posted Dec 2nd, 2008 - The last 2-year cycle from one World Championship of Formation Skydiving to the next one has come to its end after the World Meet 2008 in Maubeuge. It's the point in time when the FS Subcommittee of the International Parachuting Commission (IPC) considers rule changes for the next two years.

The NSL News already covered some of the more significant parts of the rules, which are not directly related to the actual dive pool (Freeze Frame - Slower Speed Judging - Event Duration), with a few stories after the World Meet. Fiona McEachern from Australia, the committee's chair, now reminded the Formation Skydiving community that it is also time to present proposals for changes of the actual dive pool to the committee.

The current concept of the dive pool, with a mixture of random formations and blocks for each sequence, was introduced after the World Meet 1983 in South Africa. It replaced the previous competition format with set block sequences or only random formations for each sequence. It turned out to be a perfect move by the IPC Committee at that time, which improved the system dramatically and has been successful and consistent ever since.

However, even though the basic outline of this format moved Formation Skydiving competition into a new era, the blocks and random formations of the actual dive pool still changed on a regular basis. There have been many different reasons for these changes, and some of them made a lot of sense. The dive pool needed to be cleaned up whenever judging issues or other significant obstacles required adjustments.

The IPC Committee wisely made these adjustments of the dive pool at the end of a 2-year cycle after a world meet. It gave the national teams enough time to learn the new and adjusted dive pool, which would be applied at the next world meet in two years.

There were more and regular changes in the earlier years of the new competition format with the dive pool of 16 Random Formations and 24 Blocks, as the application at the meets revealed its weaknesses. Eventually, the changes of the actual dive pool became smaller and smaller. The last dramatic adjustment was made at the beginning of the 2002 season when the number of blocks was reduced from 24 to 22. The NSL News brought these changes already to the international audience by then:

Changes in 2002

"For now, Random Formations 'Twins' and 'Opal' have to be deleted from our random formation memory. The Opal has been replaced by the 'Bow'. This became necessary when the committee decided to use the Opal for the new Block 5 (Opal - Opal). This new block replaces 'Black Hole - Bipole' to eliminate the Bipole overlap between Blocks 5 and 14. However, the new Opal - Opal move is very similar to the old Black Hole - Bipole move.

Random Formation 'Twins' was removed after a very short performance in the dive pool. It has been replaced by another Random Formation, the 'Open Accordian'. Block 1 (Snowflake - Snowflake), one of the older and popular block moves, disappeared completely from the dive pool to eliminate the Snowflake overlap between Blocks 1 and 23. The committee decided to keep the more challenging 'Snowflake - Offset', which made a big leap from 23 to 1. It needed to be relocated after the committee decided to reduce the number of blocks to 22.

A similar move happened to 'Compressed Accordian - Box'. The former Block 24 is now Block 16. Slot 16 became available when the committee decided to eliminate the overlaps between Blocks 2, 3 and 16 by simply removing 'Side Flake Donut - Side Flake Opal'. Compressed Accordian - Box remains unchanged in its new slot.

Another new block made its way into the dive pool: 'Piver - Viper'. It replaces 'Open Stairstep - Compressed Stairstep' in slot 20. Open Stairstep - Compressed Stairstep had not caused any trouble regarding the overlap situation. It may have been just too similar to block 21. Piver - Viper appears to be a combination of the block techniques in Block 19 (Ritz - Icepick) and Block 22 (Tee - Chinese T)."

It became even easier in 2005 when the next adjustments were made after the World Meet 2003 in Gap and 2004 in Croatia.

The 22 blocks and 16 random formations required only little attention since the two world meet years proved that the dive pool was getting closer to perfection. Only a few changes were made, which were all meant to make the job easier for the judges.

It was also the year when another significant rule change was introduced: the reduction of the penalty damage from two points to one point. This change was not directly related to the dive pool. However, it has had its own impact on Formation Skydiving competition, as well. The NSL News reported the dive pool changes for the 2005 season:

Changes in 2005

"The 4-way dive pool has only two changes. It is no surprise that Block 12 (Zipper - Star) disappeared after causing too much judging trouble with its vertical technique and the centerpoint issue. The only question was how the problem would be fixed. There were several different options and proposals, beginning with leaving the block unchanged and adding set turning directions for the pieces to avoid sheering and the vertical technique. Other suggestions offered several old and new blocks replacing Zipper - Star.

Side affect of the new block is the fact that the Bundy was now taken for the new block. The Bundy used to be Random Formation M of last year's dive pool. The committee had to pick a new random formation for M. It voted for the easiest solution. The Zipper and the Star became available, and the committee decided to keep the good old Star alive. The whole history of Formation Skydiving began with the Star. It is good for the tradition of the sport to see this veteran formation continue. M is now a 'Star'.

The committe also decided to remove the arrows and 180-degree of turn indication for Block 5 (Opal - Opal). The pieces are now allowed to rotate forward or backward, and they can choose the sheering or cogging technique. The centerpoint crossing of the vertical technique is not an issue any longer for the revised Block 5."

Changes in 2007

The dive pool changes of 2007, after the World Meet in Germany 2006, were a logical consequence of all previous changes and the efforts to clean up the dive pool: there weren't any changes. It was the first time that the whole Formation Skydiving community was apparently satisfied with the way things were. The dive pool remained completely untouched for the first time in the history of the sport after moving into the new era in 1984.

You would think that this is a great result after all these efforts. However, Fiona McEachern encouraged teams and competitors after the World Meet to provide suggestions of changes for the dive pool. She mentioned that it is about time for a few new moves after discussing it with some competitors in Maubeuge. It is her goal to "to keep the current mix of slot switchers and straight up jumps and not have anything that is a nightmare to judge."

IPC's FS Committee Chair recently sent a reminder of this upcoming topic. The question remains open whether it is helpful or counter-productive to change a dive pool that seems to work very well. The NSL News will follow up on the topic. Fiona McEachern can be reached directly by e-mail.