posted Nov 21st, 2008 - The Kaleidoscope Divers continued with four more jumps today, while the 4-way teams showed up at the competition site to register and make a few training jumps before the competition draw at noon.

SkyQuest organizers BJ Worth and Kurt Gaebel had a quick trip to Orlando early in the morning on Friday's agenda.

The FOX 35 News channel had invited Mr. James Bond and the NSL founder to the morning show. BJ Worth had to explain what he has been doing for the movies and Kurt Gaebel what was going on this weekend in DeLand. The TV channel ran a nice clip of SkyQuest action during the live interview.

The NSL News found another prominent Formation Skydiving competitor in the group of Kaleidoscope Divers. Damien Sorlin was a member of the French 8-way team that won the gold medals at the World Meet 2006 in Germany. He then left the team, and Erwan Pouliquen took his slot. Damien Sorlin still continued as the official alternate for the team that won the gold medals once again this year in Maubeuge.

One of the Kaleidoscope Divers went through an interesting odyssey in the first two days of the event, as BJ Worth reported. Ben Massey is a high-profile surgeon when he does not jump with BJ. He arrived in DeLand on Thursday, ready to jump the Kaleidoscope Dives 2008. However, he had to travel back to Denver the same day to take over an emergency case that could not be operated by another surgeon. He was back in DeLand in time to make the Friday jumps. Talking about passion and commitment...

Here is what went to the media today:

JAMES BOND MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

For Immediate Release

November 21, 2008

The Kaleidoscope Divers at SkyQuest 2008 took on the challenging freefall design of the the barrel of a Walther PPK/S today, which is used as the pre-title graphic on all James Bond films. It took the 102 expert skydivers four attempts to make the freefall formation look like the motive.

BJ Worth, who has been the stuntman for most of the skydiving scenes in James Bond movies and supervises the Kaleidoscope Dives for SkyQuest 2008, had visited the TV studios of FOX News channel 35 for the morning show. There he explained his plans to the general audience before the first jump today. Then he rushed back to board one of the five jump planes, which were waiting for him with the other 101 Kaleidoscopre Divers at Skydive DeLand.

He was pleased with the pictures that he saw on the freefall videos and with the photos that expert photographer Gustavo Cabana from Argentine once again delivered after landing from the jump. Three freefall videographers record every jump from different angles and show their footage to the Kaleidoscope Divers who use it for reviews and evaluation of the performance. The same footage can also be viewed by spectators on site.

The success of Thursday's four skydives in DeLand and the talent of this year's group encouraged Worth enough to set a new goal for the remainder of the weekend. He wants to complete the most difficult freefall formation with his 102 jumpers, a round Star. This is a formation where all 102 skydivers are linked to each other in a large circle. The distance of people across of each other is probably approx. 100 yards. Take-off time for the first attempt is scheduled for 8:40 am. The group will make four to five jumps following the same dive design.

Friday afternoon was also the starting time for the National Skydiving League's 2008 championship. 4-way teams from different states jump from 10,500 feet and perform as many maneuvers as possible within a working time of 35 seconds after exiting from the jump plane. Two of ten scheduled rounds were completed on Friday.

DeLand's team Cold Turkey competes for Florida in the Rookie Class, Zero Tolerance from Miami is the A Class team. FSC Wind Damaged from Lake Wales tries to bring the AA Class trophy to Florida, and Sebastian Tempest represents Florida in the AAA Class competition. Teams from Carolina, Colorado, New York and California are challenging the Florida teams.

Kaleidoscope Dives and 4-way competition will run parallel on Saturday and Sunday. The general public is welcome to visit. There is no admission fee for spectators, free parking space is available at Skydive DeLand.