posted May 19th, 2009 - The NSL News story on 18 May 2009 mentioned that an interview with Spaceland Force member Thomas Hughes was in the works. The story was related to the FSL May meet where Sebastian Tempest completed the team's third competition of the 2009 season, and Thomas Hughes is the team's coach.

He was not live on competition site in Sebastian, as he was getting ready for a Spaceland Force tunnel camp at Paraclete XP in Raeford, where he also attended a swooping competiton last weekend. However, he was in reach for a live interview with the NSL News, despite the distance. The interview took place on Skype's internet platform and was recorded in real time.

NSL YouTube TV video of the interview shows the ten rounds of Spaceland Force at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2009 while the audio file of the live interview plays at the same time.

Spaceland Force was formed at the end of last year, and the Shamrock Showdown was the only event so far where the new world class lineup has competed. Thomas Hughes hopes that his team will have completed more than 100 training jumps at the end of the upcoming training camp at Skydive Spaceland.

The former SkyVenture tunnel instructor in Orlando, Tunnel Rage, XL and Airspeed member, has a very busy 2009 agenda. The NSL News went through all of his current activities in the interview.

Thomas Hughes competed with XL at the World Challenge 2009 and celebrated the reunion of the original 2003 lineup that competed for the United Kingdom at the World Meet 2003 in Gap, France. He also competed in the Freeflying competition of this year's indoor event at Bodyflight Bedford at the same time. The NSL News asked him about his own experiences of doing both events. He pointed out that it required great cooperation by his team mates in both events.

His teams in Formation Skydiving competition, Spaceland Force in 4-way and Paraclete XP in 8-way, are keeping him already busy enough. Both lineups have the goal to win this year's USPA Nationals and qualify as the US national teams for the World Meet 2010 in Russia.

The rest of his time is dedicated to the coaching agenda, which includes his ongoing work with Spaceland Blue, the US national 4-way team in the female category. Sebastian Tempest is another one of the three teams that he has committed to work with this year.

He applies the same concept with the Sebastian team that worked so well with Spaceland Blue in 2008. He requires his teams to slow down the pace and focus on understanding the techniques and memorizing the visuals of specific positions during the inter.

The Spaceland Blue lineup, which competed as Fastrax Blue and with Kelley Frederickson/Christy Frikken last year, applied this concept to perfection. The slow pace at the earlier training camps and competitions of the 2008 season made it difficult to imagine that the US team would be able to keep up with the British quickness of the Bodyflight Storm members.

It turned out that Fastrax Blue with Perris Fury member Christy Frikken picked up the pace when the team was ready for it, which happened to be right in time for the World Meet 2008 in Maubeuge, France. The US team outscored the French team Aerokart Deep Blue, won the silver medals one single point behind Bodyflight Storm, and Thomas Hughes' training plan had worked out perfectly.

The Sebastian Tempest members believe in the same system and already feel the benefits. Tempest has slowed down the pace compared to 2008, and the team members of the 2009 lineup look forward to increasing the pace again when the time is right.

The NSL News forgot to ask Thomas Hughes whether Spaceland Force applied the same concept of slow speed in the beginning at the Shamrock Showdown...