2 - 7,66 m2) which were capable of speeds faster than my normal descent rate while flying my wingsuit.
The idea .
The real man wants two things; Danger and Play. - Nietzsche
Good old Friedrich was right. Man has a competitive and playful nature. Not only we wanted to fly further and faster than before but but also slower and with continuous accuracy! Man is a social animal and free-fall can be lonely thing to experience alone so skydivers have always wanted to be able to meet, link up and play with each other during the free fall. Many consider linking up multiple times to be the best part of the dive. To be able to meet in mid air while falling 220 kmh is difficult and dangerous but quite possible after professional training due to relativity of speed. An open parachute interferes with free-fall speed dramatically which means skydiver in free-fall and skydiver under open parachute should never ever meet, or else! Well, hitting a wall in mid air is no softer than hitting a wall on the ground, a sudden stop from 220 kmh is nasty business.
Back in those days the performance of the wingsuit was not as good as it is now but I was getting around 2:1 glide ratio and velocity that puts F1 to shame. In theory, this meant that I should be able to reduce my speed to zero (momentarily of course) or even gain a bit of altitude! It’s all relative to the ground, the final frontier, of course.
Ok, it’s time to bring in my then housemate Vladi Pesa, a Belgian professional skydiver, BASE jumper ”brother” (from a different mother) and test pilot for Performance Designs Inc, a parachute manufacturer from DeLand, FL.
We shared many things with Vlad. Love for great food and wine, high quality adrenaline and vivid imagination that manifested us those times together trying to do what no men had done before. Our idea was simple enough, Vlad would jump his PD Velocity 84 high performance parachute and I would catch him in midair flying my BIRDMAN® Skyflyer™️ S.3 wingsuit. The problem was not only whether it was possible, but if not done right, it could and would be fatal for one or both of us. Due to the speed difference I could hit Vladi with deadly force, or I could get mixed up with his parachute lines while approaching and sliding besides just a whisker away.. or any other number of unknown unknowns that could kill us, of which we didn’t know of just yet. But that’s quite normal bizz in all extreme sports that were familiar with so we decided to give it a go if we get a go from the DZ (Drop Zone) owner Bob Hallet and his pilots.
It’s a team sport
.. after all, we were not only playing together, we had to involve the whole DZ operation, expensive planes, willing pilots and personnel in the air and on the ground. We had equipment sponsors and a fanbase of at least a handful of faithfuls that supported us. Well, Bob was (R.I.P.) a real deal and gave us his full support as did everybody else at Skydive DeLand. I am forever thankful for them all.
That winter we had several attempts. We were often so close but oh so far. Sometimes we didn't even see each other after exiting the plane until after landing. Our speeds and trajectories in constantly changing hostile environment were just too different. We were always challenged by changing weather conditions, wind, temperature and visibility, different pilots and a very steep learning curve without any guarantees it was a right one. But we did learn with every jump and every mistake. To succeed one must be first willing to make mistakes and learn from them. After you have made all the mistakes, taken all the wrong turns in the maze and survived them, you know you are the master. Just don't add up too many fatal mistakes, thats the only rule really.
Our success depended on two crucial things. Vlad & I. Firstly, Vladi’s idea to use trimmed front risers for steeper glide under his Ve-84 and secondly my idea to approach Vlad from above while transitioning my forward speed to lift instead of catching him up from behind. Another important factor was to load Vladi’s Ve-84 as heavily as possible and to make my BMSFS3 as light as possible. To meet in mid-air was a union of Yin and Yang. Those were the winning aces for us.
The day we never forget!
We were successful finally on the 18th attempt and to prove the point, that it was no luck, we did it again on next one, the 19th jump. The rumours of us succeeding spread like wildfire and gave birth to all kinds of wild speculation but both jumps were filmed, 1st by Todd Sutherland and 2nd by Norman Kent, proof recorded. We have a little bit of different idea of the date. In Vlad's reality bubble we did it on Thursday the 17th and in my perfect universe we did it on Saturday, April 20th 2002, during the 420 boogie. Timestamps on the pictures and video prove Mandela effect is real and I’m very happy to be a time traveller on this timeline. Future proves past as they say.
Those were also our last such jumps together. We had proven we can do it and I suppose we didn't really know where to go with it anymore. After all, it’s just play. As often with us pioneers, after we do what we are first set to do, we fast lose interest for repetition as we are already eyeing for the next impossible to quench our ever hungry imagination.
Epilogue
Our parachute-wingsuit docks were not the last in history as we inspired generations of skydivers to follow. The stunt has become a sport and is called XRW. A novice skydiver can now buy special equipment and hire professional coaching to do XRW. Internet & media is full of videos, commercials & even movies of all kinds of different variations mimicking the stunt with hundreds of millions of views and often sponsored by bluechip companies who use footage to sell products for billions. Wingsuit flying is now accepted and legal sport .
Purple Skies!
Jari M. H. Kuosma
The original BIRDMAN®
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