Southernfly Bottrop

4WD team

Also entering 2WD, with Mason and Antonio

Joe Grealy AUSTRALIA

• 31 years old
• +5000 jumps
• Uncountable tunnel time
• Started in skydiving in 2002

Keith Grealy AUSTRALIA

• 31 years old
• +7000 jumps
• Uncountable tunnel time
• Started in skydiving in 2002

Mason Corby AUSTRALIA

• 25 years old
• +3500 jumps
• 300 hours tunnel time in 1,5 years
• Started in skydiving in 2008

Antonio Arias PUERTO RICO

• 27 years old
• 1400 jumps
• +200 hours tunnel time
• Started skydiving in 2009
• Competed at USPA Nationals 2 way MFS & 4-way FS
• New team member of Southernfly Bottrop since 2014

Background

When the team formed last year all four were Australian (hence the name Southern Fly) but working at Bottrop wind tunnel in Germany
In a way. They were at the Battle of Bottrop, Voss Valhalla and the Knights of Prague. As a team they have been around the longest of the field here at Windoor Extreme Games, but they’ve had a couple of changes in line-up.

Their first competition was at the Battle of Bottrop, where they placed 9th. Then Mike left and Mason joined for Voss Valhalla (Mason was in one of the teams that beat Southern Fly at Bottrop!) They recently had another change of line-up, bringing in Puerto Rican Antonio, who also works at Bottrop as a tunnel instructor. This will be Antonio’s first tunnel competition. He’s entered 2 skydiving competitions previously, one in 4-way FS and one 2-way MFS [Mixed Formation Skydiving, a hybrid of belly and freefly.

So, how is your competition headspace?

Mason: Well every competition has been the same – our free rounds have been really strong but even though most of our speed rounds have been good in training then we still had brain farts in the meet!

How about the new boy Antonio, how did your competitions go?

Antonio: The VFS competition was one of the best experiences of my life. We were very close all the way through, in a 1-point battle all the way a team of very experienced tunnel instructors. In the end we were fourth but it was cool to be so close to people with a lot more experience.

How much have you trained for this competition?

About 10 hours training for this meet. We usually do 17-20 hours before a competition.

How did you fare at the other competitions?

Third, both at Voss Valhalla and the Knights of Bottrop.

How do you rate your chances here?

You never know… we’re here to have fun and see where we end up.

Is this tunnel different to fly in compared to Bottrop?

Mason: It’s very different. Here it seems there is more power the higher up you go. It’s not like that in Bottrop; the power diffuses at the top because the chamber opens up and is wider at the top. So, here you can do more tricks at the top of the tunnel.

Also, the view is different; the visuals make a lot of difference to keeping track of where you are.

Have you changed your routine then?

They all laugh
Mason: Yes we have changed it. We thought the artistic round was 90 seconds but it’s only 60! So we had to make it shorter. We also changed the exit.

Keith just had an injury, what happened?

Mason: His brother kicked him in the head!
Antonio: It was a knee-to-face party.

## Do you have many collisions?

Every competition is a full contact sport! 😉