posted Apr 7th, 2007 - Another round has gone by, and XL is still holding the top position after five rounds. Team Fastrax and Airspeed Odyssey have both been waiting for the point where XL would show a sign of weakness, and it simply has not happened yet. Odyssey's team captain Craig Girard mentioned already a few times that he has a hard time to believe that he is in 3rd place with a 30+ average.

The scoring level surely is impressive. Of course, the sequences of the first half of the meet have been on the faster side. Sunday's five rounds include only four Random Formations, while Saturday's five rounds had 11 of them, including the fastest sequence of the meet in Round 2.

Round 5 was devastating for the Russian Sky Panthers. The 8-pointer on the scoreboard surely does not reflect the actual performance of the world-class team. It is probably also difficult to imagine that a team of this caliber could be guilty of so many real infringements in just one jump.

There was also not a team videographer around who could have missed parts of the Russian performance. The tunnel camera at the very top of the wind tunnel in Bedford films each team from the same angle. What happened?

The Sky Panthers floated up during their 35 seconds and came so close to the camera that the judges could not see complete formations and maneuvers any longer. They pushed the scoring button for whatever they could identify and could not give points for the invisible parts.

The Russian team and the live observers, even the judges all knew that the Sky Panthers completed many more points than they received, but the official score was the posted 8-pointer. NSL-TV will follow up with the video evidence later on. The NSL News will also discuss the unfortunate incident with other competitors and provide more information.

Fact is the there is no reason for a "re-jump". Each teams sets its specific airspeed for the wind tunnel session after the training time and prior to each round. The teams are responsible to fly at a certain level in the wind tunnel, which allows the camera to capture the whole performance.

Bodyflight Owner Paul Mayer also confirmed that the Sky Panthers have been training in Bedford several times before this competition: "They are familiar with the Bodyflight tunnel air and have the skills and experience to maintain the proper flying level as all other teams have to. They were probably so focused on their performance that they simply did not realize the change of their flying level."

It was bad luck for the Sky Panthers who are now completely out of the race for the money and medal positions. It is very unlikely that any of the teams currently in the first three places will drop far enough for the Russian team to catch up.

3rd highscore for XL in Round 4

Round 4 was the most interesting round of the meet so far. It is hard to believe that XL apparently did not even blink when Fastrax and Odyssey posted higher scores in Round 3. XL struck right back in Round 4 and posted another sole highscore with the 32-pointer. It re-installed the 2-point lead that XL already had after Round 2.

However, there is still a possible correction to come. Team Fastrax clearly completed the Phalanx on the 6th page for a 31-pointer. The score-screen did not show any infringements, and the official score was still only 30 points. Fastrax might get back the deserved 31st point later.

Block 10 (Diamond - Bunyip) was the challenging part of Round 4 for several teams. Even a 16-foot wind tunnel still requires the teams to respect the walls of the flying chamber. The walls can still get in the way if the Block 10 maneuver does not start from a good position in the center of the chamber or if the pieces sheer too much during the move.

The top teams did not have to deal much with this challenge. Their details were found in the engineering. XL had the most efficient one and executed Block 10 like a trained team, even faster than Fastrax, as Thomas Hughes confirmed. Result was the next highscore for a round. The Sky Panthers' flow was interrupted once at Block 10, and it was costly in the fast sequence.

Team Elan and the French team Maubeuge Aerokart had been in a neck-to-neck race throughout the first three rounds. The three British world champions in FAI's female category, with the new team member Tarnya Hollis, broke the tie in Round 5 and are now one point up on the French team.

Stay tuned, Round 5 is in progress.