Birdman by Edit International

By Ron Laytner Copyright Edit International It happened 4,000 feet up over central Florida. A Cessna 150 was flying South toward Miami when the pilot felt someone was watching him from outside the cockpit. He looked sideways, gasped and cried out. A creature in a bright red and white suit was flying, arms extended, beside his plane. It was a man. He smiled and surged ahead, diving down, passing the plane and leaving its pilot with something to talk about for the rest of his lifeâ&#x20AC;Ś He had just seen the Birdman. Jari Kuosma is a 36-year-old daredevil from Finland who has broken the curse that killed eighty -seven of eighty-nine men who tried to fly through the air on wings. Kuosma is president and owner of BirdMan International, the world's first manufacturer of "wing suits", the next breathless level of skydiving. The wing suit slows the downward speed of a free falling skydiver from 120 to 35 miles an hour and lets them fly horizontally for up to 12 miles â&#x20AC;&#x201C; tripling their time in the sky - before pulling the rip cord and landing by parachute. 1

About 2,000 people have experienced the wing suit. At last report, twelve have fallen to their deaths in the US, Switzerland, Italy and China. For decades men have tried to fly by jumping out with wings from balloons or airplanes and died horribly because the muscles in their shoulders ripped from the pressure of trying to keep the wings extended. Kuosma has solved the problem. Jari grew up in Finland and wore a suit and tie and worked for a big Finnish telecommunications company. His only real interest was risk taking so he became a professional sky diver and left home to see the world and he’s never worn a tie since. “I was an instructor at the Stockholm Parachuting Club. In Venezuela I taught their special military forces near the border of Brazil.” He taught at jump schools in almost every country in the world. On one trip across the US his life changed when he first heard of the dead ‘birdmen’ who wanted to fly on wings. Before he could actually think of trying to fly Jari learned to base jump. It is the most dangerous form of parachuting in which daredevils, some call them lunatics, jump off high cliffs or buildings with just split seconds to open their parachutes. More jumpers perish base jumping than any other way and there is a long list of the dead. Jari couldn’t wait to try it. He became friends with a Croation parachute manufacturer, Robert Peschent, as they base jumped from the 2,700 foot high cliff at Monte Brento, north of Milan. “I’d been hearing about the legendary French skydiver Patrick De Graydon. He’d been jumping off this cliff just two months earlier and I wanted to meet him but he would die before we had a chance.” 2

The first men who hoped to fly designed their wings to look like those of birds and they were too big. When they leaped out some flew for a short time but they were out of control as soon as they pulled the ripcord, turning and somersaulting entangled with the wings, falling to their deaths tied up in lines. Jari said once you cannot hold the wings open they rip your shoulders. That’s what killed everyone trying to fly. Early wings were made of wood with a metal leading edge. Only one man survived by pure luck. He is 71-year-old Carl Laurin, of Florida, Jari’s American mentor and sky-diving ‘father’. Carl flew a few times using wings made of canvas which he held together using a leather strap and brute strength before he gave it up. He is the only earlier flier to survive. “I’m lucky to be alive,” he says now. Explained Jari, “Those who die are badly killed, every bone is broken. The body takes on an unnatural position and turns into sludge. It’s like running into a brick wall at over 100 miles an hour.” “It was time to think differently than all those who perished. We had to turn those first wing suits from soft nylon into something hard with the rigid body of a glider. So we made inlet vents that filled with air while we were first falling and turned ourselves into little fighter planes. For days we stood and tested our theory with weights. Anyone can hold a book straight out for a time without having to put it down but you can hold the book much longer if your arms are only partly extended in a swept back or swept wing position.

“We designed airflow and small enough wings to reduce the angle. I called our very first design the Jesus Christ suit because it looked like we were being crucified. By two and three we looked more like a bird and we had Delta backswept wings. “We didn’t want to die tangled up in the wing so we designed a rip cord in the suit which would immediately deflate the wing.” He told of his first wing suit flight. “We were going to jump and try to fly for the very first time over Florida. “I was 29 and I certainly expected to die. I gave myself a fifty-fifty chance of surviving. But I wanted to fly for all those who had tried. I kept going over in my mind all the ways to survive if the suit failed. There were three of us, myself, Robert Peschent and my then girlfriend Irana. “No others had done this and survived. The pilot said goodbye, quite reasonably wondering if he’d ever see us alive again. We jumped out and by God it went fantastically well. The three of us were flying for the first time up there in total silence.

“We went a long distance - a mile and a half - and we were gliding side to side. A normal jump is 60 seconds long and we went three minutes then opened our parachutes and came down near each other. We were excited as hell and screaming with joy. To us it was the same as walking on the moon.” Jari took what little money he had and went to Slovenia in Eastern Europe where he made wing suits using a company that made hiking clothing. “I kept testing by jumping out and flying them so people wouldn’t get killed. I made up 85 suits, packed them in a car I had borrowed, and drove across Europe to all the major drop zones.” He soon ran out of money and had to sneak into France across the border from Switzerland. “French customs agents searched my car but just saw what seemed to be a bunch of rolled up bed sheets.” When he began demonstrating flying suits the French Parachute Federation wanted Jari to stop, thinking he would be killing a lot of its members. “I showed them our training manual, gave a demonstration and paid for the jumps of as many people as I could using my Visa Card while it still worked. In one day I sold 20 suits at $600 each and I suddenly could pay my own way.” 5

