posted Sep 18th, 2017 - Formation Skydiving competition as we know was born in 1985. The FAI Mondial 2016 at Skydive Chicago was actually the 30-year celebration of World Championships of Formation Skydiving in its modern version with a dive pool and 5-or-6-point sequences in the Open Class.

Well, there was an FAI World Cup in 2015, which was the first part of the celebration at the Dutch Skydiving Center in Teuge. It was a great event, but a World Cup is a World Cup, and a World Meet is a World Meet. What's the difference? Only one national team is allowed to compete for a country at the FAI World Meet. It's the Olympics of the sport, and no top team is missing it, usually, no matter what the travel distance is.

The FAI World Cup in Teuge was a great event, 30 years after the first World Meet in Mali Losinj, Yugoslavia. Yes, Yugoslavia it was then, as the former country on the other side of the Iron Curtain was later divided into seven different nations (Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo).

Two of the seven new countries have held FAI World Cups or World Meets since: Croatia in 2004 (Rijeka) and Bosnia/Herzegovina in 2013 (Banja Luka). Teams from Slovenia are also participating in Formation Skydiving competition. Mali Losinj 1985 was also the first event where teams from Russia competed at a World Championship of Formation Skydiving. The Russian 8-way team finished in fourth place at its first showing and has established itself in the FAI medal rankings in the following 30 years.

TURNING POINTS: 30-Year Anniversary of modern Formation Skydiving Competition

The event in 1985 that I am talking about was not really the first FAI World Meet; World Championships of Formation Skydiving have been around for much longer. However, a genius in the FAI/IPC headquarters created the current format in the early '80s, which was then applied for the first time in 1985.

I found 4- and 8-way training and competition extremely exciting and challenging before the change and spent all my money and time on it between 1980 and 1985. However, the new format made it worse, and I changed my career eventually to have more time for what I was finally addicted to.

There have been a few minor rule changes to fine-tune things here and there, and the dive pool had its changes. However, the actual format with its dive pool and the (almost) unlimited variety of combinations between blocks and random formations for 5- to 6-point sequences have never changed in the same 30 years. There are smart people in the FAI/IPC, as I learned in sports: "Never change a winning team," translated to, "Never change winning rules"...

I hear some people saying that belly flying in Formation Skydiving Competition is boring and dying out. Huh - what do they know ...

FAI World Meet 1985			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4way Open		-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Total	Avg
1	DeLand Air Bears	US	12	14	13	11	11	11	11	11	12	12	118	11.8
2	Canada	CA	12	12	8	11	10	11	12	11	11	14	112	11.2
3	France	FR	12	11	9	11	10	10	11	11	11	13	109	10.9
4	Australia	AU	11	12	10	11	10	4	11	10	11	14	104	10.4
5	Austria	AT	12	13	8	11	6	11	11	6	12	12	102	10.2
6	New Zealand	NZ	10	12	5	10	9	9	9	9	10	12	95	9.5
7	Italy	IT	10	10	10	9	9	10	10	5	10	11	94	9.4
8	Great Britain	UK	8	6	10	8	8	8	9	10	11	11	89	8.9
9	Denmark	DK	9	9	6	9	9	8	7	7	9	11	84	8.4
10	Finland	FI	4	11	9	6	9	9	9	7	9	8	81	8.1
11	Russia	RU	8	10	5	9	7	6	8	8	9	10	80	8.0
12	Switzerland	CH	10	9	7	5	9	8	8	9	3	10	78	7.8
13	Sweden	SE	8	9	8	7	8	5	6	8	9	9	77	7.7
14	Belgium	BE	8	8	6	9	4	8	6	7	8	10	74	7.4
15	Germany	DE	8	4	7	9	8	7	7	7	8	7	72	7.2
16	Norway	NO	6	8	7	8	7	8	5	7	8	5	69	6.9
17	Netherlands	NL	6	8	6	7	6	7	7	7	7	6	67	6.7
18	Spain	ES	6	2	5	5	5	6	5	5	7	6	52	5.2
19	Czech Republic	CZ	3	4	4	5	5	5	5	5	5	6	47	4.7
20	Yugoslavia	YU	3	5	2	4	5	5	5	4	4	6	43	4.3

I am on my way to Saarlouis in Germany for the live coverage of the FAI World Cup 2017 while I am writing this. This coming event has the highest participation in the same 30-year period (31), except for the World Cup in Portugal 1998 with one more team in 4-way. Where is the decline?

