Jerry Bird | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 6, 1943 |
Jerry Bird (born March 6, 1943) is an American skydiver involved in the evolution of formation skydiving since the 1960s. A member of four U.S. National Champion teams and four World Champion or World Cup skydiving teams, [1] Bird has been described as the "Father of Modern Day Skydiving". [2]
Bird participated in the first documented 10-man star formation in 1967, [3] and led skydiving teams that were instrumental in advancing formation skydiving techniques. [4] He captained the United States Freefall Exhibition Team (USFET), [5] which demonstrated formation skydiving at the 1970 World Parachuting Championships, leading to formation skydiving becoming a recognized competition discipline. [6] Thirty-two years after the 10-man formation, Bird was part of a world record 282-person formation in Thailand in 1999. [7] By 2001, he had completed more than 12,000 jumps. [8]
The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) awarded Bird the Leonardo da Vinci Parachuting Diploma in 1983. [9] He was inducted into the International Skydiving Museum Hall of Fame in 2010. [10]
Bird was born on March 6, 1943, in Ellijay, Georgia, to Carolyn Blanche Woodward and John Marion Bird. [11] He was the fourth of six children. When he was three years old, his family moved to Weirton, West Virginia, [12] where he grew up and attended Wierton High School. [11] He then enrolled at West Virginia University, where he studied electrical engineering. [13] Bird moved to Southern California in 1963, making his first sport parachute jump after meeting a woman at a bar and asking her out on a date. She told him that she was busy skydiving on that day, but he convinced her that he would join her. He made his first jump at the Lancaster drop zone northeast of Los Angeles under the tutelage of Brian Williams (SCR-8). [12] [14] [13]
Bird was drafted into the army in 1963. He first studied Russian at the Army Defense Language Institute [15] at Fort Ord, Monterey, California. He then attended the Airborne Jump School at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1965. [13] [12] Bird was assigned to the 10th Special Forces Group Green Berets at Flint Kaserne, Bad Tölz, Germany. [13] [12] He later worked as a computer operator in the 1970s at Security Pacific Optimisation Services in southern California. [13] He moved to Englewood, Colorado, [11] before settling in Tampa, Florida, where he worked as chief parachuting instructor at Zephyrhills Parachute Centre (which hosted the 1981 World Parachute Championships) [15] and later the Phoenix Parachute Center. [16] In late 1990, he became co-founder and manager of the Skydive City Zephyrhills drop zone. [17] Under his management, Skydive City typically flew ten plane-loads of skydivers daily, with up to 700 a day jumping over Zephyrhills. [17] "The Bird House", [a] Skydive City's bar, skydiving museum, and community gathering place, was named in his honor. [19]
Formation skydiving first developed as a parachuting discipline in the late 1950s when parachutists in freefall began to deliberately maneuver toward each other and sometimes pass a wooden baton (a feat first recorded in 1958). Over time, larger groups engaged in baton passing, and on May 16, 1966, Bird participated in the first 10-man baton pass, over Arvin, California. [20] [12]
The creation of linked formations quickly followed, and on July 2, 1967, Bird participated in the first world record formation, a 10-man star over Taft, California, [3] [20] [21] a milestone achievement in what was then called "relative work" (now known as formation skydiving). Bird has been described as a "pioneer" [15] and "major innovator" [22] in relative work. The following year, he participated in the first 12-man formation, also over Taft. [23] On January 16, 1972, Bird organized a world record 24-man star formation over Perris Valley California. [12] The jump was featured on the CBS program I've Got a Secret [24] and in the February 4, 1972, issue of Life magazine. [25]
Bird became a founding member of the Arvin Good Guys, and, in 1968, formed Jerry Bird's All Stars 10-way speed skydiving team [13] [26] based at Elsinore, California. In 1970, he captained the United States Freefall Exhibition Team (USFET) which demonstrated relative work at the 10th World Parachuting Championships in Bled, Slovenia, which led to formation skydiving being recognized as a distinct competition discipline. [6]
Jerry Bird's All Stars won the 10-man star event in June 1972 at the National Championships in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. [27] Bird later organized a world record 26-man star at the close of the 11th World Parachuting Championships, also at Tahlequah. [28]
Bird's 10-way speed star team, The Columbine Turkey Farm (based at Casa Grande, Arizona), won the World Cup Championship in 1973 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina with a time of 15.6 seconds. [29] The team subsequently relocated to the Orange Municipal Airport in Massachusetts where Bird had negotiated a contract with a local parachute company and the team became the Wings of Orange. [30] Bird captained the Wings Of Orange 10-way speed star team in 1974, setting a new world record of 12.76 seconds at Pretoria in South Africa, [31] and receiving a congratulatory telegram from the White House. [30] [32] Bird broke a bone in his foot while in South Africa (he refused a cast, and assigned someone to catch him and help ease his landing). [33] Two weeks later, the Wings of Orange also won the European Continental Championships at La Ferte Gaucher in France. [34]
Bird joined Mirror Image, an 8-way RW sequential team, in 1979. The team was later described as "sky gods" (top performers who had completed thousands of jumps). [35] The Mirror Image lineup posted new world records in 8-way, first with an 11-pointer in 1979, then with a 16-pointer in 1981. Mirror Image also posted a 10-way speed star world record in 1979. Just to make a point, they completed a 10-way Star in 5.16 seconds exiting from a DC-3 door. [36] They won the National Championship in 8-way sequential in 1981 while setting a world record of 14 maneuvers in 48.3 seconds. [37] Bird later became the coach for the Mirror Image team. [35]
Bird organized an expedition to Venezuela in November 1983 to BASE jump from the 979 metres (3,212 ft) high Angel Falls. The jump was filmed for a documentary by Mark III Productions of Miami, Florida. [38] A segment from the footage was broadcast on ABC's Ripley's Believe It or Not! in December 1985. [39]
Bird also toured the US visiting skydiving schools in a DC-3 ("The Bird Machine") enabling enthusiasts to jump from a bigger aircraft at higher altitudes. By 1985, Bird estimated he had made 4,300 jumps in 23 years of skydiving. [40] He also jumped to mark special events such as store openings, [41] and worked as a stunt skydiver in the documentary Playground in the Sky (1977). [42]
Bird was part of the world record formation 120-way in 1986 at Quincy, Illinois. [43] Two years later, on August 8, 1988, Bird was part of the world record 144-way diamond formation, also over Quincy. [44] In 1991, Bird said he had made over 7,000 jumps. [45] On July 19, 1998, Bird was part of the 246-way world record formation over Skydive Chicago. [46] In April the following year, Bird co-organised a team which attempted a two-point sequential 126-way jump (126 skydivers link in one predetermined formation, then reform in a different design) at Skydive Sebastian in Florida. [2] Bird, who is described as the "Father of Modern Day Skydiving", [2] had then logged over 11,000 jumps. He said: "It's not a muscle sport. It's technique. As you get older and have more jumps, you get better. We have people here in their 20s up to their 60s." [2]
Later in 1999, Bird was part of the 282-way world record formation with The World Team in Thailand. [7] He continued to support skydiving events across the US, jumping in the world's second largest skydive event, the Boogie 2001, at Richmond, Indiana, which attracted over 1,250 registered skydivers in September 2001; his career total of jumps then topped 12,080. [8]