posted Apr 24th, 2017 - The Sun Path Products NSL News had mentioned in earlier updates that Arizona Airspeed was planning to attend the U.S. qualification event for the FAI Indoor World Meet 2017 in Montreal.

iFLY Virginia Beach hosted the 10-round competition last weekend, and Airspeed had no troubles winning and securing the U.S. slot for the world meet in October. SDC Rhythm XP, the only potential opponent for the reigning U.S. 4-way champions from Arizona, had also announced earlier that the team will focus on outdoor competition this year and skip both meets.

Rhythm had attended the World Challenge 2017 instead where they were taking on very strong international competition and finished in 5th place behind NMP PCH HayaBusa and three French teams.

Airspeed will now face the same Belgian indoor and outdoor world champions and Weembi Lille for France at SkyVenture Montreal who Rhythm competed against in Bedford. The FAI indoor meet in Canada is scheduled three weeks after the USPA Nationals 2017 where Airspeed and Rhythm will battle for the USPA tickets to the FAI Outdoor World Meet in Australia next year.

IBA Indoor April 2017			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		E,D,P,21	O,M,C,10	N,Q,3,A	F,17,K,J	L,15,18	H,19,16	14,11,9	7,4,13	5,6,G	2,B,6	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	36	37	37	46	26	27	27	25	29	28	318	31.8
2	R2G	US	29	29	26	32	22	22	19	19	23	23	244	24.4
3	X-Defy	US	20	24	21	23	15	15	16	15	16	18	183	18.3
4	Texas Crush	US	23	20	17	19	13	17	16	14	17	16	172	17.2

The IBA competition at iFLY Virginia Beach had a confusing start when a competition draw was posted that was not in accordance with the FAI dive pool for indoor competition.

The originally posted competition draw included several blocks that are not in the IBA dive pool for 14-foot flying chambers (1,8,12,20,22) while two blocks (1,13) are excluded from the dive pool for the FAI Indoor World Meet 2017. The sequence for Round 2 (E,13,A,8) included Block 13, and Block 1 (1,G,15) came in Round 6.

Not all four AAA Class teams were prepared for the ten sequences that were originally posted, as the official IBA/FAI dive pools are different, and the event management agreed to draw a new 10-round meet.

There was still a discrepancy between the IBA dive pool with five missing AAA Class blocks and the FAI dive pool that excludes only Block 1 and Block 13. The newly drawn ten rounds did not include the five IBA excluded blocks (1,8,12,20,22) and brought back Block 6 in Round 10 after it was also in the sequence for Round 9.

IBA Indoor April 2017		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	7,19,O	E,13,A,8	M,5,4	P,N,D,K,9	F,H,20,B	1,G,15	11,10,2	Q,18,J,L	16,12,17	C,22,3	Total	Avg

The exclusion of the five blocks moved this 10-round competition naturally on the fast side, even though the Super Sequence in Round 4 of the original draw did not materialize. The five missing blocks are some of the slowest in the dive pool.

Arizona Airspeed, now officially the U.S. national indoor team, did not get the opportunity to perform the four blocks (8,12,20,22) which will be in the dive pool at the FAI Indoor World Meet this year.

The IBA competition at iFLY Virginia Beach was still challenging enough for Airspeed and the other 4-way teams. Team captain Niklas Hemlin told the Sun Path Products NSL News that the turnaround schedule from round to round put some pressure on the teams.

The first half of the 10-round meet was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, and the teams performed first two, then three back-to-back rounds without breaks for preparations. It became even more challenging for the second half on Sunday morning when the remaining five rounds were all done back-to-back. Things will be very different at the FAI Indoor World Meet at SkyVenture Montreal...

IBA Indoor April 2017			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AA Class		M,7,E	D,N,F,G	H,O,19	14,J,L	B,P,11	21,18	2,Q,15	K,9,C	13,4	A,6,15	Total	Avg
1	Air Devils	CA	33	28	22	23	22	14	19	27	12	17	217	21.7
2	VB Laminar	US	20	19	15	13	15	8	11	16	9	10	136	13.6