posted Apr 7th, 2008 - A new team project, Slipstream, has been launched in the Northern Plains Skydiving League. The team members are familiar names from the last seven years in the NPSL. Steve Blake (Point), Aaron Hislop (Center Inside), Jon Arnold (Tail), Bill Rehm (Center Outside) and Rich Barr (Camera) are combining for over 12,000 skydives and 75 years of experience and plan for a fun and productive 4-way season.

The team's goals are to take a combination of very compatible and talented skydivers from the NPSL area and push the local limits of 4-way throughout the NPSL 2008 season - ending with the USPA Nationals 2008. Slipstream's Center Inside, Aaron Hislop explained the goals:

"We just want to be competitive in the appropriate competition category prior to Nationals. Our training schedule will determine how good we can get by then."

Center Outside Bill Rehm added: "The lineup consists of some of the best skydivers I know in these slots in the NPSL area. I'm looking forward to seeing just what we can do together, and with the help of the coaches Sandy arranges at our NPSL meets."

Sandy Grillet is the NPSL Director and regularly hires 4-way coaches for his league events. The team goals are simple, as the Slipstream website states: "Our goal is simple. We want to excel. To achieve this, we want to improve upon ourselves in four-way formation skydiving through a positive team environment. We want to have fun and benefit our sponsors."

The Slipstream project was initiated with a tryout of the 5-way last summer and had great success after only a handful of training jumps. The team members want to give back to the local skydiving scene of the Northern Plains Skydiving League.

The first team project was a windtunnel camp organized by Slipstream on March 20-23 at Skyventure Colorado. With 18 hours of booked tunnel time for the 20 campers, the Slipstream members and a coaching assistant, Jonny Gleisner, provided free training of the basic skills for ten campers.

More advanced training followed for all participants as the camp progressed. Slipstream also trained with the team's own lineup at the last 11 flying sessions of the same camp.

4-way camps, informational meetings and general support of local NPSL teams are on the Slipstream agenda throughout the 2008 season, as well. The information of the tunnel camp in March and this year's team schedule is already posted as the team website.

Another new NPSL team, Flying in Fiction, used the tunnel opportunity to kick off its first training for the 2008 season in the A Class or the AA Class. The new team received individual coaching and 2-on-2 drills with Slipstream members. The complete Flying in Fiction lineup then already finished the camp with its own sequences of Random Formations

Other NPSL tunnel campers were new to 4-way and coaching at all and were mixed up by the end of the camp in 2-ways, 3-ways and 4-ways with Slipstream members. The Slipstream members reported that 12-year old tunnel regular Rebecca eventually tried her skills in mantis, knee- and backflying positions and impressed the audience.

The Northern Plains Skydiving League launches the 2008 season with the first meet on May 10 at Skydive Iowa.