Mike became a member (#387) of the Parachute Club of America (PCA) in 1964 which later became the United States Parachute Association (USPA). He acquired an Expert Parachutist "D License" early in his skydiving career and to date he has made over 2,600 freefall jumps.
During the early years of freefall skydiving, he happened to be one of a handful of skydiving cameramen who pioneered in the development of helmet-mounted motion-picture cameras enabling skydivers to film while freefalling at over 120 miles per hour. Over the years, his freefall 16mm film has been used in many film productions, documentaries, and TV commercials.
In 1968, he became the co-holder of a skydiving high-altitude record for the southeast United States with a two-and-a-half-minute freefall from 28,000 feet. In 1972 he filmed and produced an award-winning documentary, "Bill Cole's Chuteless Jump," which won a first place award in the 30th International Sports Film Competition in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, in 1974. And in the 1990s, Mike was hired to fly to Switzerland and make several practice jumps to help with another “chuteless” jump by German stuntman, Andi Dachtler.
From 1975 to 1978, Mike was invited to Canada as a member of the Descenders Parateam, an exhibition skydiving team that performed for the annual four-day Canadian National Exhibition Air Show in Toronto, Canada, with an estimated daily audience of a quarter of a million people. In 1977, he was hired by a Canadian film company to do all the freefall photography documenting the Canadian National Skydiving Championships for a Canadian Wide World of Sports program.
In 1989, while filming for a manufacturer of giant-screen theaters for theme parks, he was the first skydiver to take a large and heavy 65mm motion-picture camera into freefall attached to his harness.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Mike operated his own skydiving exhibition team, Skyquest Parateam for many local events, More recently, for the past 12 years, he was employed as a professional skydiver to shoot freefall video and stills to document tandem passengers of Suncoast Skydiving.
During that time, he invented, tested, and patented (Patent #7,576,800) his SportsCam Extreme Sports Video System. Mike was president of his own SportsCam corporation to manufacture, market, and sell SportsCam systems to high-action sportspeople all over the world. Although no longer selling SportsCam systems or working professionally as a tandem videographer, Mike continues to use his own SportsCam to document his personal sport skydives at various drop zones in Florida.
Mike taught himself to scuba dive in the early 1960s and used his cinematography skills underwater to shoot promotional and advertising films for such attractions as Marineland, SeaWorld, Silver Springs, and Weeki Wachee Springs. He has also filmed the underwater beauty of the Florida Keys and Grand Cayman.
As an inventor, Mike has engineered many kinds of film related equipment including sound readers, title stands, time-lapse intervalometers, special function camera mounts, helicopter camera mounts, underwater camera housings, and film to tape transfer systems,
Over the years, Mike has filmed with virtually every type of still, motion picture, and video camera formats. He has traveled on jobs to many states within the United States including Hawaii and many foreign countries such as Canada, Mexico, Brazil, France as well as many islands in the Caribbean including Haiti, Grand Cayman, St. Lucia, and the Virgin Islands. Early in his career, he became an expert in aerial photography and has shot stills, movies, and video out of many types of aircraft and helicopters including biplanes and antiques such as a Lockheed Electra, Stinson Trimotor, P-51, B-25, and a DC-3.
Currently, Mike is working part time at the Sarasota County History Center in Sarasota, Florida archiving their large collection of 16mm movie film, most of which he shot himself during his long career in cinematography. Mike continues to shoot and edit videos for various clients throughout Florida as a freelance videographer.
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