posted Jan 18th, 2008 - The NSL News covered the French national 8-way team yesterday and follows up today with an update of the US national 8-way team, Knight Trax. The new US 8-way line-up for 2008 came together after Arizona Airspeed won the USPA Nationals 2007 and decided to focus only on the 4-way event this year.

The same Knight Trax line-up that placed 2nd at the USPA Nationals 2007 (Matt Davidson, Kurt Isenberger, John Hoover, Brian Krause, Thomas Hughes, Doug Park, John Hart, Solly Williams, alternate Sean Sweeney and videographer Larry Miller) was training for the last two weeks in DeLand, with one little change.

Former alternate Sean Sweeney has taken Solly Williams' slot, as the NSL News already reported on 22 October 2007. It was the first real training camp for Knight Trax after a few windtunnel sessions in Raeford. Sean Sweeney had a great time and confirmed this during the live interview with the NSL News.

Eric Heinsheimer has offially taken the position of the alternate for Knight Trax. The recovery from his neck injury and the following surgery is going even better than expected, and he will be able to skydive again very soon. The US team cannot even imagine a better alternate than this highly experienced 4-way and 8-way competitor.

The complete Knight Trax line-up visited the NSL office on Thursday. Neither the NSL-TV camera nor the office facilities are prepared for a complete 8-way line-up with alternate and videographer, and it took the help by the friendly Jump Shack neighbors to seat all Knight Trax members. However, the video camera was not able to capture the pictures of the whole group and the audio.

Golden Knight John Hoover helped out and quickly arranged a technical solution to capture the interview and discussion on a high-quality voice recorder. Thanks to the Hoovman, the NSL News audience now has the opportunity to listen in when a group of world-class competitors discussed a few topics.

John Hoover also took charge of the opening announcement and wrapped up the NSL News interview at the end like a professional radio host. The NSL News added a photo gallery to the audio file, which makes the interview more fun to listen to. Knight Trax provided the photos of the recent training camp, which were mostly taken by Larry Miller.

Team member Thomas Hughes added two videos to the story, which can be found at his coaching website. The first video offers a very unique perspective of a Knight Trax exit from the Pilatus Porter. It was filmed from a second plane. Thomas Hughes also comments the first training camp on the same page.

The second video shows the difficulties that even a world-class team like Knight Trax had with the right-hand door of the Pilatus Porter. However, the team had mastered the three standard exits by the end of the camp, as Thomas Hughes confirmed this on the same page:

"Knight Trax trains in Deland out of the Pilatus Porter. During the first camp the team encountered numerous problems, including first of all how to fit eight people in a door that should not even fit four people in. The team also encountered problems with the presentation.

Now that the right-hand door is being used for the World Meet, thousands of jumps worth of muscle memory must now be re-learned to ensure that the team is presenting with the correct side of the bodies. After 80 jumps and numerous funnels the team is starting to get pretty consistent at launching the easier of the three exits that will be used. This video demonstrates some of the earlier exits that were attempted out of the Pilatus Porter. Complete exits that worked will be posted in a few days."

It is quite obvious that many top teams and competitors are not too excited about the many changes of jump planes and exit doors over the years. It always requires additional efforts only for this part of a competition jump. The exits from right-hand doors, left-hand doors and tailgates became naturally one of the two topics of the discussion.

The second topic was the half-speed judging, which has already been covered by the NSL News with previous stories in 2007 and this year (8 January 2008). The group of 4-way and 8-way veterans with an unlimited collection of competition experiences offered many different views of the controversial issue. Pros and Contras of the new judging procedure were discussed within the limited time period of the NSL News interview.

There was no clear conclusion as of the best solution for any judging procedure. The goals were undisputed: getting the scores posted quickly and getting as close as possible to the true and correct score. The whole group agreed that the training and performance level of the judges ist actually even more crucial than any technical option. Half-speed judging can make it easier for the eyes to follow the fast action. However, the judges still have to be well trained and highly experienced to make the correct calls.

The Knight Trax line-up in the NSL office combined probably for the broadest and most comprehensive collection of skydiving experiences in the history of Formation Skydiving competition, with one exception. The Arizona Airspeed line-up at the USPA Nationals 2007 would probably be able to provide at least the same most comprehensive feedback and thoughts.

It will be well worth for the officials in the sport to pay a lot of attention to the feedback that these top teams and competitors have to offer. Each single competitor of this group has only one goal when it comes to the scores at the competition. They want to feel comfortable with the results by knowing that they are as close to the absolute truth as possible.

The upcoming meeting of the International Parachuting Commission (IPC) will be held next week in Paris, France. The NSL News will follow up with information shortly after the metting.