posted Aug 23rd, 2020 - The Airbus 4-way story actually began with Thomas Spielvogel, who trained and competed with the team under this name only for one year (2012). However, he was one of the founding members of the German national 4-way team EADS, which got the name by a sponsorship from the same company, the Airbus Group.

Thomas Spielvogel started with the German national team of 1989, Moebel Kruegel, and continued with Daedalus. He did not miss a world meet until 2006. Paratec-Saar eventually replaced EADS on the top of German 4-way leaderboards and at world meets, while Thomas Spielvogel switched to 8-way competition with EADS.

His last year in the annual battles for the 4-way top spot was the 2012 season. It was the year when Thomas Mack joined the EADS/Airbus lineup. Thomas Mack's own team, Final Four, had climbed to the runner-up position year by year and discontinued after the 2nd place at the German Nationals 2011.

Thomas Mack was far from being done with 4-way training and competition and had a re-start with EADS/Airbus. In fact, he became Thomas Spielvogel's successor in keeping the EADS/Airbus lineup together. The team name finally changed to Airbus in 2014, after another EADS year with three of the returning team members (Olaf Biedermann, Thomas Mack, Goeran Meyer) and Andreas Troegele back on camera. Thomas Mack's former Final Four team mate Christian Schaefer had replaced Thomas Spielvogel.

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German Nationals 2011		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	1,8,21	N,H,F,9	B,5,O,16	A,19,13	7,J,2	3,20,18	L,15,12	22,P,4	Q,C,10,11	14,K,D,E	Total	Avg
1	Paratec-Saar	14	37	21	14	17	15	15	15	16	21	185	18.5
2	Final Four DeLand	14	30	20	15	18	13	13	16	17	21	177	17.7
3	Dynamite	14	31	18	14	19	12	14	14	17	20	173	17.3
4	Mixed Fource Remscheid	12	31	20	15	18	13	13	13	13	20	168	16.8
5	Usual Suspects	12	26	16	14	16	10	12	13	15	17	151	15.1
6	Neva	11	21	13	9	14	10	9	12	9	13	121	12.1
7	Sky Five	10	20	11	11	12	9	8	11	8	12	112	11.2
8	Airfix Fehrbellin	8	19	11	11	9	9	9	11	11	11	109	10.9
9	Wolfpack	9	19	11	10	12	9	8	10	8	11	107	10.7
10	Phos4 Kassel	9	18	11	10	12	6	9	9	10	11	105	10.5
11	Timber Hassfurt	9	16	13	8	12	10	8	7	7	9	99	9.9
12	Tetrachord	7	16	11	9	6	8	8	7	10	10	92	9.2

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The same Airbus lineup dominated German 4-way competition in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Thomas Mack and his Final Four team mate Christian Schaefer finally attended their first world meet together at the FAI Mondial 2016. Both were also members of the Airbus 8-way team and had double-duties at the world meet.

In the meantime, Oceanside AtomiX copied what Thomas Mack and Christian Schaefer had done with Final Four. They climbed up the German rankings and were finally prepared to challenge Airbus for the top spot.

The Airbus lineup changed in 2017, possibly as Airbus realized the new and unexpected AtomiX threat. Two members of the previous German national 4-way team Paratec-Saar (Markus Bastuck, Joern Thiele) joined forces with Thomas Mack and Goeran Meyer, and the new Airbus lineup was still with Andreas Troegele on camera, as well.

Airbus defended the top spot successfully in 2017 and competed for Germany at the FAI Outdoor World Meet 2018, Thomas Mack once again with double-duties in 4-way and 8-way. They had also defended the German 4-way title the same year with coach Solly Williams in the lineup.

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German Nationals 2019		1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	E,G,M,2		B,4,1		9,K,L,O		13,15,14		22,16,3		21,6,D		5,J,12		P,17,7		10,H,C,11		8,F,19		Total	Avg
1	Oceanside AtomiX	26		19		26	-1	15	-1	15		17		19		24		18		16		195	19.5
2	Airbus	22		18	-1	28		15		14	-1	15	-2	18		21		16	-1	19		186	18.6
3	Dark Energy	18	-2	14		20		11		13		16		14		17		13		14		150	15.0
4	Bardarbunga 2.0	20		14		22		13		8	-5	11	-2	14		17		13		16		148	14.8
5	Skynamite	18		14		17		11		11		14		12	-1	17		12	-1	14		140	14.0
6	NeVa FSZ Saar	19		14		15	-2	10		11		13		13		15		11		14		135	13.5
7	HorschD FSZ Saar	18		12		14		10		10		12		10		9	-2	11		11		117	11.7
8	Join Up	13	-1	13		15	-1	11		7	-2	12		10	-1	14		10	-1	11		116	11.6
9	Airgrips	10	-1	9		13		5	-1	7		10		8		9	-1	10		9	-1	90	9.0
10	4Motion	10		9		13		8		7		8		3	-1	9		6	-1	9		82	8.2

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Oceanside AtomiX and Airbus Illertissen at the German Nationals 2019

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Markus Bastuck and Joern Thiele did not continue with Airbus after the world meet in Australia. Coach Solly Williams had already been a consistent team member in training and competition, and he was back in the lineup at the German Nationals 2019. Thomas Mack had to replace Goeran Meyer at the end of the 2018 season, as well. Sarah Mertes and Alexander Prendinger became the new Airbus 4-way members, as the NSL News reported on 10 December 2018. Solly Williams and other player-coaches would fill the open slot.

That was the right time for Oceanside AtomiX to strike. They defeated Airbus and won the German 4-way title for the first time in August 2019. This still did not discourage Thomas Mack and his new Airbus team mates Sarah Mertes and Alexander Prendinger from making new plans. Thomas Mack will miss the next world meet, the FAI Mondial 2020, where his 4-way team mate Alexander Prendinger competes with the Airbus 8-way team. Thomas Mack, Sarah Mertes and Alexander Prendinger decided to make new 4-way plans and find a 4th full team member instead of continuing with player-coaches. They announced their new Airbus member last week:

"It is a great pleasure for us to officially announce today who our new 4th team member is. It took a long time until we found the right person fitting for us. This team meeting, which we had last Sunday, clearly confirmed that now the right people have come together. Welcome to Airbus member Felix Pfeiffer."

Thomas Mack is back in the same situation as he was with Final Four in 2011. This time though, he starts from the runner-up position. The NSL News will soon follow up with an introduction of the new Airbus member.