posted Sep 3rd, 2008 - The NSL News mentioned on 29 August 2008 that there is indeed new evidence of the Fun Flag being in UK possession. New footage from the UK Nationals 2008, provided by Bodyflight Storm members, include videos of some of the team's key jumps at the meet and the latest photos of the Fun Flag.

The last showing of the Fun Flag took place during the 8-way award ceremony at the World Meet 2008. The US 8-way team had successfully captured the Fun Flag from the British national 4-way team Fusion after it had appeared on the video of the NSL News interview with Bodyflight Storm.

Members of the British delegation in Maubeuge claimed later at the World Meet dinner party that the Fun Flag was back in UK possession same day and will go back to the United Kingdom. There was no evidence for this claim by then.

The evidence came with photos of the award ceremony at the UK Nationals 2008 a few weeks ago. The Bodyflight Storm 4-way world champions in the female category and 2008 British Open Class champions proudly presented the Fun Flag on the podium, together with teams Fusion and Satori.

Bodyflight Storm's Claire "Sparky" Scott explained how the UK delegation got the flag back in possession in Maubeuge:

"Last time we saw the Fun Flag was on the podium with the US 8-way team at the World Meet. Then it was apparently being looked after by Mark Kirkby. So you could say it was back in British hands... However, Swoop, our team videographer, managed to acquire the flag again without too much of a struggle. He said that he he bumped into Airspeed at a lunch place in Maubeuge. Swoop has been looking after the flag ever since. We thought the Nationals medal ceremony would be a great time to fly the flag again."

Her husband Andy Scott, member of the British 8-way team Connextion, had his own theory why it was so easy to steal the Fun Flag from Mark Kirkby.

The 4-time Airspeed 4-way world champion is originally from the United Kingdom. Andy Scott suspected a well prepared conspiracy: "Mr. Kirkby maybe have been a sleeper agent all along ever since he defected to the USA from Great Britain."

Claire Scott said that her team had a great time at the UK Nationals 2008: "We were pretty tired having just returned from the World Meet. We still couldn't wait to compete again. Having only been able to make six jumps in Maubeuge, I think, had something to do with this."

Bodyflight Storm was lucky enough to make 23 jumps from the Dornier with a left-hand door at Skydive Weston the week preceding the UK Nationals 2008. The team had to get familiar again with the door on the other side of the jump plane and had to come up with a plan:

"We decided to stick with the mirrored continuity plan, which we had adopted especially for the Pilatus Porter. This meant that we had to slide the exits across in the Dornier. In the back of our minds we still had the option of going back to our old quadrants if the exits didn't work."

Bodyflight Storm practiced the old left-hand pattern during a 30-minute windtunnel session at Bodyflight Bedford to be on the safe side and have both options available:

"We used the tunnel time to re-learn the mirrored muscle memory. So going to Nationals, we had a number of different options available. Then we were very fortunate that Dan BC could make it over the pond again to be with us. He had gone back home after the World Meet. He could help us in some of the decision making."

It turned out well enough, as the results of the UK Nationals have shown. Claire Scott said that there were a couple of "wobbles", but the exits seemed okay, and the team stuck with the plan to keep the right-hand pattern and slide the exits across the plane.

She said that the competition draw was very slow with all 22 blocks and only 11 of the 16 random formations. However, her team still had a great time at the meet, possibly due to the Fun Flag possession:

"Even though we wanted to win and knowing that we were up against a well trained team such as Satori, we still managed to relax a lot more during this meet and had a lot of fun - often being in hysterics when we landed. So we thought it was most appropriate to fly the Fun Flag on the podium, because as a team, the fun factor is really important to us."

The links to Bodyflight Storm's rounds three and six at the UK Nationals 2008 can be found in this article. The link to the video of round seven is set on the leaderboard. The sequence of round four is featured by the UK team Bonobo.