Origins of a BMAA mascot

You may be wondering why a parrot is giving nuggets of advice. 

It all began back in 2019, when the BMAA staff began uploading photos of themselves to allow the BMAA membership to more easily put names to faces outside of events. Head of the Licensing & Instruction Administration Centre (LIAC) Aaron Bliss was thrilled to have recently earned the privilege of issuing NPPLs directly from the BMAA office, and posed holding an example licence to the camera. A few weeks later an amused BMAA member who had commented on Mr Bliss' supposed pirate aesthetic photoshopped a parrot onto his shoulder in the photo, and, never one to take himself too seriously, Aaron swapped his original portrait for the new version.

Fast forward to 2025, and new BMAA CEO Owain Johns felt that the staff portraits should look more uniform and professional and reacted with mild incredulity at the aforementioned bird on shoulder. After having it explained that a member had contributed it, Aaron devised a way that the parrot could live on. He had for a while looked for a visually appealing method of transmitting information that needed to be regularly circulated rather than sitting on its own page, and thus Mike, the BMAA parrot, was born. 

Mike is fun, colourful and always has a lot to say, much like any good Microlight pilot!