posted Dec 24th, 2018 - NMP PCH HayaBusa won the Belgian Indoor Nationals 2018, and the most exciting part of the competition was the battle for the 2nd place between Weembi Legion and ISR FireFlash. Nevertheless, the most interesting topic might be the team in 4th place, called Jochen Schweizer Arena Airfource.

It was the first competition for the team from Germany, even though the members have seen 4-way competition before. The best known name in the 4-way and 8-way Formation Skydiving world is probably Christian Schafer, who was the youngest member of the German national 4-way and 8-way team Airbus until 2016.

He was in the Airbus/EADS 4-way lineup that placed 2nd at the German Nationals 2013 and then won a year later (Olaf Biedermann, Thomas Mack, Goeran Meyer, Christian Schaefer, Andreas Troegele on camera) to compete for Germany at the FAI World Meet 2016 at Skydive Chicago. The complete 4-way lineup trained and competed in 8-way, as well.

He did not continue in 4-way or 8-way after the world meet and focused more on his Canopy Piloting career before coming back to 4-way training and competition with a completely new team.

Belgian Indoor Nationals 2018			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		16,G,K,Q	D,20,H,3	2,9,P	5,19,7	22,10,8	B,21,6	L,18,A,N	J,14,C,17	12,F,15	M,O,E,11	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	40	35	39	32	21	31	35	31	30	43	337	33.7
2	Weembi Legion	FR	36	25	31	27	19	24	30	29	24	35	280	28.0
3	ISR FireFlash	BE	34	25	31	24	18	26	30	26	22	36	272	27.2
4	Airfource	DE	32	17	28	24	18	26	25	27	21	38	256	25.6
5	Team X	SE	28	23	26	20	16	24	24	22	21	29	233	23.3
6	JETMAX	BE	23	21	22	21	15	22	23	21	20	28	216	21.6
7	Out of the Blue Project 20+	NL	23	19	23	20	15	21	22	21	18	27	209	20.9
8	Voss Vind Girls	NO	21	20	21	19	15	19	20	19	17	29	200	20.0
9	Alakran	ES	19	19	22	19	15	16	21	19	17	30	197	19.7
10	Amnesya Academy	IT	17	15	19	19	14	16	20	19	20	28	187	18.7
11	Falco	BE	18	16	19	16	12	18	12	15	15	22	163	16.3
12	Crash Test Dummies	BE	21	11	16	13	10	17	15	14	15	24	156	15.6
13	Gravity Abuse	BE	13	13	16	14	10	14	15	14	14	17	140	14.0

German Airfource at the Belgian Indoor Nationals 2018

His three new Airfource team mates (Christian Kautzmann, Elischa Weber, Stefan Wiesner) are not new to 4-way competition. However, two of them (Christian Kautzmann, Stefan Wiesner) have never appeared on an NSL leaderboard before the Belgian Indoor Nationals. Only Elischa Weber was on a high-profile pickup 8-way lineup (FlyIn8) who competed at the Belgian Indoor Nationals 2017.

However, the Airfource 3-way have known each other for a longer time and have trained and competed together in 4-way since 2014. They are members of the German military forces where they train and compete in several different disciplines. Elischa Weber is also a military world champion in the traditional style event.

The German CISM 4-way team won bronze medals behind NMP PCH HayaBusa and Qatar Tigers at the CISM 2016 and again last year. In fact, Germany has sent young and strong military 4-way teams to the annual CISM championships for a long time. Unfortunately, the 4-way soldiers did not participate in the civilian events and national championships until the Belgian Indoor Nationals last week.

It was not the complete German CISM team competing at Airspace in Belgium, as Chris Schafer is not in the military services. However, Christian Kautzmann, Elischa Weber and Stefan Wiesner have now made the move to civilian FAI/IPC 4-way training and competition, at least for indoor competition.

CISM 2016		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Men	M,3,F,E	M,J,M,2	M,8,N,B	M,1,Q,D	M,H,G,4	M,P,A,6	M,7,O,C	M,L,K,5	Total	Avg
1	NMP PCH HayaBusa	38	38(-1)	37	38	32(-4)	34	32	32(-2)	281	35.1
2	Qatar Tigers	32	34(-1)	32	31	30	33	24	26(-1)	242	30.3
3	Germany	27	34	26	31	26	30	25	25	224	28.0
4	Czech Republic	27	30	29	26	29	28	25	26	220	27.5
5	Spain	27	20	26	27	24	28	22	20	194	24.3
6	Russia	20	22	22	24	22	25	18	19	172	21.5

Airfource have no plans yet for outdoor competition, even though they are experienced 4-way outdoor competitors, as well. They only have plans for 20 hours of indoor training at the Jochen Schweizer Arena in Munich, where they find support for their 4-way plans.

They also have a goal for the year, which could be bad news for the best German 4-way teams. Airfource plan to compete and win at the German Indoor Nationals 2019 in March and then represent Germany at the FAI Indoor World Meet at Weembi Lille in April.

Airbus are the reigning German 4-way indoor champions after winning with a 24.0 average in April this year. AtomiX finished 2nd at the same event with a 22.9 average. Airfource posted a 25.6 average at the team's first 4-way competition in Belgium last week. The four young and still very experienced 4-way competitors have risen overnight to the top favorite position for the German Indoor Nationals 2019.

The 25.6 average at Airspace is not only a great starting point for the new team in Germany. It is even a promising result on the international 4-way level. Christian Kautzmann, Elischa Weber and Stefan Wiesner already know how to win CISM medals at international events, and Christian Schafer is the most accomplished and experienced FAI/IPC competitor in the lineup. Germany may have a team that could eventually get to international indoor medal level at some time in the near future.

The established German 4-way outdoor teams could also get in big trouble if Airfource eventually decide to jump from planes at civilian 4-way meets, as well...