Next day in England at Peterborough the Safety officer of a jump school warned Jari, ‘If you even mention these devilish contraptions I will throw you out of here.’ I said the word – ‘Wing Suit’ – and was forced to leave. “I went to another British jump site and sold more than 25 wing suits. I was selling something more addictive than the strongest drugs. Anyone who tried it was immediately hooked.” Jari said users soon found they could control their flight and pass cars going the same direction on highways far below. “There are no speed limits up in the air,” he said, using his favorite expression. ”One English guy said while we were flying. ‘This is better than sex, better than drugs – I want one!’ “As we progressed, we learned the great Patrick Graydon jumped in a wing suit he designed and flew beside a plane and then flew back into the plane. He was the greatest of sky divers, almost regarded as a God. He was my hero. “Two months before he died because of a chute opening malfunction while preparing to make a movie in Hawaii Gradydon said he believed people with just 200 jump experience would be able to fly wing suits someday and that number has become our standard. Birdman have crashed into each other. One time a plane that carried him up hit a birdman but he survived and the plane landed and had to be repaired. Jari gave him a new wing suit for free.

“He was lucky. There is no room for error,” says the Birdman. “People sometimes try to fly closely in their wing suit over the ridge of a mountain and crash into it.” Jari and his flying friends have fun all over the world. “We can play in the air and fly in formation like fighter planes. One day in Spain three of us flew eight miles from one village to a second village where we had a nice dinner.” The record flight so far was across the Straits of Gibraltar from south to north, a distance of 20.5 kilometers. It had to succeed; landing on water is not recommended. Some 5,000 to 6,000 people have experienced the wingsuit. At last report, twelve have fallen to their deaths in the US, Switzerland, Italy, and China.

He believes media coverage of sky diver deaths does not hurt his business. “The very danger is what makes people want to try it. The wing suit is extremely attractive to dare devils. “People go to car races to see drivers risk their lives at high speed and die in crashes. It’s why people all over the world go to thriller movies.” Even the Birdman himself is looking for more excitement. 7

“My dream is to jump out of a plane with only my wing suit. I want to fly and then land without a parachute. The danger is slowing down to stop my forward speed and landing alive on my feet. “We can’t carry anything with us, not even a landing gear. The wing suit will never be used by airborne commandos. There is no room for a gun. As for landing, I don’t think a skateboard is good enough. It may kill me but I will figure out a way to do it.” Jari was first interviewed at the center of skydiving and parachuting in America in Deland, Florida about 100 miles north of Miami. He was young, handsome, girls liked him and he drove an expensive silver Japanese sports car. He soon got in trouble with the local small town police department. When they stopped him for driving at high speed he told them, “There are no speed limits in the sky!” He was quickly wrestled to the ground, handcuffed, arrested and charged with speeding and reckless driving. Unwilling to face trial in the small Florida town Jari headed back to Europe and now flies above every country in the world except America where he can no longer go.

Recently we were glad to find Jari still alive and inside a Slovenian factory directing the making of Birdman flying suits. “We have 2,000 suits in the world now and I don’t expect to ever get more than 10,000 in use,” he said. “That’s why I am now going into the next project - wing suits powered by jet engines. “I have already picked out two 1.5 kilo jet engines which I will strap on my back. They’re pretty dangerous. Once running it’s hard to shut them off.” The plan is to first jump in 2007 at 9,000 feet from a high altitude balloon because we will need at least 20 seconds of freefall for the jet engines to fire up. We will inflate the suit and then turn on the engines at about 4,500 feet. Of course we are nervous of the jet engines sucking up our parachute.” If flying the first time was like landing on the moon then the jet engines will allow Jari to fly like Superman between tall buildings in all the great cities of the world except New York…”To us that will be reaching Mars.” Jari has only one more challenge. “There are more and more Birdmen but hardly any ‘BirdBabes’. Women haven’t really taken yet to this new sport.. I want to find a Bird-Babe in each country. “I am now designing suits for Bird Babes,” said Jari happily. “We have a designer making the suit more fashionable. “Only a few women have flown so far. They are very daring and always very beautiful. The danger of death while sky flying attracts the world’s most beautiful and sexiest women. “If you do something that can kill you at any time– then you will do anything for pleasure. These women want to enjoy life. Wing flying is the most exciting sport above the earth. “I am single but some day, if I live, I will marry a Bird-Babe and we will probably have some little birdlings. My first rule as a father will be that they can do whatever they want – the more dangerous, the better.” “I think I will live to be an old man. If anything happens to me I will not regret it because I have had so many thrills. Most people are stuck on the ground but I fly among the clouds.” The End By Ron Laytner Copyright 2008 Edit International

BIRDMAN RULES OF FLYING 1 Never jump if you have a bad feeling. Two of Jari's friends who had bad feelings jumped and died. 2 Never jump into a cloud - You don't know what is in the cloud or below it. 3 If you jump and your parachute won't open or you are entangled in lines and can't get free. Do not despair. Don't cry or pray. Just rejoice and laugh out loud. Remember you are doing the most enjoyable and exciting thing a person can do - for the last time!

Carl Laurin, 71, of Deland, Florida is the only living survivor of almost 100 men who tried to fly with wings after jumping out of airplanes. He lived because he had powerful arms and hands and kept his primitive canvas-covered wings together by holding a strap. "I'm lucky to be alive," he says now. Photo by Ron Laytner, Edit International

Birdman Jari Kuosmo wears a special tattoo on his right arm showing the progress to wings of Leonardo DaVinci's famous painting of a man. Photo by Nina Stromberg, BirdBabe, Copyright by Edit international.

Photo by Jussi Laine for Edit International

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