posted May 24th, 2019 - It has been about time for a new NSL Profile, and there could not be a better opportunity than a freshly crowned world champion. In fact, there has been a celebrity in Formation Skydiving competition for a long time who had not been added to the list of outstanding members of the 4-way and 8-way community.

Kirk Verner actually won his 5th FAI gold medal at the FAI Indoor World Meet in April this year. He took his first FAI 4-way gold medal with Arizona Airspeed in 1995 and has been performing on the world's top level ever since. That will make for a 25-year period in Tanay 2020, where he will try to add another 8-way gold medal to his collection, this time with Paraclete XP8.

He has been in the sport for 36 years, and his skydiving career began on the east coast. He moved to the west coast and made Skydive Arizona his home when Larry Hill offered the original Airspeed lineup the best support for their goal to become 4-way world champions. The try-out for the last Airspeed slot was still taking place at Skydive DeLand before the complete original lineup re-located and settled in Eloy.

There are probably not many Formation Skydiving competitors who are looking back at a total of over 30,000 jumps. If there are any, then they will not be able to match the uncountable hours of flying time that Kirk Verner added to the jump number after he moved back to the east coast and joined the Paraclete XP staff.

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FAI World Meet 1995			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	16	26	26	20	18	23	21	18	21	18	207	20.7
2	France	FR	16	25	26	18	17	21	23	17	21	21	205	20.5
3	Touche	DK	15	21	22	18	16	19	18	15	18	17	179	17.9

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Neither Kirk Verner's number of skydives nor his hours of flying time will come to an end any time soon. He is naturally involved at Skydive Paraclete XP's drop zone in Raeford, where XP8 is also training for this year's USPA Nationals and next year's FAI World Meet 2020 in Tanay.

The indoor flying time will continue to grow, as well, with Paraclete's 16-foot flying chamber always available as a training tool, and also as the perfect weather alternative within just a 5-minute driving distance.

There seem to be no limits for Kirk Verner, even though he is hoping "to be on a boat with Jeana sailing around the world" in ten years. Jeana Billings is his team mate in the Paraclete XP8 lineup, and she is still young as a competitor in the sport. She will probably and hopefully still keep him on his toes and in 4-way and 8-way competition for a while.

Kirk Verner's NSL Profile brings back long-forgotten names in the Formation Skydiving competition world. He remembers late Tom Piras as his mentor, who was "larger than life". He also likes to remember his funniest experience with his original team mate Jack Jefferies, who will be up soon for another NSL Profile...

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FAI Indoor World Meet 2019			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		L,17,4	A,F,3,13	15,18,6	D,8,O,N	P,E,11,9	M,Q,J,16	C,K,19,22	10,1,7	5,G,B,2	H,21,12	Total	Avg
1	Paraclete XP8	US	38	34	33	27	29	43	29	27	28	28	316	31.6
2	France	FR	37	33	29	27	27	44	26	30	27	29	309	30.9
3	Tanay	RU	31	32	29	27	29	42	27	28	25	27	297	29.7
4	Qatar Falcons	QA	32	31	29	27	30	40	24	25	25	24	287	28.7
5	MicroClim8	UK	25	19	22	19	20	31	19	20	19	18	212	21.2
6	Why Not?	PL	23	21	21	21	21	26	18	19	19	18	207	20.7

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