posted Nov 19th, 2008 - There was recently another big-way event at Skydive Arizona with a lot of overlapping between recreational skydivers and Formation Skydiving competitors. Three members of the former German national 4-way team Daedalus (Dieter Kirsch, Christoph Aarns, Pitt Weber), who have successfully been running skydiving centers in Germany (Hoexter, Eisenach), organized a new record attempt for the largest national freefall formation.

200 German skydivers gathered last week in Eloy and completed the 200-way formation with the 13th jump from 18,000 feet. This record counts officially as the new German record for the largest freefall formation. It is also worldwide the largest formation that skydivers from only one nation have built.

Many of the best German Formation Skydiving competitors volunteered to support the effort, including several members of the current national teams in Formation Skydiving and even Perris Fury member Uli Stüwe.

The three Daedalus organizers from Eisenach dominated the German 4-way competition between 1996 and 1999 before team EADS took the same dominating position between 2000 and 2006. EADS member Göran Meyer supported the 200-way in Eloy, as well. He is still a member of the German national 8-way team EADS that competed at the World Meet 2008.

EADS retired from 4-way competition after the World Meet 2006 in Germany, and a new young German lineup has been on top of the German 4-way competition ever since. Three FSC Eisenach members (Dieter Schwarz, Jörn Thiele, Max Thiele) also helped to build the 200-way last week.

EADS and FSC Eisenach joined forces for the new German EADS 8-way team in 2007 and have battled with the Italian 8-way team and bronze medal winner of 2008, Ex3mo, ever since, as the NSL News reported several times. Henning Stumpp, Vice President of the German federation (DFV e.V.) competed in the same 8-way team this year and has been a 4-way competitor with X-Ray Remscheid for many years. He also joined the 200-way efforts in Eloy, together with another former X-Ray member, Uwe Soppa.

His skydiving club FSC Remscheid had its own delegation of competitors in Eloy for the record attempts. Three members of the German national 4-way team in the female category, the Chicas (Petra Bärenfänger, Susa Serra, Mo Thomas), joined the same Remscheid efforts, together with 4-way competitors Elisabeth Gantzer and Sonny Jung.

Perris Fury member Uli Stüwe was not the only German who lives in the USA and joined the 200-way record jumps. Kai Wolf is a 4-way and 8-way veteran who has trained and competed with German teams for many years and currently lives and works in Perris. He competed with Perris Katalyst as a player coach at the USPA Nationals 2007.

Several other German 4-way competitors of the national top teams made the trip to Arizona, as well, and even the current German national Formation Skydiving coach, Matthias Maushake, traveled to Eloy. He was a member of the German national 8-way lineups of the early 90's and managed the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2006 in Germany.

Even more German executives of the federation helped to build the 200-ways.

National head judge Wolfgang Thiel and DFV Vice President Prof. Dr. Helmut Thiele jumped in Eloy, as well.

Helmut Thiele's two sons Jörn and Max Thiele are current FSC Eisenach 4-way and EADS 8-way members. The Thiele family of two generations joined big-way forces and enjoyed the success together. Helmut Thiele is the biggest fan of his sons, as he showed openly at the World Meet 2006 in Germany. He was also a German national Formation Skydiving champion in the early 70's.

The German FS competitors in Eloy will now go back to their actual business. The German Nationals 2009 is the qualification event for the World Meet in 2010, and it is time to finalize the plans for the 2009 season. The EADS 8-way team will continue with the same lineup as in 2008 but on a lower effort level. The same counts for the FSC Eisenach lineup and the Chicas.

The situation is different for X-Ray Remscheid. The team seriously challenged the reigning national team already this year and is eager to continue doing that.

Team speaker Dr. Ulrich Sehrbrock said that the team plans to increase the training in 2009. X-Ray Remscheid begins with the preparations already early in December with a 3-day tunnel camp at Bodyflight Bedford.

FSC Remscheid's club president Klaus Mathies, a former Formation Skydiving competitor himself, would like to add some 4-way gold medals to the collection of 8-way medals that his teams have already collected over the years. X-Ray may have a good chance next year.