posted Jul 23rd, 2010 - The NSL News story on 17 May 2010 had covered the female 4-way competition at the World Challenge 2010 and paid special attention to the beautiful red jump suits of the two Brit Chicks teams.

There was one other team at Bodyflight Bedford that continued to use red jump suits. The French team Monaco Aerial, formerly know as Monaco Parachute Team, has actually used red suits ever since the team was founded. The NSL News brought this French 4-way project to the attention of the NSL audience the first time in 2007.

Didier Boignon and Jeff Ronzevalle launched the Monaco project. Both trained and competed with the French national 8-way teams between 1986 and 1992 and won gold medals together at several world cups in that time period. They joined forces with two younger "amateur skydivers" in 2007, Laurent Hayot and Stéphane Mattoni, with the goal of competing at meets in France.

This lineup had its biggest success in 2009 when Monaco won the Coupe de France event series after two first places in May (14.3) and July (13.2) and a second place at the French Nationals 2009 with a 15.4 average.

Monaco attended five meets last year, including two wind tunnel competitions, and then came back at the beginning of the 2010 season. Last weekend's Coupe de France competition was Monaco's third meet this year, the first outdoor competition after two indoor meets, including the World Challenge 2010.

Monaco has had difficulties to complete the 2010 lineup so far. Julien Losantos, French 4-way world champion of 2003, filled in for Laurent Hayot at the World Challenge, who is not with the team any longer. Monaco ended up with the best indoor average (16.0 - 18.0 - 17.3 - 17.5 - 20.0) in the team's history.

French team Monaco Aerial with Julien Losantos at the World Challenge 2010

Julien Losantos filled the slot only at the World Challenge and did not continue with Monaco. Didier Boignon, Stephane Mattoni and Jeff Ronzevalle were back for the first outdoor competition last weekend, but the lineup was a new one.

Louis Robinot and Guillaume Bajolet filled the open slot at the second Coupe de France competition in Pamiers. Guillaume Bajolet is a member of the French national B-Team Aerokart Amada. The NSL News story on 16 March 2010 provided details of his team. He will also leave the Monaco team after filling in last weekend.

Monaco is not back yet to the 2009 performance level, as the personnel changes make it more difficult to move forward. However, the 14.3 average last weekend was only beat by one French team (Nice Oxygene - 16.1) and was still good enough for the 6th place on the overall AAA Class leaderboard of 31 teams.