posted Dec 27th, 2014 - A week has gone by since the Sun Path Products NSL News reported plans to change Block 10 (Diamond - Bunyip) on 20 December 2014 and followed up on 21 December 2014. The participation in the poll has tripled ever since, while the results are still very similar compared to the first reactions a day after the first article. There is a significant majority opposed to any changes of Block 10.

Additional feedback came from France, where national coach Jeremie Rollett does not see the need to change Block 10 at all. He thinks that the current version is challenging enough for any team.

Thomas Hughes provided the view of Arizona Airspeed in a live NSL Talk on Skype. He explained the bigger picture of engineering the complete dive pool, the "continuity plan" of teams. The Airspeed conclusion of the discussion is the same as the French one: Block 10 does not need any changes.

Airspeed's Center Outside provided his insights on a cold morning at Skydive Arizona during a very busy Christmas and New Year's Boogie. He explained that teams always have the freedom to create their specific continuity plans based on the team specific situation.

He had his own examples between his first serious team, Sebastian XL, followed by Arizona Blade, DeLand Fire, Fastrax and Arizona Airspeed. He was the newest and youngest XL member when the world class team was still mirror-imaging some of the blocks, instead of giving both pieces slot switchers and memory.

XL applied a continuity plan that tried to spare Thomas Hughes the additional B-slot challenge as much as possible. Thomas Hughes was flying the tail slot for XL.

Thomas Hughes then said that Fastrax discontinued mirror-image engineering when he joined. Many teams began to prefer slot switchers and memory for both pieces when Fastrax and Airspeed turned away from mirror-images. Thomas Hughes also mentioned a few other examples where teams decided to engineer certain blocks in different ways and said that they still have the freedom to do so now.

The US 4-way world champion of 2012 did not have any problems with the recent change of eligibility rules for FAI 1st Category Events. He had competed for the United Kingdom in 2003 and then moved to the USA where he joined world class teams to win 4-way and 8-way medals for the US delegations.

He said that there is a relatively short time period when competitors can be part of the races for medals and positions on the world meet level. The wait time should not be too long if a competitor really plans to move to and compete for a different country. The new Airspeed lineup is now eager to meet the new Hayabusa lineup at the Wind Games in January...