posted May 25th, 2020 - One of the most recent NSL Live Talk conversations in the time of the corona virus crisis is once again connecting the most current conditions in the skydiving world with events in the past. It is also once again pure coincidence that this connection is related to a time period of NSL News, which has not been covered yet on SKYLEAGUE.COM either with archived interviews or news stories.

The NSL News recently directed the attention of the audience to unpublished interviews of the best Formation Skydiving competitors in the world in the time period between 1999 and 2003. The recently published interviews from the past were not recorded on video by then. However, NSL Live Talk sessions in the last two months still connected presence and past, despite the 20-year time difference.

This time, it is a 4-way world champion of 1999 who was available for a new NSL Live Talk on ZOOM. Martial Ferre from France is locked down in his small-town residence in Tallard, very near to the professional skydiving center that hosted two FAI Formation Skydiving World Championships in 1995 and 2003. The next bigger city is Gap, which was officially the hosting site for the events.

There are not many 4-way and 8-way competitors in the history of the sport who are connecting more than two decades as actively and successfully as Martial Ferre. He was in the middle of a new movie project when the NSL Live Talk took place a week ago. He completed editing it and made it available quickly enough for featuring it together with the video of the conversation.

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FAI World Meet 1999			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		9,24,A	O,M,2,Q	14,P,11	19,3,15	N,8,12	C,1,E,20	K,23,17	B,16,21	L,22,J,7	G,5,6	Total	Avg
1	Maubeuge	FR	23	23	18	19	18	24	21	21	21	20	208	20.8
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	23	24	19	16	17	26	19	19	20	19	202	20.2
3	DeLand Norgies	NO	21	23	16	17	16	23	20	19	20	16	191	19.1
4	Sebastian XL	UK	21	23	16	17	17	23	18	17	20	18	190	19.0
5	Russia	RU	22	20	13	16	16	17	18	17	18	15	172	17.2
6	Australia	AU	20	21	15	15	14	19	17	17	15	16	169	16.9
7	Daedalus	DE	18	18	13	13	14	18	15	14	16	16	155	15.5
8	Italy	IT	19	16	11	14	9	20	16	13	14	-	132	14.7
9	Japan	JP	15	18	11	12	12	15	15	14	14	-	126	14.0
10	Spain	ES	12	18	12	13	13	15	11	15	16	-	125	13.9
11	Hungary	HU	15	18	13	11	12	15	14	12	11	-	121	13.4
12	Belgium	BE	15	17	10	13	11	14	12	12	15	-	119	13.2
13	Denmark	DK	14	16	10	11	12	17	12	13	13	-	118	13.1
14	J5	ZA	14	15	11	11	12	14	11	13	-	-	101	12.6
15	Switzerland	CH	9	14	11	10	11	13	13	14	-	-	95	11.9
16	Netherlands	NL	12	15	6	11	11	10	10	14	-	-	89	11.1
17	Monkey Circus	AT	13	7	9	11	10	15	9	12	-	-	86	10.8
18	New Zealand	NZ	12	11	6	7	9	11	10	9	-	-	75	9.4
19	Canada	CA	11	12	7	9	7	11	7	5	-	-	69	8.6
20	Israel	IL	10	13	8	4	9	11	6	7	-	-	68	8.5
21	Portugal	PT	10	10	6	5	8	8	8	8	-	-	63	7.9
22	Slovakia	SK	7	9	7	5	8	8	9	9	-	-	62	7.8
23	Thailand	TH	9	5	0	5	6	3	8	4	-	-	40	5.0
24	Zimbabwe	ZW	5	5	4	1	2	5	3	4	-	-	29	3.6
25	Cyprus	CY	5	5	2	2	2	6	3	0	-	-	25	3.1

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Martial Ferre was in the French 4-way lineup that brought the series of world championship titles for the original Arizona Airspeed lineup to an end in 1999. His brother Marin Ferre was in the same team, together with Thierry Boitieux, Davide Moy and Laurent Pechberty on camera.French national coach Jerome David selected only Marin Ferre and Davide Moy for the next French national team in 4-way Open, who placed only 2nd behind the new Airspeed Vertical lineup in 2001.

