posted Aug 8th, 2022 - The NSL News featured a new country at FAI World Championships of Formation Skydiving on July 27th. It was 4-way team La Playa from Guatemala with plans to compete at Skydive Arizona in October this year.

Most recently, there was a team from even further south in the Americas that appeared on the leaderboard of Brazil's Outdoor Nationals. Adventure Flyers from Paraguay were back in 4-way competition action in their South American neighbor country.

The upcoming outdoor world meet in Eloy will not the be the first FAI/ISC event for Adventure Flyers though. They were one of the nine 4-way Open Class teams who made it to Russia for the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020 last August. However, the world meet in Tanay was the first time that Paraguay was represented at world championships, and Guatemala with La Playa is only one year behind.

However, the team story of Adventure Flyers began several years earlier. Maria Belen Varela, Leonardo Calvete, Daniel Flecha and Marcelo Kegler launched their team at a training camp with coach Solly Williams in DeLand. They took on the complete FAI/ISC dive pool right away and tested their first experiences at the Shamrock Showdown 2017, which became the starting point of the team's competition career. Adventure Flyers with the same lineup returned to the United States half a year later to compete in the AAA/Advanced Class competition of the USPA Nationals 2017.

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Brazil Outdoor Nationals 2022			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		J,10,18		C,4,13		Q,N,7,3		17,M,9		1,E,15		L,2,14		16,6,D		22,H,21		5,P,G,19		12,O,A,K		Total	Avg
1	INIT-Y	BR	14		16	-1	19	-1	22	-1	16		13		16		13	-1	15	-2	18		162	16.2
2	Netunos	BR	13		14		17		21		14	-1	13	-1	15		13	-1	13	-1	16		149	14.9
3	Cometas	BR	12		12		15		18	-1	13		12	-1	13		14		13		14		136	13.6
4	Paradocks	BR	12		13		15		13	-4	13	-1	12		12		13		14		15		132	13.2
G	Adventure Flyers	PY	9		12		14		14		11		11		11		12		13		-		107	11.9
5	Cometas Z	BR	10		11		14		14	-2	11	-2	10	-1	10		11		10	-1	11	-1	112	11.2
W	Cometas Women	BR	9		12		12		14	-1	11		9		11		11		9	-2	11		109	10.9
W	UVASDM	BR	9		9		11		15		11		9		8		11		11		10		104	10.4
6	Supersonics	BR	7		9		9		6	-2	6		7		6		7		8		7		72	7.2
7	Matrix	BR	6		9		3		8		6		8		6	-1	6	-2	9	-1	7		68	6.8
W	Sky Flow	BR	4		4		5		3		-		-		-		-		-		-		16	4.0

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Adventure Flyers at the Brazil Outdoor Nationals 2022

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It was a successful first year for the team from Paraguay, and they attended the next Shamrock Showdown in March 2018, where they posted their first 10-point average after all ten rounds. Adventure Flyers had also made plans for the FAI Outdoor World Meet 2018 in Australia, which was supposed to be the team's first world meet.

The plans did not materialize, and it took eventually three more years until Paraguay had the country's first team on a world meet leaderboard. Adventure Flyers had a long break, together with many other 4-way teams in the world, after their last competition at Brazil's outdoor championships of 2019. The team's comeback after the corona virus crisis eventually turned out to be the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020.

Adventure Flyers have a much better meet schedule this year, compared to the situation in 2020 and 2021. They traveled to Russia without any earlier meets, as Brazil's national championships were scheduled too close to the world meet. There was in fact no team from Brazil in Tanay 2021, while Adventure Flyers eventually attended their first FAI event.

Brazil's Outdoor Nationals 2022 became the 4th visit of Adventure Flyers at the neighbor country's national championships. It served as the starting point of outdoor training in preparation for the final stretch towards the team's second world meet in October.

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FAI Tanay Mondial 2020			1		2		3		4		5		6		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		O,19,Q,5		17,B,E,P		H,15,12		M,N,7,F		K,L,C,4		J,18,16		Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	32		41	-1	23		43		30	-4	24	-1	193	32.2
2	SDC Rhythm XP	US	25	-2	35	-5	22		39		26	-4	22		169	28.2
3	Qatar Tigers	QA	24	-1	38	-2	19		34		26		19	-2	160	26.7
4	Aerodyne Cypres Lille	FR	23		33		19		32		24		21		152	25.3
5	Papea Masculino	ES	18	-2	27	-2	14		24	-4	19		16	-1	118	19.7
6	Kazakhstan	KZ	19	-1	23	-1	13		24	-1	17		15		111	18.5
7	Out of the Blue	NL	12	-2	25		15		23	-2	18		15	-1	108	18.0
8	Adventure Flyers	PY	12		15		11		14	-1	14		7		73	12.2
9	Indonesia	ID	3	-2	6	-1	1	-3	10	-4	1	-2	5	-1	26	4.3

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Adventure Flyers at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020

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The 11.9 average after nine rounds in Brazil almost matched the team's 12.2 average for an easier competition draw in Tanay last year, and the missing score for Round 10 might have increased the meet average. It's at least a promising starting point, even though the lineup is slightly different this year.

Leonardo Calvete, Adventure Flyers' Inside Center since 2017, is not available for the team's second world meet. However, Maria Belen Varela, Daniel Flecha and Marcelo Kegler have Justo Ibarra as a very familiar substitute to step in for the year.

Team member Daniel Flecha told the NSL News that Justo Ibarra has competed with Adventure Flyers at other occasions, and he has always been the team's alternate. He was in the Adventure Flyers lineup at the Paraclete XP Summer Classic 2018 when coach Solly Williams stepped in for Maria Belen Varela. The 12.6 average after eight rounds at Paraclete XP is still the team's highest result. Solly Williams has continued his work with Adventure Flyers ever since they visited Skydive DeLand in March 2017. Arizona Airspeed's Niklas Hemlin is coaching the team, as well.