posted Mar 28th, 2012 - A group of German bigway experts, organized by former 4way and 8way champion Dieter Kirsch, recently traveled to Skydive Arizona to challenge the Russian world record for the largest formation with only national participants. Russian skydivers accomplished their mission with a completed 201way in August 2011.

The German group spent eight days in Eloy to improve their own best number of 200, which was done in 2008, and to post a bigger number than Russia for the biggest national formation ever. The Germans first built a 210way, then a 229way and finished the bigway project with a 231way.

However, Germany had 233 skydivers in freefall, and two of them did not get into their positions. None of the bigways will count as an official world record since the completed formation has to match the dive design and the planned number of people to build the formation.

BJ Worth, World Team founder and 400way world record organizer who also manages the Kaleidoscope Dives at SkyQuest Florida every November, is currently organizing 222ways of the World Team in DeLand. The official goal of the event is a new Florida State Record.

BJ Worth was also in Eloy to watch the German record attempts and to help his World Team captain Dieter Kirsch with technical equipment. Several participants of the German record attempt are in DeLand, as well. One of them is Stéphane Mattoni, 4way member of Rebootizer Monaco Aerial (MC), who will also compete with his team at the World Challenge 2012. He has a German passport and could officially participate in Eloy.

The NSL News met with BJ Worth, Stéphane Mattoni and Jerry Bird who will help judging the bigways this week. They had more information of what happened in Eloy and what is going on in DeLand.

Stéphane Mattoni said that the German project in Eloy needed one more day. Bad weather kept the Germans from making as many jumps as planned. Most likely, the completion would have happened with better weather luck. He said that Co-organizer Dieter Kirsch was still happy with the results: "We were out of luck as of the record this time, but we made great jumps."

Some of the German bigway fans have a new opportunity this week in DeLand. Others will have the chance to meet BJ Worth again in Germany this summer. The NSL News mentioned earlier that SkyQuest Germany offers the same event format that SkyQuest Florida has applied annually in November for a very successful decade of the popular Kaleidoscope Dives.

The first SkyQuest Germany is scheduled for August 23 - 26. BJ Worth guarantees high quality sequential bigway jumps, and ISB Air Remscheid, the German national 4way team in the female category, will be available for 4way coaching and competition, while the NSL introduces the complete 4way competition format to the German and European SkyQuest participants this summer.