Martial Ferre was back when Jerome David decided to pursue double-gold in 4-way and 8-way at the FAI World Meet 2003 in Gap, with the same 4-way lineup and four experienced 8-way competitors.

This time, the 4-way team of 2001 won the gold medals over the Golden Knights, and Martial Ferre ended up in 3rd place with the 8-way team.

National coach Jerome David tried the same again in Maubeuge 2008 and missed by one single point in 4-way Open. Then he downsized with only one double-duty for Mathieu Bernier in Menzelinsk 2010, and Martial Ferre was back as a significant part of the 8-way team.

The French delegation won all four Formation Skydiving events, and Martial Ferre added an 8-way gold medal to his own collection.

This was not at all the end of Martial Ferre's competitive Formation Skydiving career. National coach Jerome David retired after the biggest success for France in history, while Martial Ferre launched his Veloce 8-way project.

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FAI World Meet 2010			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		3,21,N	6,20,9	E,G,17,5	K,16,2	12,C,22	B,D,M,1	7,15,J	13,L,P,11	4,18,O	10,14,19	Total	Avg
1	France	FR	25	19	16	21	22	25	18	19	23	15	203	20.3
2	Golden Knights	US	23	17	18	20	22	27	20	17	21	11	196	19.6
3	Barkli	RU	20	19	16	17	22	20	18	19	20	14	185	18.5
4	Norway	NO	8	5	6	7	7	7	8	9	10	5	72	7.2
5	Kazakhstan	KZ	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	4	0.4

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He and his 8-way team mate and brother-in-law Damien Sorlin had connected with his U.S. opponents Kirk Verner and Brian Krause, and the visits of French 8-way teams to Paraclete XP were the result of this new project. Martial Ferre and Damien Sorlin are still working together for Veloce in Gap, Tallard.

Martial Ferre came back to 8-way action when current national coach Mathieu Bernier recruited his new national indoor and outdoor teams after the FAI Outdoor World Meet 2018. He needed leadership for the new and very young 8-way lineup at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019, and Martial Ferre had 8-way indoor and outdoor experiences like no other French Formation Skydiving competitor.

He did not have much time to get the lineup ready for the only event they would attend together in 8-way, and Kirk Verner and Brian Krause were back as his opponents at Weembi Lille in March last year. Paraclete XP8 won the 8-way competition, and France still impressed with only a 7-point difference. Martial Ferre's 8-way team at Weembi Lille also posted an indoor world record with the 44-pointer in Round 6.

Martial Ferre then went back to his Veloce 8-way business, and the 2020 visit at the Paraclete XP Indoor Championship 2020 with four Veloce lineups, including his international QRF signature team, was the last indoor or outdoor competition on American or French soil before the corona virus crisis put a halt to all skydiving or windtunnel activities.

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Martial Ferre added some background information to his latest Veloce video production that he recorded at his home town in Gap, Tallard:

"Garnerin had a background in physics and, following a period of time studying under the balloon pioneer Jacques Charles, became a keen proponent of the use of balloons by the military during the French Revolutionary Wars. Although he was captured by the British and imprisoned, on his release Garnerin resumed his interest in balloons.

He soon began practical experiments with rigid frame parachutes which had been successfully demonstrated by fellow Frenchman Louis-Sébastien Lenormand in 1783. Lenormand had demonstrated his device by jumping from the tower of the observatory in Montpellier, and only ever intended his parachute to help people escape from burning buildings. While being held as a prisoner of war Garnerin adapted Lenormand’s idea to devise a parachute that could help a military balloonist evade capture.

On 22 October 1797 Garnerin attached his parachute beneath a balloon that he launched from Parc Monceau in Paris. The device was closed like an umbrella as it ascended, and Garnerin rode in a basket underneath. When the balloon reached an altitude of approximately 3,000 feet or 1,000 metres he detached the parachute from the balloon. As the balloon, free of its load, accelerated upwards the parachute and its passenger began to fall but within just a few seconds the canopy expanded. Although the parachute did succeed in slowing the decent, the lack of a vent in the material caused violent oscillations that almost threw the inventor from the basket. He landed safely to a hero's welcome, however, and was later appointed the Official Aeronaut of France."