posted Mar 15th, 2018 - It's time for the first major outdoor competition of the 2018 season, and all factors for an exciting competition are in place.

The high-profile event features an exquisite field of world class teams, who are all present in DeLand as announced. Arizona Airspeed is the reigning U.S. 4-way and Shamrock Showdown champion who will compete for the gold medals in Australia later this year. The French national team in 4-way Open, Aerodyne Realfly, will try to keep up with Airspeed at the first outdoor meet of the year.

SDC Rhythm XP, Aerodyne Weembi Girls and Qatar Tigers are eager to interfere with the world's two best teams behind NMP PCH HayaBusa. FL Defiance members Ben Liston and Jim Rees placed 5th with their lineup at the FAI World Cup 2017 in Saarlouis, where they competed with and against three of the five top teams in DeLand.

The Adventure Flyers from Paraguay will represent their country for the first time at the FAI World Meet 2018 in Australia and are ready to leave the 10+ benchmark far behind after the ten rounds in DeLand. SCZ ZEUS will be their main opposition who will join the competition on Saturday.

Shamrock Showdown 2018			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		B,J,17,20	M,10,O,3	Q,22,2	A,D,P,F,16	N,12,14	15,9,C	K,4,G,E	21,1,13	7,6,11	H,5,19	8,L,18	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1	Aerodyne Realfly	FR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1	SDC Rhythm XP	US	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1	Aerodyne Weembi Girls	FR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1	Qatar Tigers	QA	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1	FL Defiance	US	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1	SCZ ZEUS	US	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1	Adventure Flyers	PY	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

The weather has been next to perfect in the days leading into the competition, and all teams were finishing up their final preparations with the last training jumps on Friday.

The opening party at the new office facilities of Performance Designs included the competition draw, and most of the teams began with engineering work and creeping as soon as the ten rounds were manually drawn by the teams.

United Parachute Technologies (UPT), maker of the Vector, sponsored the invitation of the InTime scoring system for the event.

Claire King and Dirk Venter came from South Africa and will also be the judges for the 4-way competition. They are both active 4-way competitors with Jazz Republic. Their fellow FAI judge Jim Rees, Defiance member, will be under their scrutiny this time.

Six rounds are scheduled for Friday, and the first Twin Otter and Cessna Caravan loads will take off at 9:00 AM. NSL-TV will upload the videos and link them to the scores on the leaderboard all day long.