posted Jul 30th, 2009 - The NSL News reported on 5 April 2009 that Arizona Airspeed extended the team's undefeated winning streak to 17 - 0 at the World Challenge 2009. It has already been extended to 18 - 0 after the dominating performance at the World Games 2009.

Two Airspeed members, Andy Delk and Mark Kirkby, also competed at the Paraclete XP Indoor Skydiving Championship 2009, where Eliana Rodriguez and Craig Girard could not join the lineup.

Perris Fury won the indoor competition over Arizona Speed where Thomas Hughes and John Eagle filled the open slots. However, this competition cannot really be counted for Airspeed's winning streak, as it was not the original lineup at Paraclete.

The World Games 2009 surely count, as the Top 6 teams of last year's World Meet in France came to Taiwan and challenged the reigning world champions again. It was a different situation with the right-hand door of the helicopter. However, each team had the same meet conditions at the same time. It is an 18 - 0 winning streak now.

Many teams that don't have a meet scheduled for the upcoming weekend use the most recent competition draw to test their own meet skills by copying the sequences in training. Especially the major events are even more interesting to be copied by teams that cannot participate.

The sequence of random formations in Round 5 of the World Games 2009 has probably already been copied many times by many teams. It is very tempting for teams to compare their own skills indirectly with the best teams in the world.

The British team Satori, top contender at this year's UK Nationals, was one of the teams that used the competition draw of the World Games 2009 to check the current performance level. Satori member Katie Woods said that her team did the jump two times and scored 39 points in the first attempt, which did not go very well. The second attempt was a 45-pointer and can now be viewed on NSL-TV.

Katie Woods added that her team seems to be well prepared for the UK Nationals 2009. Satori copied the whole World Games draw in training and ended up with a 23.0 average after five rounds. Then the team used up the rest of the whole dive pool and ended up with a 20.8 average.

Satori is aiming at the 20-point average since former XL member John McIver has joined the lineup this year. Point Katie Woods and Tail Aaron Faith are also aiming at their first national 4-way title, which Julia Foxwell and John McIver already have under their belt.

Airspeed's victory in Taiwan clarified the relationship with the international top contenders, Russia's Sky Panthers, Belgium's Hayabusa Defence and France Maubeuge at this point in time. The Sky Panthers moved up in the rankings compared to the World Meet of 2008. However, they did not really get closer to Airspeed in Taiwan. France Maubeuge and Hayabusa Defence have been working on getting closer to the world champions from Arizona, but the World Games 2009 were a setback for all challengers.

At least the French national 4-way team will have a new opportunity to challenge Airspeed at the USPA Nationals 2009. Once again, France has a delegation that will make the trip to Texas this year. Hayabusa will compete at the FAI World Cup 2009, which will take place without participation of any of the three US top teams. The Sky Panthers might compete at the World Cup 2009, as well.

Perris Fury and Spaceland Force XP, the other two US top contenders, have surely followed Airspeed's performance in Taiwan very carefully. Perris Fury's Christy Frikken said that her team has not trained in a while and will not any time soon. However, the five rounds of the World Games 2009 are high on Fury's priority list, she said.

The same counts for last weekend's competition draw, which included six rounds at Skydive Houston where the Texas Skydiving League held its third meet of the 2009 season. Spaceland Force XP attended the team's second meet this year. The new lineup was formed this year and competed without much previous training at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2009 in March. The performance in DeLand was impressive and made the team instantly one of the top contenders this year.

Spaceland Force XP attended the second meet this year last weekend in Houston and is on top of the current AAA Class leaderboard. There was no competition for the Force in Texas, and even the overall leaderboard does not show any team that could get close last weekend. It was just a test meet for the Spaceland team, which also competed in Houston to represent its home drop zone.

However, last weekend's scores were still meaningful and interesting for Spaceland Force XP and the rest of the 4-way community. Perris Fury and Arizona Airspeed will not be the only teams evaluating the scores very carefully and probably copying the sequences in training.

It was a much slower 6-round draw compared to the five rounds at the World Games in Taiwan, and it will be difficult to campare the scores with each other. Only jumping the sequences in training will provide harder data. And then it is just training...