What has happened to Bird-Man

[hjumper33 0]

As our sport takes off to heights and performance platforms unheard of just a few years ago, one must pause to ask, what the hell happened to the company that was the "kleenex" of wingsuits just a few years ago. Are they working on anything new anymore, or even still producing suits? Everyone is posting pictures of their new V3s and phantoms and tony-suits, but I cant remember the last time I saw someone post a pic of their new bird-man suit. Anyone have any updates, because the last new product i remember being released was a pair of jeans... sad.

[virgin-burner 1]

they have very nice jeans actually! and nice t-shirts. the only downturn is, for a pair of 180$ jeans, i dont expect them to be made in china.. which they really are.

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[johenrik 0]

I believe that what happened was that Robbie quit and started Phoenix-Fly. Seems like Robbie was the real brain behind the suits, and I haven't seen any suits they have made since then that I would care spend my money on.

The jeans looks cool though... :P

-Jo Henrik

[DSE 3]

Didn't the Tengu come after the jeans?

[Baxter99 0]

Do the jeans come with the cool belt? Then I might be willing to buy some.

[DSE 3]

I'm more interested in if they come with the 6pak you see in the ads...if they could make me look like that, I'd buy a pair too. Except I don't think they come in a 32 waist.

[Peej 0]

Hey now, i've got a six-pack, i just don't have the plastic thing that holds it together

Advertisio Rodriguez / Sky

[SuperGirl 0]

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I'm more interested in if they come with the 6pak you see in the ads..

perhaps they could come up with this other kind of 6-pack

[mnskydiver688 0]

I like where your head's at.

Sky Canyon Wingsuiters

[michalm21 0]

birdman is becoming (already is?) a joke of wingsuits
how ironic

[Hagen 0]

you may want so for an unknown reason but the company still produces good wingsuits. and, as far I heard, plans to develop and produce new models in the future.

if you think that they're a joke only because they don't take part in the 'armament race' in which new wingsuits are the weapon... ok, they're a joke. along with FYB, maybe. but personally I will smile not when someone is down but when I see more interesting suits on the market - be they made by BM, PF, TS or FYB.

[hjumper33 0]

This is more what I was getting at. I dont know what the r/d rate is there compared to other companies, but I was hearing V3 rumors for months and months, and havent heard anything about a new BM suit that will blow us away in quite a long time. I, as im sure many of us did, had a skyflier as my first suit and an S3 and loved them. I remember getting excited about the IMPACT tracking suit and possibilities of base specific gear, and all of that seems to have fizzled out.

[VectorBoy 0]

You know there is only like a hundred and thirty of us buying wing suits don't you? Granted some of us have bought half a dozen, or a dozen (Avery) but still.

Does that sound like enough to keep four or five wingsuit manufacturers in full production? Not unless you guys tell other skydivers that there are some cool events for wingsuits from acro-centric to big way style coming up that they can get on and have fun with more like minded wingsuit people. Its all good if you tell a friend. They won't make them if we don't buy them.

Somewhere out there is a fresh young face waiting to replace Purple Mike in all those face shots we see so often. You just got to get em in a suit and bring them with to events.

[Mikki_ZH 0]

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You know there is only like a hundred and thirty of us buying wing suits don't you? Granted some of us have bought half a dozen, or a dozen (Avery) but still.

???
I know about that many BASE Jumpers that fly WS... And I think there is one or 2 Skydivers as well flying WS.

Michi (#1068)
hsbc/gba/sba
www.swissbaseassociation.ch
www.michibase.ch

[mccordia 73]

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You know there is only like a hundred and thirty of us buying wing suits don't you?

Our mailinglist with active Dutch, Belgian and a few German wingsuit flyers already has way over a hundred people on there. And in terms of Germany, we dont even have a fraction of the active wingsuit flyers out there on that list.

I think you already pass 150 wingsuit flyers by just grouping these three countries...

There's more of us than you think..

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[jari 0]

I usually don't have any time to participate in discussion forums (which is probably one of the reason questions like these arise) but I got a hint from a friend and thought we need to give out a statement of some sort. I guess it's long overdue too.

I started BIRDMAN almost ten years ago. Since then the company has introduced 14 different wingsuits, tracking pant, hybrid track suit and jeans (clothing collection). I obviously haven't made all that myself but I have had a lot's of people working for the company that made it all possible to happen. One of them was Robert and for him I am forever grateful, no matter what happened later, but past is past.

Over the past few years we have been very much alive, growing and changing as we grow. Last year we entered a totally a new line of business with clothing line but we are still the same innovative, rebellious and adventurous skydiving company we have been. Last year (2008) we introduced two new wingsuits; an S8 and Tengu and a clothing line for skydivers. In a very small business environment that is quite enough.

It has been my habit to introduce new suits in the beginning of every single year and that was the purpose for 2009 as well but something very unfortunate happened here that took 110% of my time over the past 4 months, so, I was not able to make new suits in time. My apologies for that.

Gladly I am again getting some of my time back and also we are hiring new people that will make it possible for us to continue what we love to and have a passion to do which is to design and make new things for skydivers.

Regarding our prices for the jeans I m sorry if they are too much for some but the price over here in Europe is normal medium / high end price for jeans that are made in a very small (and rare) quantities. Keep in mind that we are a very small design house and we do not have the capacity like Levi's and make 20000 pairs a day and pay 50 cents a pair, sold at your local Walmart.

I can assure you that there will be new wingsuits, new cool clothes and other new products in the near future. I always thought it's neat to put your mind into new projects and make them happen, especially projects that others haven't made before. It's probably not an easy way to do things but it works when you are a bit hyperactive like me :-)

Blue ones,

Jari

[DSE 3]

Jari,
Thanks for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to drop in. Make more a habit of it, will ya?

[VectorBoy 0]

Actually I know there is more than 130..... I think once again you missed a snipet of humor. Proper humor is so rare in this forum.

[mccordia 73]

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Actually I know there is more than 130..... I think once again you missed a snipet of humor. Proper humor is so rare in this forum.

Sorrrry..
Non native speaker ey...lets see you do this stuff in Dutch

I do think there is a lot more subtle humor in some of the posts on this forum than you think
And I also know there is a lot of humor in posts by certain people which werent orginaly ment as humor....which makes them even funnier..

But you dont know what you dont know ey..

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[jari 0]

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Jari,
Thanks for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to drop in. Make more a habit of it, will ya?

I guess an old dog must learn some new tricks.. javascript:%20addTag(';)')

[BenediktDE 2]

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I guess an old dog must learn some new tricks.. javascript:%20addTag(';)')

Eeeerm... Yes!

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

[Helmut 0]

Robbi left. Enough said.