posted Jan 6th, 2010 - It is about time to focus on the next upcoming event, the Dubai Championship 2010. The NSL News brought the event already to the attention of the audience with the first preview on 27 December 2009 (Archives > 2009 > News > Search for "Dubai"). The story on 4 January 2010 followed up and covered the female 4-way competition at the same event.

The NSL News will report the event with the help of correspondents at the competition site.

Arizona Airspeed's Craig Girard had already helped the NSL audience to information, photos and insights when the reigning 4-way world champions competed at the World Games 2009 in Taiwan (Archives > 2009 > Leagues > NSL News > Meet 2). He said that he would be glad to do this again, and he has already sent the first update from Dubai.

Alex Jordaan, who was just mentioned in yesterday's NSL News story which covered the tunnel team Area 51, is also providing information. He is originally from South Africa and currently works and lives in Dubai. He will compete with the South African team that has signed up for the Dubai competition.

It seems as if the upcoming competition will be similar to the World Games where the logistics were challenging for the participating teams. Craig Girard reported that a Bell 212 will be used as the jump aircraft:

"We just found out that the aircraft will be a Bell 212 helicopter using the left side door. Unless it changes..."

The NSL News World Games story on 17 July 2009 explained the surprise for the teams in Taiwan when the aircraft situation suddenly changed: "Did You Know that the World Games had a jump plane surprise for the 4-way teams?"

The situation is now almost excatly the same in Dubai. The previously posted information for the teams, which could be found in the official bulletin for the event, included the definition of the jump planes: two Cessna 208 Caravans (side exit) and two Helicopters MI 8 (side exit).

The Bell 212 is obviously a different aircraft and much smaller compared to the previously announced MI 8. However, it seems as if the teams will still get a left-hand door with the new chopper. The teams in Taiwan had to deal with a right-hand door, which was a much bigger surprise.

Tomorrow is the official training day, according to the announced schedule, and the teams will have at least the opportunity to jump from the Bell 12, hopefully a few times.

The NSL News will follow up as soon as possible with a complete list of the registered teams and the lineups. There is a second Russian team and a second US team on the latest list of teams. The NSL News story on December 27 already introduced several of the registered teams.

Airspeed's lineup is not complete yet. Mark Kirkby was still missing when Craig Girard sent the update. Airspeed's Tail is bringing his whole family to Dubai. His wife Sandy and baby boy Nathan usually follow the Airspeed Odyssey on the NSL News. It will go the other way around this time.

The Airspeed 3-way in Dubai took advantage of the earlier arrival and attended the official opening of the Burj Dubai, aka Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, on Monday. The skyscraper is the tallest man-made structure ever built at 2,717 ft. However, the Dubai competition does not include a BASE jumping event...

The view over the competition site is a very special one. Alex Jordaan said that his team's videographer and one team member managed to make a jump today. They commented that the view and the experience is worth any potential inconvenience with the meet logistics.

It will be still be an exciting 4-way competition, as the best teams in the world will compete for $45,000 in the Open Class and another $45,000 in the female category. The logistics will once again be the same for all teams and will probably require flexibility and patience.

Dubai Championship
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