BIRDMAN is the most wellknown skydiving brand and the leading wingsuit manufacturer in the world. BIRDMAN INTERNATIONAL LTD was founded in Helsinki, Finland 1999 by a professional skydiver, entrepreneur and adventurer Jari Kuosma. BIRDMAN was the first company ever to produce wingsuits for skydivers and the first company ever to start training skydivers to fly them and instructors to train them. BIRDMAN First Flight Course was introduced 1999 and the BIRDMAN Instructor Course was created the year after. Prior 1999 skyflying wingsuitflying was virtually non existent and considered a certain death if one was crazy enough to attempt it. Throughout the history mans greatest dream was always the ability to define gravity and fly but a few had actually survived the experience. Since the ancient times every known culture had legends and talked about such a men like Daedalus and Icaros in ancient Creece. The success of these flights varied from total failure to celebrated success, just like in real life. Twentieth century was the era of birdmen. As airplanes evolved people wanted to jump out from, some for saving their lives from crashing machines and some for fun. Those who did it for fun had great difficulties controlling themselves during the freefall which often resulted in death or serious injury. The answer to master the freefall was to imitate birds, those heavenly creatures who mastered flight, they had something we did not have, wings. Many brave men Carl Laurin, Tommy Boyd, Glen Sohn, Victor Andro and Leo Valentin, just to name a few built their own wings from canvas, wood, metal, bamboo, even feathers in order to fly. Those men were called the birdmen and they flew mostly to their death. Famous French skydiver, or skygod, called Patrick DeGayardon made wingsuit famous during mid 90s with his self made wingsuit that is widely considered to be the first predecessor of all the modern wingsuits. Patricks genius ramair design was effective and safe and he made numerous stunts and commercials with it before his fatal accident on one of the flights in Hawaii in April 1998. Patricks flying spirit did not die with him though and it was destined to be BIRDMAN who carried his spirit and made his prediction of the future true. One day wingsuit flying is as popular as any other skydiving discipline and skydivers with only 200 jumps will be flying them Patrick DeGayardon at ParaMag interview just before his death 1998. The beginning of the journey was not easy. We did not only have to go through the challenges of building a working wingsuit and figuring out how to fly them but we literally had to make a jump to unknown and test them. Time after time test the unknown product, sometimes giving only 50 change of success. The bigger obstacle than that was to convince people that this can be done right and you dont need to be a skygod to do it. Some countries took a strict way and made it very difficult for anybody to fly, some drop zones did not welcome us at all. Skydivers needed and still need in many places 500 jumps before being allowed to fly a wingsuit and many aerial space restrictions were introduced all over the world. However, there was no stopping us. We have brothers and sisters wearing our wings in every continent and country in the world. BIRDMAN is the leading wingsuit manufacturer and the most wellknown skydiving brand in the world. BIRDMANs MISSION: BIRDMAN is a true pioneer of human flight. We make the finest wingsuits, apparel, equipment and fashion for man to fly and we have committed ourselves to the excellence. We dare to be first and we passionately seek for new knowledge and innovation. We promote safety and education because we care and we break the rules of the conventional. Our goal and vision is long term and we seek to create our own new markets by innovation and spirit.

Address: BIRDMAN, Inc. / Oy, Pursimiehenkatu 26 C 5h Floor, Mestaritalo 00150 HELSINKI - FINLAND
Telephone: 00358 9 4281 7299
Fax: 00358 9 4281 7290
Website: http://www.bird-man.com/