posted Apr 28th, 2015 - The Sun Path Products NSL News reported on April 14th how the German 8-way team Airbus München plans to defend the national title this year and compete for Germany at the Mondial 2016 in the USA. The German plan is to train with two 4-way teams (Airbus/Remscheid) and add a few 8-way jumps here and there during the synchronized training camps. Airbus München visited Skydive DeLand a few weeks ago for one of the synchronized camps, with the main focus on 4-way training.

The Russian 8-way team Tanay came to the same place just a few weeks later and completed their 1-week training camp with 70 jumps. Tanay's 8-way lineup includes an almost complete 4-way team, as well. However, Tanay has 8-way training and competition as the first priority, while the three Black Cat members (Vasily Korotkov, Valentin Ilin, Evgeni Stachenko) add 4-way jumps to their own and separate agenda.

Black Cat, with 4th member Valery Gredasov, had their own training camp in March and then competed at the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship 2015. Videographer Vadim Niyzov is filming Tanay and Black Cat both.

5th DIPC 2014			Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open Class		Q,5,6	F,22,18	19,8,21	4,16,K	14,A,H,17	B,12,E,3	O,J,15,L	C,20,N,G	M,9,P,7	11,1,10	Total	Avg
1	Venturi	FR	17	20	13	24	14	19	20	16	17	19	179	17.9
2	Tanay	RU	16	19	12	24	14	17	18	17	17	16	170	17.0
3	Dubai Asaar	AE	16	18	12	23	15	18	21	16	12	17	168	16.8
4	Monaco Vitalsea	MC	12	17	11	20	14	16	16	14	13	17	150	15.0
5	Qatar Falcons	QA	13	14	9	16	11	13	13	11	12	12	124	12.4
6	Germany	DE	10	6	7	13	8	10	11	10	11	11	97	9.7

The story on March 19th explained that the Black Cat members will have a very busy schedule this year and introduced the 8-way lineup. However, Tanay came to DeLand with a slightly different lineup after the team's last competition at the 5th Dubai International Parachuting Championship and the earlier plans for the 2015 lineup.

Team sponsor Andrey Barabash, owner of the Fly Tanay skydiving center in Siberia, was in the active lineup, while Vasily Korotkov is the alternate for the 8-way team. Nikolai Sukharnikov is not replacing Alexander Kvochur, as it was actually planned. Alexander Kvochur, the youngest of the original Black Cat members, is available for the 8-way training and continues with the team.

Oleg Shalamykhin, 8-way world champion of 2001 and 2003, is the player coach for the team. His world champion team mates Evgeny Stashchenko, Vassili Korotkov and Alexey Minaev assist him to bring all team members to their speed and skills level.

It took a very long time until the 8-way world champions of 2001 and 2003 came back together in the same 8-way lineup. The Russian 8-way team split up into two very strong 4-way teams after the second 8-way gold medal in 2003.

Oleg Shalamykhin trained and competed with two other 8-way world champions (Sergey Shenin, Vladimir Pavlenko) and sponsors Michail Kuznetsov or Leonid Kazinets. Vasily Korotkov, Evgeni Stachenko and Alexey Minaev formed Black Cat with young Alexander Kvochur, and both teams competed against each other for several years. Sky Panthers/Barkli, with Oleg Shalamykhin, Sergey Shenin and Vladimir Pavlenko, had the upper hand for a long time until Black Cat won the national championships last year.

The Tanay 8-way lineup has now re-united four of the 2001 world champions. Oleg Shalamykhin and Alexey Minaev had also competed with Barkli's 8-way lineup at the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2014 and won the silver medals for Russia. Barkli finished with a 17.1 average after ten rounds, which was almost identical with Tanay's 17.0 average in Dubai a few months later. The video shows the new Tanay lineup in training action.