These 31 teams know exactly why it is so addictive to share the 4-way fun with other teams. Yes, the beginners in the sport seem to test the other skydiving events first these days when they are off the student status. This still has not hurt the participation in Formation Skydiving competition yet. And I am just waiting until they try to fly on their bellies, find a few other 4-way freaks and get hooked as we are...

Anyhow, I got distracted and carried away, sorry. Back to the 30 years of Formation Skydiving competition, which is actually almost exactly 32 years now. It's not only the number of 31 teams in Saarlouis, Germany, that is encouraging and reassuring for the very competitive part of the sport and its committed following, it is also the evolution of the techniques, training methods and the performance level that is so promising.

Imagine: We watched the DeLand Air Bears win the first modern FAI World Meet in 1985 with an 11.8 average after 10 rounds. Norman Kent was filming the team, and you can still watch some of it in "From Wings Came Flight."

FAI World Meet 2016			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		12,A,16	18,15,O	1,F,E,C	17,B,14	10,2,20	21,11,G	J,5,19	L,M,K,7	D,8,4	3,13,Q	Total	Avg
1	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	24	25	35	26	19	22	27	39	23	22	262	26.2
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	21	23	31	26	18	22	27	40	23	23	254	25.4
3	France	FR	21	20	30	21	18	21	27	39	21	20	238	23.8
4	Black Cat	RU	22	20	30	24	17	21	24	33	21	19	231	23.1
5	Qatar Tigers	QA	21	20	30	24	17	20	23	36	17	18	226	22.6
6	Evolution	CA	20	18	29	24	16	18	23	32	18	16	214	21.4
7	Satori XL	UK	18	19	27	24	16	18	22	30	18	18	210	21.0
8	Airbus	DE	16	18	29	19	15	18	22	29	14	19	199	19.9
9	Savolo	ZA	15	15	25	19	14	15	16	28	17	15	179	17.9
10	Final Fire	AT	16	15	25	17	12	16	18	29	17	13	178	17.8
11	eX3MO	IT	18	15	21	18	13	14	19	25	17	14	174	17.4
12	Rotor Out	AU	16	16	24	14	13	16	18	22	14	13	166	16.6
13	Pangaea	DK	15	16	24	19	11	13	16	25	12	13	164	16.4
14	China	CN	14	15	21	15	12	11	16	24	12	12	152	15.2
15	M4trix	NL	13	13	16	11	11	12	14	20	12	12	134	13.4
16	H4O	IE	13	13	17	8	9	12	9	15	10	10	116	11.6
17	MeXtreme	MX	8	8	13	8	9	9	9	12	8	7	91	9.1

We were extremely fascinated by what we saw, and we were convinced that you could not go any better or faster than the Air Bears did. 32 years later, NMP PCH HayaBusa from Belgium (!!!) is going to win in Saarlouis with an average that approaches the 30-average level. And I am talking about outdoor scores, as the 30-average benchmark has already fallen easily at the wind tunnel meets. In fact, HayaBusa has passed the 33-average level by now, and we still have the same 35-second working time...

From 11.8 at the world meet in 1985 to 26.2 in 2016; I have given up on guessing where the limits are. The progression of the performance level and the according efforts to make this happen speak their own language.

It requires a serious level of addiction to dedicate a life to 4-way competition and get to the top level. Why do teams with grown-up adults do that...? It is not only the fascination of skydiving and jumping from planes and flying the parachutes around between the clouds and the blues skies.

No, there is much more to it, and the 4-way and 8-way (and VFS) addicts know what it is. It is a serious athletic challenge, combined with extraordinary group dynamics. The results of the efforts are measurable and will also be rewarded with a higher performance level. Man, and the beer tastes so good at the end of a hard training day...

Cheers to the 30-year anniversary of the greatest sport on the planet: Formation Skydiving competition. We are in the first stage of the next decade, and I will be ready for another 30 years. But first I want to see the 30-average outdoor average fall...