Although the day prior to Paraclete XP’s Outdoor 4-way competition at Deland was beautiful, clouds covered the sky on the first day of the meet… and the second 🙁 The meet management were kind to competitors in giving stand-downs to avoid useless hours of waiting at the DZ. The third day, Sunday 8 March, was absolutely glorious! Skydive Deland pulled out all the stops to get as much of the competition jumped as possible. Teams would land and be on a swift call for their next round. By 1pm all the teams had done 6 jumps – nice work! The meet was called at this point.
Kurt Gaebel of National Skydiving League ran the competition, as well as competing in his traditional team of Teiwaz, this year starring Pete Allum & Shannon Pilcher. The field was much smaller than the Indoor competition last weekend, with 8 teams in AAA, just one in AA and one VFS team. All but 2 of the AAA teams had competed indoors the previous weekend. Black Cat, the Russian team, was new and Teiwaz, where 2 team members had competed indoor.
Kurt was a great meet director, releasing teams for both cloudy days, and getting off to an early start on the last
#AAA
The first round showed promise of a close meet, with three teams tying for second place, on 19 points to Airspeed’s 22. Although a relatively small turnout (perhaps due in part to the bad weather forecast), the standard was high. The three judges Dirk Venter, Chris Talbert and Jim Rees were very fast with the scoring, using the In-Time system.
Two of the six rounds were fast draws; round 4: C, 8, M, 9 and round 6: A, 7, B, G. They came at a nice stage in the competition, after all the teams had got nicely warmed up. Airspeed scored a 37 on round 6, Rhythm & GK4 both scored 32, and Black Cat a 31. The top three were the same as in the indoor meet, and these teams won cash prizes, a total purse of $8,000, donated by Paraclete XP. Airspeed stormed well ahead of the rest and won with an impressive 27.8 average over 6 rounds, 20 points ahead of nearest rivals SDC Rhythm XP. GK4 ladies again asked for their prize money to be donated by NSL to the Golden Knights Alumni Association, or Kurt Gaebel, whichever he chose. (At this point he did a little dance!)
Carolina Turbo in fourth with a 22 average had a great meet, flying well and concentrating on new technique from Thomas. They were closer to the Golden Knightesses than indoors, and seemed more in control, less on the edge. Turbo had a good battle with Black Cat and beat them by one point at the end. Turbo won 2 of the 3 NSL Skins awards, the other going to Black Cat, so both these teams also went home with some cash. (Kurt Gaebel works out a ‘handicap’ for each team based on the scores of the first 3 rounds; then feeds in the handicap for rounds 4, 5 and 6 to find the ‘Skins’ winner of each. Paraclete XP donated 3 prizes of $400.
Taiwaz flew well finishing in 6th with a 16.8 average and a very happy Kurt. The Dubai ladies team brought in a super-sub of Eliana, to replace Nada after 2 rounds, as she had sinus issues. They finished on a 15.3 average, ahead of the Dubai men, who were delighted to exceed their goal of a 14 average at their first outdoor competition.
##Averages
Comparing scores in the tunnel and sky, the teams were in precisely the same order, with these averages:
Airspeed: 28.7 indoor; 27.8 outdoor
SDC Rhythm XP: 26.6 indoor; 24.5 outdoor
GK4F: 25.4 indoor; 23.3 outdoor
Carolina Turbo XP 23.2 indoor; 22 outdoor
Asaar Ladies 17.4 indoor; 15.3 outdoor
Asaar Dubai Gold 16.9 indoor; 14.3 outdoor
Airspeed and Carolina Turbo showed the smallest loss in average when going from the tunnel to the sky.
#AA
The only entrants, Deland Flashpoint were definitely in the right class. This was their first meet together so it gave them a chance to experience competition and official scoring systems.
#VFS
SDC Core suffered from the change from indoor to outdoor, losing quite a lot of points to camera angle. They finished on a 17 average, significantly less than 22 indoors. Is VFS on a decline now that so many new free flyers are going into dynamic? Only one team here, two real teams at Paraclete’s Indoor meet and two at DIPC. That’s a very low turnout compared to recent 2-way and 4-way Dynamic competitions. However on the plus side, the Wind Games featured 7 VFS teams, perhaps this discipline is more prevalent in Europe.
#And Finally
That’s the end of US 4-way competitions now until the Nationals in Eloy during October. Teams have measured themselves against each other and know what they need to do for the season. Will the pecking order be the same at Nationals? I have a feeling that Carolina Turbo will progress quickly, they could challenge for a medal. Airspeed are looking awesome, this line-up has gelled, they are having a lot of fun as well as skydiving like animals! It’s hard to imagine how they could go faster but I’m sure they will give it their best. SDC Rhythm have 800 jumps planned, they are very synchronous, precise, and fired up for a steep learning curve. Good luck to all the teams for the season.
